Why dont we use 2.5" hdds in our desktops

[Thebman712]

so ive been woundering, why are 2.5" drives less common then 3.5" hdds in desktops, it seems like we could use more drives if we had smaller ones

[connorpiper]

so ive been woundering, why are 2.5" drives less common then 3.5" hdds in desktops, it seems like we could use more drives if we had smaller ones

 

I'm pretty sure 2.5" 1TB drives are limited to 5400RPM. Correct me if i'm wrong. But I never see a 1TB 7200RPM drive in a standard laptop. 

[ilikemacandpc]

3.5 in drives can usually have higher capacity and higher performance at lower prices. 

[WunderWuffle]

so ive been woundering, why are 2.5" drives less common then 3.5" hdds in desktops, it seems like we could use more drives if we had smaller ones

We could, but bigger HDDs have more capacity and if you're going to be using 2.5" HDDs exclusively, you're going to be using more SATA ports.

[Thebman712]

I'm pretty sure 2.5" 1TB drives are limited to 5400RPM. Correct me if i'm wrong. But I never see a 1TB 7200RPM drive in a standard laptop. 

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/hitachi-internal-hard-drive-0j22423

not much more, like 20$ more than a 3.5"

[Prodigydeadeye]

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/hitachi-internal-hard-drive-0j22423

not much more, like 20$ more than a 3.5"

I would rather save the $20 and get a 3.5"... I think most people would too. Also, that drive only has a 32MB cache...

[Rheinwasser]

better reliabilty. dont quote me on that tho.

[SpyRosL]

IMHO, everything is getting smaller and smaller but the HDDs.

I personally prefer 2.5'' HDDs and i will never buy 3.5'' again. I have an SSD,no need for more speed or cache.

[Tr3vor]

Because bigger is better.

 

[connorpiper]

Because bigger is better.

 

Then 1989 knew what it was doing. You could get this in 1.89GB or 3.87GB.

[Askew]

Then 1989 knew what it was doing. You could get this in 1.89GB or 3.87GB.

IBM HDD.JPG

 

Fuck is that thing designed to be actually bolted down like a vehicle engine?

[connorpiper]

Fuck is that thing designed to be actually bolted down like a vehicle engine?

Yup! And it had rubber active engine mounts. Like a Porsche. These were used in banks for data storage, they were about $250K back then. 

[Flyguygamer]

I'm pretty sure 2.5" 1TB drives are limited to 5400RPM. Correct me if i'm wrong. But I never see a 1TB 7200RPM drive in a standard laptop. 

They have them Wd black 2.5

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Black-Notebook-WD7500BPKX/dp/B00DSUTX3O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402704094&sr=8-1&keywords=wd+black+laptop

[Askew]

Yup! And it had rubber active engine mounts. Like a Porsche. These were used in banks for data storage, they were about $250K back then. 

 

I am going to watch this video aww yiss nerd porn of olden times.

[Hidden Orange]

Well, I'm going to be using a 640GB 2.5" drive for my PC in the future. It was my HDD upgrade for the PS3 until I decided to switch to PCs. Thing is, it was pretty much the same price back then: A 2.5" and 3.5" 500GB would be around that 60 USD range; this was when 1TB were a new thing, by the way.

[Tr3vor]

 

ST-277 ftw

[connorpiper]

 

ST-277 ftw

Sounds like you just started up the 80's

[IdeaStormer]

Who's we? I've been saying to move to 2.5" for ages. Well the storage industry is pushing for it or predicting it, still though 3.5" drives are now at 6TB's so yea, going to need 6 2.5" to get to that at present. 2.5" 1TB drives do run at 7200RPM and you can also buy a 2.5" SAS 1.2TB Drive at 15K RPM but boy is it expensive!

 

Anyway, use a 2.5" HDD if you wants its a freaking drive so there is no constraint from not using it except if you want lots-o-TeraBytes then go 3.5" for now.

[GloriousPain]

>$20 MOAR
>upto 10k LESS RPM
>1TB limit in most cases compared to 6TB limit
>MOAR sata ports WASTED
>Lesser build quality
>Much higher failure rate
>Usually smaller cache
>Non standard

>Less Power effiecient

>Usually only SATA2
>More cables needed

I gave a list of cons... Time for pros
<Space efficiency (not particularly when you add in extra SATA ports and cables)

[yummyxyz]

it seems like 2.5 drives should have higher rpm because they're smaller.....why don't they?

[alpenwasser]

>upto 10k LESS RPM

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say with this one, but

there do exist 7.2k rpm 2.5" drives (WD Black, for example), as

well as 10k rpm 2.5" drives (WD Velociraptor and the Xe line, and

I'm sure Seagate has something like that in their lineup as well).

Also, every 15k drive I've come across has 2.5" platters, even if

the drive itself is 3.5", because apparently the platters wouldn't

tolerate the stress if they were 3.5" (well, they'd need to make

the platters a lot stronger, which would make the drive more

expensive and/or reduce capacity).

 

>MOAR sata ports WASTED

Wasted is relative. If you build a storage array with 1 TB 2.5"

drives instead of 6 TB 3.5" drives (both arrays having the same

total capacity), you can get much better IOPS performanc,

especially if you go with 15k rpm drives. If you can make use of

those IOPS, those ports are not wasted at all.

But yes, most normal consumer scenarios do not fall into this

category.

 

>Lesser build quality

I'm not really up to date on laptop drives, for which this could,

possibly, maybe, be true, but for the higher-end 2.5" drives,

I sincerely doubt this is true. My Velociraptor is built just as

fine as any 3.5" drive I've handled. And I'm sure the enterprise

drives are probably not of inferior quality.

 

>Much higher failure rate

You wouldn't happen to have a (reliable) source for this? I'm always

interested in HDD failure rates, would be nice to have something

about this.

 

>Non standard

You mean the height? That wouldn't really be much of an issue in desktop

cases though, you could just spec your cases for the maximum height

(which is 15 mm or so IIRC?).

 

>Less Power effiecient

That depends on what you need. As an example, take WD's Red drive,

which comes in both 3.5" and 2.5". The 2.5" drive has

Read/Write 1.4 Watts

Idle 0.60 Watts

Standby 0.20 Watts

Sleep 0.20 Watts

Whereas the 3.5" drive has:

Read/Write 3.70 Watts

Idle 3.20 Watts

Standby 0.60 Watts

Sleep 0.60 Watts

So between these two, the 2.5" version is a lot less power hungry.

However, looking at the 4 TB version in 3.5", you would use a bit less

energy per storage capacity (comparing this one to four single 1 TB

2.5" drives):

Read/Write 4.50 Watts

Idle 3.30 Watts

Standby 0.40 Watts

Sleep 0.40 Watts

source

But, if you were to use four single 2.5" 1 TB drives, you could do

your power management so that you shut down drives which aren't used

at the moment, which might get the 2.5" array ahead again, depending

on your usage patterns.

Also, 2.5" solutions will likely always have the edge when it comes to

Watt/IOPS.

If all you need as a normal desktop user is a few hundred gigabytes

of storage, your PC will use less power with a 2.5" drive than with a

3.5" one.

2.5" drives, at least in the consumer market, are probably still mostly

used in laptops, so I'm not sure why they shouldn't be more power efficient

than a 3.5" drive, would seem a bit senseless to me.

Side note: You could also make this comparison with the WD Black line,

the 2.5" drive is ahead in that as well.

 

>Usually only SATA2

The 2.5" WD drives I checked have SATA3. Also, SATA2 is still easily

sufficient, so that doesn't really matter anyway. Even the fastest

HDDs don't manage to saturate a SATA2 interface, hell, most HDDs

barely reach full SATA1 speeds in typical usage scenarios.

Side note: The reason I'm primarily using WD as an example here

is because I'm more familiar with their lineup than with Seagate's,

Toshiba's or HGST's.

[GloriousPain]

 

• with higher rpm HDD's causes a higher chance of failure if say you tilt it the pladder could hit the metal casings...
• the 6TBvs6x1TB is a debate but at the point it kind of wastes tons of space and I have a Matx (not itx) Mobo and I only have 6 sata ports plus if your worried about speed I think a 250GB SSD for speed works usually with a big HDD for mass storage is the best compromise...
• Lesser build quality is usually because of size limitations and they use weaker magnets and such...
• The failure rate I don't actually have source for but I also think you misunderstood I was not referring to DeadOnArrival(DOA) I was referring to, it was more lesser build quality and the *usually* mobile form factor just beats up the drives...
• Non Standard was referring to more or less the lower availbility of 2.5" HDDs
• You sortof proved me right actually I said power efficient not power using when you calculate in the usually higher speed(5400rpm vs 7200-15k), and data content(example 6TB vs 1TB) so in say extreme standards you could get 3xspeed, and 6x capacity and the 2.5" vs the 4TB you listed in your example was 3x more power not 18x... 
• Sata 2 I forgot why I even put that since most HDD's rarely fill 3Gb/s even some SSDs don't

And again I'ma bring up the extra cost for something that is highly debatable that being said I'm probably very biased in a counter argument and if standards actually start to change they'll probably fix the issues along the way... like when we used to have 5.25" HDDs and personally I would argue for 3.5" SSDs 

[Tr3vor]

>$20 MOAR

>upto 10k LESS RPM

>1TB limit in most cases compared to 6TB limit

>MOAR sata ports WASTED

>Lesser build quality

>Much higher failure rate

>Usually smaller cache

>Non standard

>Less Power effiecient

>Usually only SATA2

>More cables needed

I gave a list of cons... Time for pros

<Space efficiency (not particularly when you add in extra SATA ports and cables)

 

More SATA ports and cables wasted? What are you talking about? Each drive requires one power and one data cable, like every other SATA drive ever. They are all for the most part standard, otherwise how would changing your laptop HDD even work? Who cares if they are only usually SATA2, like 3.5" drive can even saturate that bus anyway.

 

Higher failure rate? I'd probably blame that on most 2.5" drives being used in laptops that are moved around while running, not with the drive's quality itself.

[IdeaStormer]

 

• with higher rpm HDD's causes a higher chance of failure if say you tilt it the pladder could hit the metal casings...
• the 6TBvs6x1TB is a debate but at the point it kind of wastes tons of space and I have a Matx (not itx) Mobo and I only have 6 sata ports plus if your worried about speed I think a 250GB SSD for speed works usually with a big HDD for mass storage is the best compromise...
• Lesser build quality is usually because of size limitations and they use weaker magnets and such...
• The failure rate I don't actually have source for but I also think you misunderstood I was not referring to DeadOnArrival(DOA) I was referring to, it was more lesser build quality and the *usually* mobile form factor just beats up the drives...
• Non Standard was referring to more or less the lower availbility of 2.5" HDDs
• You sortof proved me right actually I said power efficient not power using when you calculate in the usually higher speed(5400rpm vs 7200-15k), and data content(example 6TB vs 1TB) so in say extreme standards you could get 3xspeed, and 6x capacity and the 2.5" vs the 4TB you listed in your example was 3x more power not 18x... 
• Sata 2 I forgot why I even put that since most HDD's rarely fill 3Gb/s even some SSDs don't

And again I'ma bring up the extra cost for something that is highly debatable that being said I'm probably very biased in a counter argument and if standards actually start to change they'll probably fix the issues along the way... like when we used to have 5.25" HDDs and personally I would argue for 3.5" SSDs 

 

 

Please, if you have not actually used said higher RPM drives and had a failure you're just trolling. I have 15K RPM drives running since 2006, non stop 24/7/365 and they are still spinning just fine (maybe older?) Yes, I've had failures but maybe one or two drives out of ~150, I say that is pretty freaking good stats compared to any 3.5" 7200 rpm drive hand down.

Then 6x1TB gives you a higher number of spindles and higher I/O and anyone doing 6x1TB is in RAID mode or just (again) trolling. That being said you'd be using a dedicated RAID card not mobo controller unless it provided that many SATA ports and a few extra. Anyone using 6x1TB is not going to be lugging them around in a back pack, get real!

 

2.5" drives are extremely viable and can handle the same workload/performance at a lesser power rating than a 3.5" drive.

[RatedBlam]

it seems like 2.5 drives should have higher rpm because they're smaller.....why don't they?

They do, the velocitaptors and the sort have 2.5" platters. I think they're not common because the 2.5" drives are usually laptop drives.

Maybe they'd be more hazardous and use more energy.