laptop HD in a desktop

[barneygumble742]

hi,

my system crashed and i desperately need a hard drive. i have a 20gig 7200rpm laptop drive laying around. i have the the ide and power adapter for desktop use. before i install it, i'd like to find out the pros and cons of doing this. will i hurt the drive or bottleneck when it comes to speed? the specs are identical to my old 80gig drive except for the capacity and the physical dimensions.

thanks,
barneygumble742

[MONKEYMAN]

You will find the laptop drive will most likely be slower than a standard 3.5inch HDD, however if you have the adaptors to connect it then go for it!
Running the drive in a desktop rig won't do it any harm, Ive used mini-itx board running a 2.5inch HDD and its not very fast but it works. If yours is a 7200rpm drive then that will help speed things up as the only laptop drives I have used out of a laptop were 5400rpm models.

[Favu]

As a rule, laptop drives aren't as reliable (due to leading rough lifestyles, no doubt) and are generally slower, to save power and keep heat down.

But apart from that there is no reason it shouldn't work fine for you

[Aedan]

Yup, they'll work just fine. Generally laptop disks are not high performance devices as they're optimised for low power and low heat output, rather than high speed! Most laptop disks live in tightly enclosed spaces without anything to move air over them.

It will be noticeably slower than a 3.5" hard disk however.