Are there any disadvantages of having a "free fall sensor" on a hard disk drive?
- by therobyouknow
This is a general question that came out of a specific comparison between the Western Digital Scorpio WD3200BEKT and Western Digital Scorpio WD3200BJKT (which is the same as the former but with a free fall sensor.) Note: I'm not asking for a review or appraisal of these specific drives, as the general question does apply on other brands as well. Though your input would help my decision.
To break down the general question in order to answer it, I would be looking for comments on things like:
if it's necessary to have differing physical dimensions between free fall sensor drives and those without, e.g. does it make it any thicker, and therefore reduce the systems where it can be installed - particularly smaller laptops?
does it actually make the system less reliable - because of false alarms whereby the drive thought the laptop was falling but it wasn't?
I suppose that the fact that a manufacturer produces both drives with and without free fall sensors says something about possible disadvantages. Or it could be standard marketing techniques where by making drives with and without results in larger sales volume than just those with the feature alone.
