2.5" drive vs 3.5"

[ganons]

I am thinking of getting a 1TB 2.5" drive for data storage, few isos and home videos. I want to go with HGST, both 7200rpm and they're similarly priced but other than the size does one have clear advantage over the other?

And is HGST better than Western Digital Blue?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

A 1TB 3.5" WD Blue vs. a 1TB 2.5" HGST?

Both brands are decent / reliable, so although stuff can happen and you should always have backups, I wouldn't be discouraged from either drive for reliability reasons.

The 3.5" drive may be a smidge faster, but will be louder and use more power / generate more heat. I'd go with the 2.5"

 

[Rifter]

2.5 should be faster due to higher platter density, id go with it.

 

[cbn]

2.5 should be faster due to higher platter density, id go with it.

Those Hitachi 2.5" 1TB 7200 rpm drives actually have 500GB platters (two of them):

http://rml527.blogspot.com/2010/09/hdd-platter-database-hitachi-25.html

So platter density is roughly the same as 3.5" 1 TB (assuming the drive is made up of 1 platter....which new drives are).

 

[Elixer]

The 2.5" also park the heads much more frequently, and unless you turn that off, load/unload cycle will skyrocket, and cause much greater wear on them.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, all things roughly equal, I would go for the 3.5" HDD, if this is a stationary internal installation. They just seem more durable to me.

Have you considered getting a NAS, and two drives, and running a RAID-1 mirror?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The 2.5" also park the heads much more frequently, and unless you turn that off, load/unload cycle will skyrocket, and cause much greater wear on them.

And how do you do that?

I've started to experiment with 2.5" drives in desktops. We have a WD Blue 500GB in one system -- still going strong. The others are in my new Skylake. [Six months old is "new."] I had been reticent about this, but a colleague in Virginia seems inclined to think that "it's the way to go."

 

[Elixer]

You need software that controls APM.
CrystalDiskInfo (and other programs) have that option, and I think I recall seeing it made available on WD & Seagate's & HGST sites, but, a quick look on HGST, it seems it isn't there anymore, but, you can still find the old DOS tool manual here, and on page 12 of the manual, it still shows how you can set it. https://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/downloads/FTool_User_Guide_215.pdf

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You need software that controls APM.
CrystalDiskInfo (and other programs) have that option, and I think I recall seeing it made available on WD & Seagate's & HGST sites, but, a quick look on HGST, it seems it isn't there anymore, but, you can still find the old DOS tool manual here, and on page 12 of the manual, it still shows how you can set it. https://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/downloads/FTool_User_Guide_215.pdf

Now it occurs to me we're talking about HGST 2.5 drives. I have two of those, one still configured in my Skylake.

I was cleaning up the reds and yellows in my Event Logs, and the system would throw warnings at boot-time -- one each for the two HGSTs connected. So I'm beginning to wonder if this issue under discussion intersects with those warnings.

 

[PliotronX]

2.5 inchers are usually geared for low power consumption. This generally means higher seek times. I always prefer 3.5" if size and having a power brick is not a concern. They are also more likely to log more hours without reallocated sectors.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You need software that controls APM.
CrystalDiskInfo (and other programs) have that option, and I think I recall seeing it made available on WD & Seagate's & HGST sites, but, a quick look on HGST, it seems it isn't there anymore, but, you can still find the old DOS tool manual here, and on page 12 of the manual, it still shows how you can set it. https://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/downloads/FTool_User_Guide_215.pdf

I did some homework, and poked around the sites of all my HDDs in use.

I stumbled onto this freeware:

HDPARM TOOL FOR WINDOWS

A little hesitant to install it -- my usual approach to freeware I stumble across in these searches -- I finally did.

Changing the APM behavior of HDDs or SDDs apparently only lasts for a given Windows session.

The program installs a Startup that pops up its own "command window" after boot to the desktop. You have to press the Enter key twice. The default option configures the drives for maximum performance, reduced head-parking, and other related aspects. It has command-line syntax that will perform a desired operation on any single disk.

Given what I've seen from the Seagate and HGST sites, this might be as good as it gets if I can examine it a bit more. The options in CrystalDiskInfo don't indicate whether your choices "took," and seem to revert back to the default reported settings.

 

[Elixer]

Yeah, the settings don't stick with those programs, but they did stick from the manufactures utility...I suppose they removed it since they didn't want people playing with other settings, or that they didn't update it for whatever other reason.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Yeah, the settings don't stick with those programs, but they did stick from the manufactures utility...I suppose they removed it since they didn't want people playing with other settings, or that they didn't update it for whatever other reason.

Makes sense on that.

Right now I have three 2.5" units connected to the Skylake. Of these, the third is connected through an SATA x1 card, and it's just a repository for the morning Macrium backups of the NVMe and the other two HDDs. I noticed the other day that Macrium "failed" because it wasn't online. The system had gone to sleep and into hibernate the night before. A Restart brought it back to life.

The drive checks out fine with a few tests. I'm keeping an eye on it. Rightly or wrongly, I could suspect that the episode might dovetail with this matter of the power-setting. I can't say.

 

[mdram]

i was just thinking about this exact thing
was looking at putting a 2.5" 2T firecuda in the other side of my ssd adapter for storage

from the replies it looks like i should stick to a 3.5"?

 

[corkyg]

My experience is that due to power source, the 3.5 HDD is more reliable day in, day out.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

My experience is that due to power source, the 3.5 HDD is more reliable day in, day out.

Cork! Is that an experience, or a common-sense assumption? I held to the same view until I put a WD Blue 500 2.5" in my brother's system, with a couple years to evaluate. As a secondary drive, it's been fine. there's never been a problem. That thing has been running in his desktop since late 2014 -- sleep, wake, hibernate.

Now my friend the retired electronics tech seems to think "that's the way to go." He's got desktops and laptops, although the lappies have become a sort of fetish. He buys a lot of surplus "old s***" and makes do with it.

Frankly, I don't know, but I spent a few bucks just to find out.

 

[corkyg]

Cork! Is that an experience, or a common-sense assumption? .

A bit of both. Generally, 2.5 drives get power from USB - and that can be flakey at times. With 3.5's, I connect their brick to a power control box that lets me turn them on and off as needed. I call that reliable control.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

A bit of both. Generally, 2.5 drives get power from USB - and that can be flakey at times. With 3.5's, I connect their brick to a power control box that lets me turn them on and off as needed. I call that reliable control.

I quickly scanned back to the OP's OP to see if he was referencing an external drive. It could sound like it, but I can't be sure.

However, if powering a 2.5" via SATA from a gold-rated PSU in the upper tier, you would think it would be gentler and kinder to the 2.5". Of course I see where these devices could get power solely from USB, but it's not a situation I've bothered to explore.

I'm still using 8-year-old aluminum boxes from Thermaltake for external USB and eSATA. With USB, I was left with USB2 performance. I took a Dremel to the rear end of a Thermaltake enclosure and made an eSATA port for it. But they still use the little PSU originally provided by the ThermalTakes.

My 2.5"s -- either SSD or HDD -- are all internal drives, unless one distinguishes them for being in hot-swap front-panel bays:

ICYDOCK ToughArmor ODD+2xHDD

 

[mdram]

so a 3.5" internal and a 2.5" internal should see the same power reliability? and there shouldn't be any issues?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

so a 3.5" internal and a 2.5" internal should see the same power reliability? and there shouldn't be any issues?

No issues. They use the same connector and everything.

IIRC, the 2.5" drives only use the 5v wire, though. But that's just trivia, not important.

 

[Elixer]

so a 3.5" internal and a 2.5" internal should see the same power reliability? and there shouldn't be any issues?

Any issues with power?
Not really.
Reliability of the device itself is a big unknown. By that I mean, they will all fail, so, mitigate that with using multiple devices, and use backup software that actually does verification.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Any issues with power?
Not really.
Reliability of the device itself is a big unknown. By that I mean, they will all fail, so, mitigate that with using multiple devices, and use backup software that actually does verification.

I wouldn't contend that. But one could assume that 2.5" drives are made to last as long as a laptop, or intended to, even if they don't. And if power is cleaner coming from my Seasonic "Titanium" PSU, it would offer less risk or chances of failure than more.

This just seems to be an only partially-charted territory regarding these drives, while these drives have been around over a considerable amount of time through many generations of laptops. I think they are used in desktop "AIO" computers in banks. I'm sure that Bank of America doesn't count on 2.5" drive reliability even if their AIOs use them, but I've seen those machines with the small HDDs in many business applications.

I might still have some doubts, but I just returned from blowing the kruft out of my brother's system upstairs. It is equipped with a 3-year-old 500 GB WD Blue 2.5", and it's chugging along just fine.

Bro doesn't know he's a guinea pig, but his system is backed up nightly to the server -- so I'll never need to tell him regardless of whatever happens. Or -- I'll ask him to file a FISA request. And I deny that his phone is tapped.