is there any differences between a 3.5" and 2.5 " internal hard drives except for the size

[Sarel_]

is there any differences between a 3.5" and 2.5 " internal hard drives except for the size

 

[SKIPPY PB]

No sure, if the specs all line up I don't see why there would be. I know few of my laptop variants for instance spin at ~5400 RPM where the desktop equivalent spun at 7,200. Never looked up the specs but I would assume it is like a GTX 980 vs a GTX 980m. If there where no draw backs I feel as if by now everything would move over to 2.5" sizes.

 

[mcnumpty23]

2.5 drives usually spin at 5400rpm

desktop drives usually at 7200rpm

and desktop drives tend to have a larger cache

so usually 3.5 drives are faster

 

[synphul]

The 3.5 drives even at the same rpm would tend to perform a bit better. The magnetic head reads data from the outside of the platter(s) to the center typically. In that case, the outer portion of the platter is rotating faster. The rpm is the spindle speed at the center. As the platter gets larger the speed ratio increases at the outer edge and the more data that can be read before the head has to move inward to the increasingly smaller and smaller 'rings' or 'spirals'.

Sort of like ssd's, larger capacity ssd's are not only capable of holding more data they actually tend to perform better. The above consideration for mechanical drives of course depends on everything else being equal, actual drive properties, specialty methods incorporated by a company to improve performance (things like vertical data storage on the platters as an example), cache size etc all play a role.

 

[Pinhedd]

is there any differences between a 3.5" and 2.5 " internal hard drives except for the size

Thinner drives have fewer platters; fewer platters means fewer heads; fewer heads means less concurrent I/O.

Although 7,200 RPM 2.5 inch hard disk drives are available, most are limited to ~5,400 RPM to reduce power consumption and noise.

In general, 2.5 inch hard disk drives are much slower than their 3.5 inch counterparts. However, some models, such as Seagate's Hybrid lineup perform quite well given their size.