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Swap 3.5 HDD for 2.5 HDD as main data drive

Don Strack
By Don Strack
in Storage Devices
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In theory it could work but I have some concerns:

  • Just being 2.5" inherently makes it slower, assuming everything else is equal.  In this case it's not quite equal but I'd imagine it's still close enough for this to be a thing
  • Removing the USB portion sounds like a dangerous and unnecessary procedure (but of course this does depend how it's built).  I would just plug it in normally, so long as it's USB 3 (and I should certainly hope it is), that shouldn't cause any noticeable bottleneck
  • WD Black is known for performance and I've not heard of anyone complaining of a head parking feature before (outside of the green lineup at least).  Are you sure there's nothing you can do to turn it off?  Or, are you sure it's even the drive?  Windows has a feature that spins down unused disks after a few idle minuted by default, I would try turning that off if it hasn't been done already and see if that helps.
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I have a 3.5-inch 4TB WD Black (WD4004FZWX) and the Intellipark feature is driving me nuts. It is my main data drive, and the delay in accessing my data is noticeable, and very annoying.

 

I have a 2.5-inch Seagate 5TB Baracuda (ST5000LM000) that was removed from a Backup Plus external USB drive, and am thinking of removing the USB interface card and copying all the data and making it my main data drive.

 

Good idea?

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  • Solution

In theory it could work but I have some concerns:

  • Just being 2.5" inherently makes it slower, assuming everything else is equal.  In this case it's not quite equal but I'd imagine it's still close enough for this to be a thing
  • Removing the USB portion sounds like a dangerous and unnecessary procedure (but of course this does depend how it's built).  I would just plug it in normally, so long as it's USB 3 (and I should certainly hope it is), that shouldn't cause any noticeable bottleneck
  • WD Black is known for performance and I've not heard of anyone complaining of a head parking feature before (outside of the green lineup at least).  Are you sure there's nothing you can do to turn it off?  Or, are you sure it's even the drive?  Windows has a feature that spins down unused disks after a few idle minuted by default, I would try turning that off if it hasn't been done already and see if that helps.

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If you really want speed, you might consider getting a 4TB Samsung 860 EVO (not the QVO) SSD.

Jeannie

 

As long as anyone is oppressed, no one will be safe and free.

One has to be proactive, not reactive, to ensure the safety of one's data so backup your data! And RAID is NOT a backup!

 

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On 11/19/2019 at 2:46 PM, Ryan_Vickers said:

Or, are you sure it's even the drive?  Windows has a feature that spins down unused disks after a few idle minuted by default, I would try turning that off if it hasn't been done already and see if that helps.

I followed the above advice and after some internet searches, found further advice to go into the Control Panel -> Power Options -> Advanced a setting -> Hard Disk -> Turn off hard disk after...

 

I changed the setting from 20 minutes, to 0 minutes, meaning 'Never'. It seems to have done the trick. Thanks.

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