Before my empeg in my car I had a single board PC and a 3.5" desktop drive which had only minimal vibration protection. It was almost identical to Hugo's original empeg.

The drive was kept spinning the entire time. My first drive was a Quantum 6.4G EX Fireball and it ran flawlessly for 2 years and another 1 year in a desktop and is still running fine today. I upgraded to a 30G Samsung which ran without fault for a year and is still running fine.

I don't think that 3.5" drives will kill the Neo at all. They would obviously have some shock protection and drives these days are quite robust.