going to buy external hdd, don't know if 3.5 with case usb or 2.5?

[herkeane]

well like the title said, i wanna know if it's the same, worst or better to use a 3.5 hdd external with a case usb or a 2.5 usb?

the question is because the 3.5 hdd are so much cheap than usb 2.5 hdd or even 2.5 hdd without usb (like the one of notebooks and internal ps3 lol)

i'd be glad of hear your opinions and experiences..

sorry for my english.. thanks

[kronwhon]

i'm using a 3.5. main difference being 3.5 will always have external power source. some 2.5 drives will pull power through USB. not sure how much difference it makes, but I like to minimize the power being pulled from the PS3's power supply.

[kevinlekiller]

3.5" are cheaper and you get more capacity. They have 12v external power supplies like kronwhon says, I think they still use 5v from the usb port. 2.5" are smaller and usually won't break if you drop it while its running. 3.5" hard drives take about 500ma from 5v , I'm not sure about 2.5" drives, 500ma at 5v is 2.5watts.

[kronwhon]

thanks for the technical info kevin. 2.5 watts is not enough to worry about stressing the PSU obviously.

another drawback for 2.5 drives is that many of them require you to use 2 USB ports. This may be a problem if you are using a slim.

[lukascene]

A 2.5 is nice because its simple plug & play, no extra steps, But more expensive. If your lazy the 3.5 can be a pain with the seperate power source needed and seperate on/off switch on internal enclosures.