Whats going to be faster in general? also am i correct in believing that 2.5 inch drives are VASTLY more quiet?
I can tell you from sitting here at my laptop a mechanical 2.5 inch isn't terribly quiet. not quit sure how it compares to a 3.5" but generally 3.5" mechanicals are faster, higher capacity, and generally drives, and cheaper. 2.5" drives are mostly for notebook use.
I have a 2.5 inch drive accompanying my vertex 4 ssd and was wondering what i should expect (decided to recycle laptop drive for storage to save money). id love to know how much faster they are. if they are a good deal faster i might considering throwing a 3.5 in my system.
A 3.5" Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200rpm drive can be had for about $60ish dollars, with the 2TB being a little more and a little faster. If you want a "fast" hard drive, I would go for one of those. Remember, the denser the platter and the higher the speed (though higher speeds are louder) the faster your read/write speeds will be.