2.5" hard drives - reliable?

[Skree]

I've always used boggo 3.5" hard drives in my towers and am not really into laptops (netbooks are so good though) so please excuse my ignorance

Are 2.5" hard drives as reliable? i ask because i've just had to return my acer aspire 531 netbook with 160gb (or is it a 120?) toshiba drive to the shop because of a massive amount of bad sectors on the HD. Admittedly, that netbook has been on 14+ hours a day, every day, since july 09 when i bought it, but i've got a maxtor 536DX - people who know their vintage hardware will know how old that (15.2gb) drive is - 1999 vintage - and it's had an awful lot more use than that as have my more modern drives, no probs.

I do put a regular amount of data through my drives, about 5gb a week minimum, going up to a much rarer 30+/week, especially my always-on browser/chatter/fb/mmorpg/downloader - which this netbook was, and the rig i'm building to replace it as my main use will be

i'd use a 3.5" drive on the new one but i'm looking at the antec isk100 case which is 2.5" only failing that i'll have to make a case, i don't want to be replacing c:'s every 18mo-2yr

anyone know? or know of a virtually indestructible 2.5" (NOT ssd) drive?

 

[Snykch]

I'd hazard a guess that heat is the problem in laptops, as I've lost two in that respect.

 

[matthab]

I believe laptop drives are just as reliable as coventional 3'5" drives. The reason 2'5" drives arnt as reliable when in lptops because of the enviroment they live in. They get exposed to a lot more heat and a lot more vibrations and knocks.

However 2'5" drives are still more expensive and not as quick as 3'5 drives.

 

[Skree]

heat's probably what's done mine in then my lappy doesn't take knocks, although it must be the drive's own heat and i'm surprised that can cause bad sectors, my netbook runs pretty cool being a single core atom

still a problem, in the isk-100 the hd is behind the motherboard

 

[shine]

Don't forget sometimes you just run out of luck and it fails for no apparent reason but on the whole modern drives are reliable regardless of their size.

 

[Skree]

my luck's run a long long time. in 12 years of building pc's i've never had one of my drives fail.. had a drive tell me it was going to fail once but it still works years later... only drives i've ever had die, i've dropped.

i still prefer a 3.5" drive but if i cant fit one in the case what am i to do? i have thought about setting this pc up to boot off a usb stick and using an external drive for other things, that way i could even use one of my existing drives as the ext.. thought needed