2.5" vs. 3.5"

trxman · Post by **trxman** » Sat Jun 30, 2007 5:55 pm

I've been planing to build (almost) silent PC.

I've bought recommended Corsair HX520W.
I'll go for some passively cooled board and very low rpm running TT Big Typhoon VX, I guess. There will be some ~700rpm @5V 120mm fan on the back, too.

so, I'm planing to mount elasticly (by rubbers) mount hard drive.

should I go for 2.5" Scorpio or get some 3.5" KS/AAKS or similar?

how big is noise and vibration difference between 2.5" and 3.5" drives if they are elasticly mounted?

how big is performance hit with OS runnging on 2.5" drives (I'll have my storage drive mounted remotely via 1Gbps LAN)?

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 4:43 am

2.5" drives dont need to be soft mounted. they produce negligable vibrations. About the only noise you'll ever hear from a quiet 2.5" drive are the drive seeks, and the only way to eliminate that is to put the drive in an insulated enclosure.

real world performance differences between the two are negligable. You'll probably never actually notice a difference unless you have two identical computers where the only difference is the HD, and you use them both at the same time. Otherwise you'll never be able to tell most of the time.

3.5" drives run a lot hotter, produce a lot more vibrations, and make a lot more noise than 2.5" drives. If you want a 3.5" drive to be quiet, it must be soft mounted and enclosed in insulation.

trxman · Post by **trxman** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 5:18 am

thank you. that would be all I've wanted to know.

admi99 · Post by **admi99** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 2:15 pm

no way ! 2,5" drives are slower ! most of them spins at 5400, so it's obvioius that performance is lower

trxman · Post by **trxman** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 3:52 pm

admi99 wrote:no way ! 2,5" drives are slower ! most of them spins at 5400, so it's obvioius that performance is lower

judging about hdd performance just by rpm is similar to judging about a CPU by it's frequency...

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 8:52 pm

well, actually, that is so; for the most part.

there are some nice 7200rpm 2.5" hard drives that can be ran 24/7 just like 3.5" drives. something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRe ... 6822146052

(they should have sata versions somewhere...)

probably not as quiet as scorpio but i am sure it will be quieter than most 3.5" drives and easier to suspend/silence.

kater · Post by **kater** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:05 pm

I've also been following this subject for some time and almost jumped at a super cheap brand new Momentus 5400 160GB. Well, I resisted so far, but don't know how long I'll be able to fight off the temptation to spend. Speed - my only concern is that I'll notice it while gaming. Is it going to be serious? Noise - so would you guys rank HDD's (models) like that: Momentus 5400 < Momentus 7200 < Spinpoint 7200? How much of a difference will there be between Mom 7200 and Spin 7200 in terms of noise and performance? Do you think that putting Mom 7200 inside SQD will help? Don't want to hijack this thread, I just think these q's fit here OK.

trxman · Post by **trxman** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 2:05 am

mcoleg wrote:there are some nice 7200rpm 2.5" hard drives that can be ran 24/7 just like 3.5" drives. something like this

does that mean that not all 2.5" drives will be able to run 24/7 for a long time?

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 3:25 am

In games, you may notice it taking a bit longer to load large maps, like in battlefield 2142, but once your in a game you'll never notice a difference at all. Its not a huge difference though, and for me i'm willing to wait a few more seconds to have a completely silent system.

For normal system use, no hard drive is "running" 24/7. It spins up to load a file into memory, and then spins back down when its done. The only types of systems that will have HD's running 24/7 are server type systems, and its advised to use server class 2.5" HD's for those applications.

The difference in heat production, vibrations, and noise is huge IMO. A hard mounted 2.5" HDD is quieter than a soft mounted 3.5" HDD enclosed in a scythe quiet drive. Its literally night and day as far as thermals and acoustics are concerned.

I can only speak for HDD's ive personally used, which so far have been Seagate Barracuda IV, Samsung Spinpoints, and Samsung Momentus 5400's. The 2.5" drive is quieter than anything ive used before, even hard mounted vs soft mounted 3.5" drives enclosed in quiet drives. Also heat production is negligable. The only thing i can hear on my 2.5" drive are the occasional drive seeks which are very subtle. I'm going to place it in one of the new 2.5" quiet drives soon, and i suspect i'll never hear it again, and because 2.5" drives are made to be enclosed in a notebook with no airflow, i dont have to worry about it overheating in such an enclosure.

The only reason anyone should use a 3.5" drive is if you need more than 250gb of storage, or your on a budget.

kater · Post by **kater** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 3:41 am

A big thank-you goes to Aris - that pretty much answers all my q's and addresses my concerns

. I'm off to search for a nice bargain for a +100 GB Momentus. Or two

And if it somehow turns out it's still not quiet enough, well, we've got fresh SQD 2,5" boxes. Gee, and I still have to buy a new set of tyres... Wonder what I'll get first

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 10:31 am

in business world, the only thing that kills a notebook is the hd after 3-4 years seldomly used. so like 1-2 years cranking.
yay

mcoleg · Post by **mcoleg** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:02 pm

trxman wrote:
mcoleg wrote:there are some nice 7200rpm 2.5" hard drives that can be ran 24/7 just like 3.5" drives. something like this
does that mean that not all 2.5" drives will be able to run 24/7 for a long time?

i am pretty much sure they should but there are few like the one i linked that seem to be build as a prototype of the future hard drives - small form-factor and lower power consumption.

as for how often windows accesses the hard drive - with vista's indexing and virtual file it's more often than it used to be with windows xp. at least in desktop mode, haven't tried it on a laptop.

trxman · Post by **trxman** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 12:07 pm

Aris wrote:2.5" drives dont need to be soft mounted. they produce negligable vibrations. About the only noise you'll ever hear from a quiet 2.5" drive are the drive seeks, and the only way to eliminate that is to put the drive in an insulated enclosure.

is this true for 5400rpm drives only or for both 5400rpm and 7200rpm drives?

Mike3325 · Post by **Mike3325** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 7:59 pm

I think we are missing an important part of his post. I'm as huge a fan as there is of 2.5 drives but he said, " (I'll have my storage drive mounted remotely via 1Gbps LAN)?"

If his storage drive is remotely mounted then he might as well get the 3.5" drive for the added performance.

trxman · Post by **trxman** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 1:18 am

trxman wrote:I've been planing to build (almost) silent PC.

I've bought recommended Corsair HX520W.
I'll go for some passively cooled board and very low rpm running TT Big Typhoon VX, I guess. There will be some ~700rpm @5V 120mm fan on the back, too.

so, I'm planing to mount elasticly (by rubbers) mount hard drive.

update:
going to get ThermalRight Ultra 120 Extreme and 12cm Noctua fan on the back of the case.

with that kind of system, will I hear difference between elasticly mounted Momentus 5400.3 and Momentus 7200.2 ?

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 10:45 pm

soft mounting 2.5" drives dont really help as much as soft mounting 3.5" drives. A good quality notebook drive will have negligable vibrations, which is all soft mounting eleviates.

You'll have a higher frequency hum with the 7200rpm drive, and more wind noise than with a 5400rpm drive.

If you want to silence them, they need to be acoustically dampened in an enclosure like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817984003

stv · Post by **stv** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:35 pm

2.5 drives can run in RAID 0????

lor77 · Post by **lor77** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:47 pm

Yes of course and they can run in raid.
Actually this is my next plan for the future.
Getting two 2.5 hd and running them in raid 0.

stv · Post by **stv** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 1:08 pm

lor77 wrote:Yes of course and they can run in raid.
Actually this is my next plan for the future.
Getting two 2.5 hd and running them in raid 0.

and now this is my plan too

lor77 · Post by **lor77** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 1:38 pm

Hello stv
Since you are also planning the same you can also conceder this.
viewtopic.php?t=39160
I dont know how much this will help system performance but i'm willing to sacrifice 100euro to find out myself.
Which 2.5 hd are you planning to buy?
I was thinking about WD Scorpio 400BEVS or Fujitsu 2040BH.
Single platter ones but no one in the forum helped me to decide which one to buy.So i think i will go first with the scorpio solution in terms of performance and quietness.
Greetings to everyone!

â™¦

stv · Post by **stv** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 9:32 am

hi lor77

Thanks for the link
I was thinking about 2 segate momentus 7200.2 80GB to run in RAID 0, it has a Single platter... and are fast!!!!

At this moment i have 2 segate barracuda 80Gb in raid 0, i feel an increase in performance when boot win vista and loading some games vs a single drive... Independently of what the tests says
but i add another HDD for back up and I had to remove the alphono's suspencion and put again the case aluminium box... 3 hhd hard mounting sounds like a solo drummer

but i want to wait a little time, to see if the prices come down... Maybe a couple of months

BIONIC_EARS · Post by **BIONIC_EARS** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 2:00 pm

I don't understand the following quote:

Aris wrote:For normal system use, no hard drive is "running" 24/7. It spins up to load a file into memory, and then spins back down when its done.

Do you mean putting the drive in standby mode after a certain period of inactivity?

Conventional wisdom says that a lot of the wear on a drive occurs from thermal cycling and the inertial changes from spinning up and down, so I would think that keeping the hard drive spinning throughout the day for periodic use would be better for prolonging life than having it spin up and down frequently with a short standby setting. Thoughts?

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 9:35 pm

BIONIC_EARS wrote:I don't understand the following quote:

Aris wrote:For normal system use, no hard drive is "running" 24/7. It spins up to load a file into memory, and then spins back down when its done.
Do you mean putting the drive in standby mode after a certain period of inactivity?

Conventional wisdom says that a lot of the wear on a drive occurs from thermal cycling and the inertial changes from spinning up and down, so I would think that keeping the hard drive spinning throughout the day for periodic use would be better for prolonging life than having it spin up and down frequently with a short standby setting. Thoughts?

normal desktop 2.5" drives arnt designed to run 24/7 (ie: being accessed 24/7), like what would occure in a file server. Life expectancy goes from around 7+ years down to around 1.5 years if you run them 24/7. If you need a 2.5" drive for somthing like server use, you should get one designed for servers, like the seagate savio.

BIONIC_EARS · Post by **BIONIC_EARS** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:20 pm

I'm still confused by that quoted statement. When a drive is 'on', the platters spin. When the drive read/writes data, the arm/heads assembly moves into position. The drive does not spin up and down between accesses.

To make the hard drive spin up and down during periods of inactivity requires setting an option in the power management settings. However, the point I'm making is that I think it's worse for wear if you have the drive spinning up and down frequently.

For example, if I use a laptop for multiple short stretches over a period of 4 hours on AC power, I think it's better to leave the hard drive 'on' the whole time, rather than having it spin up and down 10 times during that period. I would rather have the whole system go into standby after 30min of inactivity, than having the hard drive power off after 3min of inactivity, to reduce hard drive power cycling.

2.5" vs. 3.5"

2.5" vs. 3.5"

remotely mounted!!

Re: 2.5" vs. 3.5"