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Actually, I wanted to make a post on this subject, so instead I can just plug this in here. I have completely been floored by how well 3.5" drives perform. I suppose this varies from person to person, and I'm sure there's the same amount of horror stories as there are success one, but here's one success one.
In 2005, I installed the whole CarPC assembly into my Subaru (see my sig for the install, etc.). I have basically not touched it since then. I took the PC out once or twice to soundproof the car, etc., but aside from that, it's as it was. There is no shock suspension of any sort - the drive is mounted in a typical run-of-the-mill Mini-ITX case (Casetronic I think). The case is sitting on the floor of the passenger compartment, under the passenger seat. From 2005-2006 the car lived outside, and since 2006 I have inside parking, so it spends a good % of the winters inside. Around where I am, summer goes up to 30 degrees and winter goes down to -30 easily, and at times, when I leave the car outside, the screen is so cold that it lags b/c of the crystals being frozen. And the kicker; our roads are SO bad that I've busted a tire from a pothole. I can't even begin to describe to you how bad our roads are - if you've ever been in Quebec, you may know just HOW bad they are. I think if we had a vote, we'd come out somewhere slightly behind 4th world nations in road quality.
And you know what? The drive, and the computer, never skipped a beat. I've hit potholes which made me wonder if my suspension will be torn off. I've driven over cracks in the road that make you feel as if you're driving over a hairbrush (for lack of a better example). I've seen it all, and almost 3 years counting, the lowly Seagate 200GB 3.5" IDE still works fine.
This year, I'll be replacing it with a 300 or a 500 SATA. We'll see if drive quality dropped in these years, but all I have to say is - I don't think you need enterprise grade drives or shock-mounted car drives. A standard 3.5" will save you a ton of cash and will work wonderfully fine. You can mount it on rubber rails if you want, but anything over and above that is entirely excessive, unless you go offroading with your car.
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