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Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?



 
 
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  #21  
Old September 16th 14, 06:59 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
John Doe[_9_]
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Posts: 410
Default Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?

Paul nospam needed.com wrote:

John Doe wrote:


Anything can just go without warning. An experienced computer
user always has backups of important data. Some of us use very
efficient methods for backing up and restoring stuff. Hardware
is rarely an issue. Any reasonable hardware should not be an
issue.

What, exactly, makes an SSD any more prone to quitting without
warning than any other device that includes electronic
circuitry like a conventional hard drive? Any credible
citations showing that sort of failure on high quality SSDs?


Both SSDs and hard drives, have firmware. Without any cites at
all, that represents an "exposure" in terms of product quality.


What is your point?
  #22  
Old September 16th 14, 08:36 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,free.usenet,free.spirit
Rod Speed
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Posts: 8,559
Default Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?

John Doe wrote
Ed Light nobody nobody.there wrote:


Except that SSD's sometimes quit without warning.


Unlike hard drives that you can monitor, such as with
HD Sentinel with sensitivity set to server, and know if
the disk is deteriorating. An SSD may abruptly just go.


Anything can just go without warning. An experienced computer
user always has backups of important data. Some of us use very
efficient methods for backing up and restoring stuff. Hardware is
rarely an issue. Any reasonable hardware should not be an issue.


What, exactly, makes an SSD any more prone to quitting
without warning than any other device that includes
electronic circuitry like a conventional hard drive?


The technology is completely different.

Any credible citations showing that
sort of failure on high quality SSDs?


Yep.


  #23  
Old September 16th 14, 09:23 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 13,364
Default Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?

John Doe wrote:
Paul nospam needed.com wrote:

John Doe wrote:


Anything can just go without warning. An experienced computer
user always has backups of important data. Some of us use very
efficient methods for backing up and restoring stuff. Hardware
is rarely an issue. Any reasonable hardware should not be an
issue.

What, exactly, makes an SSD any more prone to quitting without
warning than any other device that includes electronic
circuitry like a conventional hard drive? Any credible
citations showing that sort of failure on high quality SSDs?

Both SSDs and hard drives, have firmware. Without any cites at
all, that represents an "exposure" in terms of product quality.


What is your point?


Since both SSD and Hard Drives are firmware/CPU based,
they are both untrustworthy.

And you cannot really estimate when they'll fall over
or why.

For example, some bugs are related to how many times
the device has been power cycled. Some users will see
an early failure (because they power cycle the PC a lot).
Others will see the device last a long time (since they
don't power off).

Companies will not always admit why their product failed.
In the case of Seagate, occasionally a company engineer
will make an unofficial statement about why some failures
are occurring. Due to the prototype nature of the SSD
market, the early SSD failures involved a lot of ass covering,
as no maker attempting to capture mindshare, would want
to admit why their product is failing. So you can't always
get a nice neatly laid out report as to what to expect
from SSDs.

So my point is, no matter what the track record is to date,
the same fault modes can exist on SSDs, as on hard drives.
Both have rudimentary firmware, with no attempt to automatically
recover from bad situations.

Firmware flaws would have no representation in SMART. So it's
not like you can be warned there is a bug in the firmware.
And the device is most likely to "disappear", when you first
turn it on in the morning. When the SSD "internally boots".

If a brand new SSD comes out today, I could pick one up
assuming the SSD market is mature and every SSD maker
knows what they're doing. Only to lose all my data a
month later. And then reports come out that it is a
firmware issue. Whether it happens regularly, is not the
issue. It's the possibility that it can happen that counts.
And the track record of firmware issues on hard drives,
should attest to how often these mistakes make it into
the field.

(Repairing a bricked Seagate ST3500320AS using a TTL serial cable...
An example of a model with a firmware problem.)

http://www.overclock.net/t/457286/se...-fix-with-pics

(Firmware update if you catch it before it bricks)

http://knowledge.seagate.com/article...S/FAQ/207951en

Paul
  #24  
Old September 16th 14, 01:40 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
kathy[_2_]
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Posts: 4
Default Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?

On 15:38 14 Sep 2014, Rodney Pont wrote:

On Sun, 14 Sep 2014 15:58:30 +0200, David Brown wrote:

I have an old desktop PC with a 250 MB hard drive. I would like to
increase the storage capacity and think 500 MB may be enough.

The new drive will replace the old one.

I notice that 500 MB is a size which I can now buy in 2.5 inch format.
Is a 2.5 inch drive likely to be better (faster, lower power
consumption, etc) than a 3.5 inch drive? Are the connectors the same?

Or would it be better to install another 3.5 inch drive?

Thank you for any advice.


A 2.5" drive will be marginally lower power than a corresponding 3.5"
drive. It is also likely to be lower speed, but not so that you would
notice much. It will cost more per MB than a 3.5" drive - but you are
talking about such low capacity (for modern drives) that this will not
make much difference either. So it is not going to make a huge
difference either way.

(I assume you mean GB, not MB, in your sizes. A 500 MB disk would be
hard to find outside of a museum.)


Firstly are we talking SATA or PATA drives? SATA have a flat data cable
about a centimetre wide whereas PATA are 5 to 6 centimetres wide.

In my experience 2.5inch drives are noticeably slower than 3.5 inch
drives when I've run them on the same motherboard.

If you are SATA have you thought about an SSD? They can be much faster.


The drive woul dneed to be SATA. Sorry, I forgot to mention it.
  #25  
Old September 16th 14, 01:44 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
kathy[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4
Default Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?

On 13:40 16 Sep 2014, kathy wrote:

On 15:38 14 Sep 2014, Rodney Pont wrote:

On Sun, 14 Sep 2014 15:58:30 +0200, David Brown wrote:

I have an old desktop PC with a 250 MB hard drive. I would like to
increase the storage capacity and think 500 MB may be enough.

The new drive will replace the old one.

I notice that 500 MB is a size which I can now buy in 2.5 inch
format. Is a 2.5 inch drive likely to be better (faster, lower
power consumption, etc) than a 3.5 inch drive? Are the connectors
the same?

Or would it be better to install another 3.5 inch drive?

Thank you for any advice.


A 2.5" drive will be marginally lower power than a corresponding 3.5"
drive. It is also likely to be lower speed, but not so that you
would notice much. It will cost more per MB than a 3.5" drive - but
you are talking about such low capacity (for modern drives) that this
will not make much difference either. So it is not going to make a
huge difference either way.

(I assume you mean GB, not MB, in your sizes. A 500 MB disk would be
hard to find outside of a museum.)


Firstly are we talking SATA or PATA drives? SATA have a flat data
cable about a centimetre wide whereas PATA are 5 to 6 centimetres
wide.

In my experience 2.5inch drives are noticeably slower than 3.5 inch
drives when I've run them on the same motherboard.

If you are SATA have you thought about an SSD? They can be much
faster.


The drive woul dneed to be SATA. Sorry, I forgot to mention it.


No!!!! My mistake. I mean PATA. The old one with the 40 or 80 way
connector.
  #26  
Old September 16th 14, 01:46 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
kathy[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4
Default Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?

On 19:55 14 Sep 2014, Paul wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:
On Sun, 14 Sep 2014 14:16:57 +0100, kathy
wrote:

Can I pick your brains about a hard drive upgrade.

I have an old desktop PC with a 250 MB hard drive. I would like to
increase the storage capacity and think 500 MB may be enough.

The new drive will replace the old one.

I notice that 500 MB is a size which I can now buy in 2.5 inch
format. Is a 2.5 inch drive likely to be better (faster, lower power
consumption, etc) than a 3.5 inch drive? Are the connectors the
same?

Or would it be better to install another 3.5 inch drive?

Thank you for any advice.




2.5" drives are slower than 3.5" drives. I would only use a 2.5"
drive if I had to (laptop, USB power only) or if it was a SSD.
(There's no speed penalty with SSDs.)


I would concentrate most of my energy, in finding a drive brand that
was reliable. Reading the reviews, find out how long they last and so
on.

The Velociraptor is a 2.5" drive which comes with its own heatsink and
3.5" carrier. It is 10000 RPM, and spins faster than many other
desktop drives. The 600GB one, reads out at 180MB/sec. But these
boutique drives aren't for everyone. These ones could be refurbs
rather than new (the low price is a hint).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822236244

There are even some out there, that come without the cooler, and the
available information suggests to take special care cooling them.

I think rather than fall in all those sort of traps, a plain ordinary
3.5" drive for $60 is a better deal. After looking through the reviews
to find which ones are dropping dead too fast.

In terms of reliability, the 2.5" 5400 RPM ones look good, but those
would be slow (seek speed). The 2.5" 7200 RPM look like they're a less
good deal, as the reviews for those are no longer 5 out of 5. The 3.5"
drives are pretty well uniformly bad, and finding a winner there
involves a lot of luck. Each generation can be better or worse than
the previous. For example, I had to stop buying my favorite drive
(again), after the new model showed itself to be a dog (the price drop
was a hint something changed).

The hard drive manufacturers know *exactly* what they're doing. Just
like in the car industry, they have tables for bearing designs, which
trade lifetime versus cost. When a bearing fails on your car, some
engineer just nods his head and checks the tick mark on the chart. "As
designed". At one time, designs used over-engineering because we
didn't know any better. And as the tools improve, every aspect of
quality versus price is known. So whatever comes from Seagate or WD,
they know what the tradeoffs were. There are no "surprises". If they
want to make drives that last like toilet paper, they can.

Paul


Thank you for the info. (Including the scepticism about manufacturers)

I appreciate it.
  #27  
Old September 16th 14, 03:23 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
John Doe[_9_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 410
Default Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?

Paul nospam needed.com wrote:

John Doe wrote:
Paul nospam needed.com wrote:

John Doe wrote:


Anything can just go without warning. An experienced computer
user always has backups of important data. Some of us use very
efficient methods for backing up and restoring stuff. Hardware
is rarely an issue. Any reasonable hardware should not be an
issue.

What, exactly, makes an SSD any more prone to quitting without
warning than any other device that includes electronic
circuitry like a conventional hard drive? Any credible
citations showing that sort of failure on high quality SSDs?


Both SSDs and hard drives, have firmware. Without any cites at
all, that represents an "exposure" in terms of product quality.


What is your point?


So my point is, no matter what the track record is to date,
the same fault modes can exist on SSDs, as on hard drives.
Both have rudimentary firmware, with no attempt to automatically
recover from bad situations.


The argument was that SSD is more prone to failure than HDD.
  #28  
Old September 16th 14, 07:20 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Charlie Hoffpauir
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 347
Default Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?

On Mon, 15 Sep 2014 14:47:20 -0700, Ed Light
wrote:

On 9/14/2014 7:21 PM, John Doe wrote:
Of course how much an SSD increases performance depends on what
exactly the "old SATA interface" is. Most likely it will provide a
very nice boost in speed because it affects so much of the system.
For anybody that wants to keep such a system, it's the only way to
go. Especially since the conventional hard drive is sitting there
ready to be bumped into its useful secondary position.


Except that SSD's sometimes quit without warning.


As does my heart (one attack so far) and yet I continue to rely on it.
  #29  
Old September 16th 14, 08:35 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 13,364
Default Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?

kathy wrote:
On 13:40 16 Sep 2014, kathy wrote:

On 15:38 14 Sep 2014, Rodney Pont wrote:

On Sun, 14 Sep 2014 15:58:30 +0200, David Brown wrote:

I have an old desktop PC with a 250 MB hard drive. I would like to
increase the storage capacity and think 500 MB may be enough.

The new drive will replace the old one.

I notice that 500 MB is a size which I can now buy in 2.5 inch
format. Is a 2.5 inch drive likely to be better (faster, lower
power consumption, etc) than a 3.5 inch drive? Are the connectors
the same?

Or would it be better to install another 3.5 inch drive?

Thank you for any advice.

A 2.5" drive will be marginally lower power than a corresponding 3.5"
drive. It is also likely to be lower speed, but not so that you
would notice much. It will cost more per MB than a 3.5" drive - but
you are talking about such low capacity (for modern drives) that this
will not make much difference either. So it is not going to make a
huge difference either way.

(I assume you mean GB, not MB, in your sizes. A 500 MB disk would be
hard to find outside of a museum.)
Firstly are we talking SATA or PATA drives? SATA have a flat data
cable about a centimetre wide whereas PATA are 5 to 6 centimetres
wide.

In my experience 2.5inch drives are noticeably slower than 3.5 inch
drives when I've run them on the same motherboard.

If you are SATA have you thought about an SSD? They can be much
faster.

The drive woul dneed to be SATA. Sorry, I forgot to mention it.


No!!!! My mistake. I mean PATA. The old one with the 40 or 80 way
connector.


Based on the prices and capacities on Newegg (320GB 2.5" PATA for $399),
I would say forget about this (PATA laptop drive) approach. There is
another way.

*******

I use one of these to connect SATA hard drives to an IDE cable
on the computer. The jumper on the adapter, indicates whether the drive
is master or slave. I jumper to Master and stick it on the end
of my IDE cable, as usually I'm only working on a single SATA
drive this way at one time. (My IDE cable happens to support HPA.)
The worst part of this adapter, is you have to be very careful
installing or removing the IDE side, as the pins can get bent
in the process. This has power connectors, to connect your
existing supply, to the SATA drive. Inspect the pictures of
the product, to see how it would connect to your system. The
easy part, is how smoothly this plugs into the back of a SATA drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812200156

That would increase the number of drive models you could connect.

$80 gets you a 1TB 7200RPM 2.5" SATA. Then you use the StarTech
adapter, so it'll connect to your IDE cable.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA54G1R09153

It's a 512e drive, so you can use it with WinXP without a problem.

http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/FF05B02FBBBF9E8288257AAF00686AD6/$file/TS7K1000_ds.pdf

I would put a lot more care into selecting a drive, than just
picking the first one I could see.

When securing it mechanically, you need to make sure there is
room for the StarTech adapter. In an Antec Sonata, with outward
facing drive bays in the bottom, the adapter
would hit the computer side cover. Only mounting the drives
in the regular orientation would work. I've even used that
StarTech adapter, while a SATA drive sat open in a USB to IDE
enclosure. My StarTech adapter has been through hell and it
still works :-)

Paul
  #30  
Old September 16th 14, 08:44 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
Rod Speed
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 8,559
Default Is 2.5 inch disk drive suitable for desktop?



"Paul" wrote in message
...
John Doe wrote:
Paul nospam needed.com wrote:
John Doe wrote:


Anything can just go without warning. An experienced computer
user always has backups of important data. Some of us use very
efficient methods for backing up and restoring stuff. Hardware
is rarely an issue. Any reasonable hardware should not be an
issue.
What, exactly, makes an SSD any more prone to quitting without warning
than any other device that includes electronic
circuitry like a conventional hard drive? Any credible
citations showing that sort of failure on high quality SSDs?
Both SSDs and hard drives, have firmware. Without any cites at
all, that represents an "exposure" in terms of product quality.


What is your point?


Since both SSD and Hard Drives are firmware/CPU based,
they are both untrustworthy.


And you cannot really estimate when they'll fall over or why.


You can actually with some faults that show
evidence of a problem in the SMART stats.

For example, some bugs are related to how many times the device has been
power cycled.


Those arent bugs.

Some users will see an early failure (because they power cycle the PC a
lot). Others will see the device last a long time (since they don't power
off).


Those arent bugs.

Companies will not always admit why their product failed.


Doesn't matter what they admit, with plenty
of failures the reason for them is obvious.

In the case of Seagate, occasionally a company engineer
will make an unofficial statement about why some failures
are occurring. Due to the prototype nature of the SSD
market, the early SSD failures involved a lot of ass covering,
as no maker attempting to capture mindshare, would want
to admit why their product is failing. So you can't always
get a nice neatly laid out report as to what to expect
from SSDs.


So my point is, no matter what the track record is to date,
the same fault modes can exist on SSDs, as on hard drives.


But the technology is so different that you
don't often see the same fault modes.

Both have rudimentary firmware,


It's a hell of a lot better than rudimentary.

with no attempt to automatically recover from bad situations.


The whole point of remapped sectors with hard drives and spare
cells with SSDs is to recover automatically from bad situations.

Firmware flaws would have no representation in SMART. So it's not like you
can be warned there is a bug in the firmware.


Sure, but that is only a minor cause of HDD and SSD failure now.

And the device is most likely to "disappear", when you first
turn it on in the morning. When the SSD "internally boots".


If a brand new SSD comes out today, I could pick one up
assuming the SSD market is mature and every SSD maker
knows what they're doing. Only to lose all my data a
month later. And then reports come out that it is a
firmware issue. Whether it happens regularly, is not the
issue. It's the possibility that it can happen that counts.
And the track record of firmware issues on hard drives,
should attest to how often these mistakes make it into
the field.


(Repairing a bricked Seagate ST3500320AS using a TTL serial cable...
An example of a model with a firmware problem.)


http://www.overclock.net/t/457286/se...-fix-with-pics


(Firmware update if you catch it before it bricks)


http://knowledge.seagate.com/article...S/FAQ/207951en



 




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