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2.5 inch SATA in an HTPC.

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dead cell   07-05-2009 at 01:00:50 PM
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Hello All

I've got an Asus P4 barebone which is fanless other than the fan in the PSU. The system generally runs ok but the heat my 3.5 inch SATA is producing has me very woried.

I'm considering a 2.5 inch Seagate Momentus 7200.4 but have a question which I'm hoping you guys can help me with.

A normal 3.5 inch SATA HDD requires 12 volts while I understand that a 2.5 inch SATA HDD only requires 5 volts.

So will it be safe for me to just attach a red SATA cable and a SATA power cable to the 2.5 inch HDD like I do with a 3.5 inch, or will this blow up the 2.5 incher?

If so then how do I get around this? What equipment, if any, do I need?

I'm looking to order everything tonight so really hope someone can help me out here.

Thanks very much in advance.

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sub mesa   07-05-2009 at 04:28:11 PM
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Volts do not equal power consumption. But 3,5" disks need alot more power than 2,5" disks, some comparison of idle power:

0.1W - 0.5W -> SSD
0.68W-1.2W -> 2,5" consumer HDD
3.3W-4.7W -> 3,5" WD Green 5400rpm drive
4.0W -> 2,5" Velociraptor 10.000rpm drive
7.0W-9.0W -> 3,5" casual 7200rpm drive (virtually all consumer drives!)

So if you wanna go low-power, an SSD, WD Green drive or 2,5" drive will be prefered.

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sub mesa   07-05-2009 at 04:28:56 PM
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And sorry to skip your question, yes the SATA connectors are the same for all 1,8", 2,5" and 3,5" SATA drives, either SSD or mechanical.

Reply to sub mesa
dead cell   07-05-2009 at 05:29:32 PM
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Sub Mesa

 

Thanks very much for getting back to me, much appreciated.

 

From what you are saying I should able to just connect a SATA power cable to the 2.5 inch and it will automatically receive 5 volts or whatever it needs, instead of the 12 volts that a 3.5 inch HDD needs?

 

I'm worried because I don't want to blow up the 2.5 incher.

 

I've got a 1.5 TB in my gaming PC and I took out the 400GB HDD from the Asus HTPC and have placed it inside my gaming PC. So the HTPC currently has no HDD until I get the 2.5 incher.

 

I was thinking about an SSD but they are way too expensive right now and someone else mentioned that a 2.5 inch will produce only a little more heat than an SSD anyway.

 

Thanks once again Sub


Message edited by dead cell on 07-05-2009 at 06:31:47 PM
Reply to dead cell
sub mesa   07-05-2009 at 06:23:22 PM
- 0 +

SATA power connectors have both +5V and +12V, just like the older Molex power cables you use for PATA drives. So the drive can pick whatever they want yes and its compatible. So any 2.5" SATA HDD or SSD will just work on a SATA controller.

They wouldn't make something you can connect and then blow it up, SATA is even designed to allow connecting and disconnecting both power and data cables during operation; called hot swapping.

As you can read in the chart above, 2.5" HDDs indeed consume nearly as low as SSDs. One 3.5" HDD consumes about the same as 10 (!) 2.5" HDDs.

Reply to sub mesa
dead cell   07-05-2009 at 06:31:10 PM
- 0 +

Right Sub I get you 100% now :D thanks very much dude for your quick response. Ordered the 2.5 HDD now all I need is a little 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch bracket which I'm lookin at right now.

Cheers Sub

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