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Advantages of External Drive?

I

imported_blight

Member
Is an external drive worth the extra money? Are there features that make the purchase worth it? I can get a Seagate 300 GB External for $180 or a Seagate 300 GB Internal for $150, both have same rot. speed and cache size. Thanks.

NOTE: The external is going to be my slave drive, I have an 80 GB internal as my master drive.
 
The best reason to have an external drive is that you can take it with you and share files with other computer,if you're not going to be doing that you're much better off with an internal hard drive.
 
If you throw out the price difference, is the internal that much better if I don't intend to share files with another computer? Its a secondary drive so I am not booting form it or anything, I just want another HD for a slave drive and I am trying to decide for future instances if an external may be better.
 
Originally posted by: blight
If you throw out the price difference, is the internal that much better if I don't intend to share files with another computer? Its a secondary drive so I am not booting form it or anything, I just want another HD for a slave drive and I am trying to decide for future instances if an external may be better.
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the external drive is basicaly the same drive with a shell,so no there is no difference between them.

But why pay 30$ extra when you dont need it? and external drives tend to run hotter & make more noise because of a small noisy internal fan.

So unless you need an external drive you're much better off with an internal drive.
 
I use an external hdd for backup. I have an exact copy of my hdd in it, so if anything should happen, I always have an up-to-date backup. It also makes much easier to share large (dv video, for example) files between computers.
 
Is an external that much more of a hassle? The price isn't an issue at all. I don't know if I am going to need/want to share files in the future to be honest.
 
i wouldnt say it's a hassle at all. it's more of a hassle having to transfer large files through cd's or ftp when the other comp isnt in ur home network. if anything, they are more convenient then not.
 
The main benefit of an external is that you can take it with you. If your PC breaks down and you have a project you need to finish, just simply find a PC somewhere else and hook up - and you're ready to go.

Got 10,000 photos you want to share with friends or family. Put them on an external drive, and take them with you when you visit.
 
Are there really any huge or obvious disadvantages to an external besides price? If you were getting an extra (slave/secondary) drive and you had the option of getting an external or internal for the same price (same speed & cache) would you get the external. Some time in the future I may want to transfer or share large files with friends or family, at the moment no, but who knows.
 
the external drives are plug n play. no need to configure anything. and teh only disadvantage is price really. i actually made my own external drive at home by buying a drive and an external enclosure. works wee fine. 🙂
 
Nobody has mentioned speed?

Internal IDE hdd's absolutely SMOKE usb 1/2 external drives in terms of transfer speed.
 
Originally posted by: Jojo7
Nobody has mentioned speed?

Internal IDE hdd's absolutely SMOKE usb 1/2 external drives in terms of transfer speed.
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Right. I'd use an external drive as a backup/transfer device, but not for normal storage.
 
The driveis going to be used primarily for video files (ogm, avi, etc..) and is not something that I will access regularly, it will just be used for extra space when my 80 GB master is near capacity. I am not going to be playing games off it or anything, everything that I will want to play/use I would put back onto my primary HD before doing so, it is for pure storage, and like I said, mostly video files.
 
I'd get the internal drive. Speed will be better, so the drive itself will be more useful; I don't hear you saying that you NEED it to be external. With the $30 you save, you can easily get an external drive enclosure and MAKE it an external drive later if you want.
 
Ok, I bought the internal harddrive and I have a question. I made the drive my primary slave, and when I cut and pasted a 6.08 GB folder from my Master to it the process took 193 seconds. Unless my math is wrong, isn't that only 31.5 MB/s?? How is that so much faster than the average 30.4 MB/s I can get with an external?? Did I do something wrong during installation or a setting possibly? Any tips/advice would be appreciated, thanks.
 
Retail ext. HD cost too much, especially if you buy from a manufacturer that doesn't even make HDs. If you just want to store huge amounts of files on multiple HDs, consider getting a mobile rack that fits in the 5.25" drive bay and buy additional caddies for addition HDs. I bought a Seagate 200GB retail internal HD, and a Vantec NexStar USB2.0/Firewire enclosure for transfering files between home and office. Works great.
 
Originally posted by: blight
Ok, I bought the internal harddrive and I have a question. I made the drive my primary slave, and when I cut and pasted a 6.08 GB folder from my Master to it the process took 193 seconds. Unless my math is wrong, isn't that only 31.5 MB/s?? How is that so much faster than the average 30.4 MB/s I can get with an external?? Did I do something wrong during installation or a setting possibly? Any tips/advice would be appreciated, thanks.
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Are both HDs set to DMA mode? Did you set the jumper on both HDs to CS?
 
Ok, you just said I few things I don't really understand. And the new (slave) HD is a Seagate 300 GB (7200.8). The old (master) is a WD 80 GB (7200 RPM, 8 MB Cache), if any of that helps.
 
Originally posted by: blight
Any clarification would be helpful please. Thanks.
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From your description, it sounds like you put the two drives as master and slave on the same cable. This cuts your effective bandwidth in half (or worse, because of stops/starts) when transferring between the drives. If you make the new drive the secondary master, you can transfer between them much faster (at the limit of the drives; probably more like 50-60MBps for 7200RPM drives).

USB2.0 tops out (theoretically) at ~50MBps; real-world performance is somewhat lower. And the access time is much higher than on an internal drive (doesn't matter too much for transferring huge files, but running programs off a USB drive would be painful).
 
a buddy of mine got the LaCie 500GB d2 . . . its HUGE!! AND FAST on a Firewire800 interface . . .

he got it for around $420 . . . too much IMHO. . .

but firewire800 . . . its tempting since i am looking at the new gigabyte nforce4 board
 
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