On Mon, Feb 04, 2019 at 12:05:08AM +0500, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:
Turns out you are right. Modern 2.5" HDDs are made to be more demanding, according to hardware specs available on web sites of WD and Seagate. Only exception are 2.5" L200 series drives from Toshiba. They require <500mA to operate.
It's pretty much always been true; 2.5" PATA/SATA->USB2 adapters without an external power source typically come with *two* connections to plug into the computer (like a USB "Y" cable), so you can draw an aggregate 1A. Sometimes you can get away without using both, sometimes not. For USB3 adapters, it's common to skip that because the USB3 spec can draw close to 1A without the second cable. (Though they won't necessarily work properly if plugged into a USB2 port in that case.) The only 2.5" spinner I have handy is more than a decade old and requires 960mA to spin up--so this definitely isn't a new thing.