External or internal hard drive

[mauiblue]

I've been thinking of adding more storage space to my system. Which route should I take? I've been looking at the Seagate external drive or two Western Digital SATA internal drives in a RAID 1 array. I am looking for more storage for backups and digital video/photo files.

 

[greenmaji]

If you want the best performance possible on an external you would want eSATA, newegg has the enclosures just get the hard drive you want, an adapter to make one of your internal SATA outlets a External, and a eSATA cable and there you have it.

 

[pkme2]

How about a mobile hdd rack
You can pop in and out as many as you need.

 

[bob4432]

imo, i would do a usb2 enclosure with a large "internal" seagate drive. this way you get the 5yr warranty on the hdd.

 

[greenmaji]

eSATA is faster then usb2 its just not as adaptable to use on other PC's.

 

[Continuity28]

Originally posted by: greenmaji
eSATA is faster then usb2 its just not as adaptable to use on other PC's.

The good thing is more and more motherboards are coming with a built in eSATA connector, so eventually it might be very common.

For now most have to stick with an internal/external converter. But as you said...

eSATA>>>>>>....>>>>Firewire 800>>>USB 2.0/Firewire 400 >>...>> USB 1.1

 

[Jiggz]

If you have the space in your case and you have a good PSU to support the internal, I would go the internal route.

 

[corkyg]

All good suggestions - including the mobile rack..It really depends a lot on how you would use it. With an external, that drive full of data can be moved to other machines - a super "sneaker net"

But an internal will give much better performance, either SATA or PATA.

 

[mauiblue]

Thanks to all for the informed suggestions. It didn't matter to me if I did go internal or external. What mattered is performance. So it looks like going SATA (internal or external) is the way to go. Yes, I do have the room and the PSU to accommodate the drives internally so I'll go that route.

All the best.

 

[Continuity28]

Originally posted by: corkyg
But an internal will give much better performance, either SATA or PATA.

If you're using eSATA like what was mentioned before... it would be the same performance as SATA/PATA.

 

[mauiblue]

Quick update on my decision:

I went to the Newegg website and found the Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD4000KS 400GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive a good deal so I bought two to make another RAID 1 array in my rig. I also couldn't pass up on the Samsung SH-S162L/BEBN DVD/CD burner with the light scribe feature. I wanted to see how that Light Scribe feature would work out.