Which hard disk for editing? 2.5", 3.5"?

Which hard disk for editing? 2.5", 3.5"?
by Adam Spencer on Nov 14, 2015 at 1:57:55 am

I do amateur editing, so don't want/need to pay for a RAID set up. But I'm a bit conflicted about 2.5" vs 3.5".

I'll be using an SSD for the OS drive. As for storage, I was initially going to go with a 1TB 2.5" 7200rpm drive (or two), but then I've seen a few comments that a 3.5" 7200rpm drive has faster sustained transfer speeds than a 2.5" equivalent, along with claims that because the 3.5" drives are larger, they have more solid/reliable parts. I've read a couple claims of lower latency as well. I'm having trouble finding a solid discussion on the subject, so this is bits and pieces of info I've seen on various sites.

As for speed, the HGST 7K4000 3.5" supposedly has a sustained transfer speed of 171MB/s ("typical"). While the HGST 7K1000 2.5" 7200rpm has a 'media transfer rate' of 160MB/s MAX (1284 megabits/s). A WD Black 6TB 3.5" drive (just for comparison) claims a max of 218MB/s. I don't think I've seen a 2.5" drive claim a max over about 160MB/s.

Incidentally, HGST drives are said to be the most reliable hard disks, having the lowest failure rate of the big three brands in 2013 and 2014. The WD Blacks seem to have blazing benchmarks, but fail much more often.

I'd love to drop down to 2.5", but it seems to me 3.5" is still a worthy contender?

Any feedback would be great.

thanks

Re: Which hard disk for editing? 2.5", 3.5"?
by Andrew Kimery on Nov 14, 2015 at 6:29:01 am

[Adam Spencer] "I'd love to drop down to 2.5","

Why?

Speaking in generalities, the only advantage to a 2.5" drive is lower power consumption. A 3.5" drive will be faster and less expensive for the same amount of storage.

Re: Which hard disk for editing? 2.5", 3.5"?
by Tero Ahlfors on Nov 14, 2015 at 10:19:57 am

[Adam Spencer] "I'd love to drop down to 2.5", but it seems to me 3.5" is still a worthy contender?"

Physical size of a single drive doesn't really matter. If you need performance you'll need to get a RAID that has multiple disks in it.

Re: Which hard disk for editing? 2.5", 3.5"?
by Jon Doughtie on Nov 14, 2015 at 2:16:25 pm

You can edit without using a RAID. You will likely have to compromise on performance during the edit process unless you are only editing standard def material.

As others have mentioned, the form factor doesn't really play a role. If I was spending my own money, I would just purchase a 1 or 2TB drive, 7200 RPM, with at least 32 cache.

Good luck to you, and I hope you have fun editing!

System:
Dell Precision T7600 (x2)
Win 7 64-bit
32GB RAM
Adobe CC 2014 (as of 7/2015)
256GB SSD system drive
4 internal media drives RAID 5
Typically cutting short form from HD MP4 and P2 MXF.

Re: Which hard disk for editing? 2.5", 3.5"?
by Tim Jones on Nov 14, 2015 at 4:33:43 pm

There is one additional piece of information that you haven't mentioned - how are you connecting the drive to your system?

If you're connecting via your systems built-in SATA bus, you'll get the rated performance of any selected drive. However, if you're looking at USB-2, it's quite a different story.

With the prices of mid-line capacity SSD drives dropping the way they have, you might want to consider something like the Samsung EVO 850 family. Amazon has the 500GB version for $160.

With any single spindle spinning disk, your REAL performance will be limited to around 75MB/sec or less. Replace that drive with the SSD and that number will jump dramatically - as high as 500MB/sec depending on your connection to the computer.

Tim
--
Tim Jones
CTO - TOLIS Group, Inc.
http://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU ... because it's the RESTORE that matters!

Re: Which hard disk for editing? 2.5", 3.5"?
by Adam Spencer on Nov 14, 2015 at 10:15:43 pm

Thanks for the replies. To answer some questions:

I'd prefer 2.5" simply because it's smaller. I went mini-ITX years ago, although kept my 3.5". I'm trying to avoid bulky legacy components in a new build.

I only do editing for a hobby, so I won't be going down the RAID route. The disk will be connected via SATA, definitely not working from USB.

I've been looking at two reviews from the same site:
WD Black 3.5" 7200rpm
HGST TravelStar 2.5" 7200rpm

The WD 3.5" betters the 2.5" in pretty much every test. Some results are marginal, but others look like they'd have an impact.

I guess I'm trying to gauge what non-RAID setups editors are using these days. Whenever I look into an SSD for editing, there's always warnings about the drive wearing out fast due to all the writes needed for video editing. Meaning one would have to replace the drive a lot sooner than a regular hard disk. Others comment that they went to SSD and didn't really notice a difference during editing.

Re: Which hard disk for editing? 2.5", 3.5"?
by Tim Jones on Nov 14, 2015 at 10:31:39 pm

The "drive wearing out" myth is just that - a myth. It may have applied to drives from the way-back-days, but modern SSD's are as resilient as spinning drives for what any of us would consider a normal use life expectancy.

The Samsung EVO 850's I mentioned are especially well suited for editing tasks.

In fact, I use 6 of their older 840 model in a 6 drive array with my Windows 7 system. They've now been running faultlessly for over 2 years.

Tim
--
Tim Jones
CTO - TOLIS Group, Inc.
http://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU ... because it's the RESTORE that matters!