performance of external hard drive

AdidasROXX

Member
Mar 13, 2003
158
0
0
I'm thinking of purchasing an firewire/USB2 external hard drive (or enclosure + drive) to use as the scratch disk for some of the programs I use (ie. photoshop, illustrator, premiere, audtion, etc.). I know data storage is fine like if I work on my HD then move to the external drive. But how about writing directly to the external drive while working away? There's probably an obvious effect on performance, but is it low enough to deter away from this idea? I intend to get a notebook with a small hard drive and purchase an external drive to use. I do not wish to purchase a big and faster notebook HD as I know it will contribute to heat and battery life. But if the difference in performance is too great, then I will have to give in with the bigger internal drive.

Anybody help?
 

Kadarin

Lifer
Nov 23, 2001
44,296
16
81
I have a 250GB external firewire drive, and I don't think it's that bad at all.
 

0roo0roo

No Lifer
Sep 21, 2002
64,795
84
91
its probably faster then your laptop hd. there is a difference between desktop and usb2.0, but its not that big.
 

AdidasROXX

Member
Mar 13, 2003
158
0
0
thanks for the comments..anybody else? I'm just worried an external hard drive as a scratch disk will hinder performance like rendering
 

Todd33

Diamond Member
Oct 16, 2003
7,842
2
81
I love my external Firewire drive. Easy to install and plug and play.
 

LethalWolfe

Diamond Member
Apr 14, 2001
3,679
0
0
If you want an external HDD go Firewire. USB 2.0 in real world use is slower due to it's significantly higher overhead.


Lethal
 

Boobers

Senior member
Jun 28, 2001
799
0
0
I have a WD 80G 7200 2MB external HD ($80 AMR), and I think it's extremely fast (running off a USB 2.0 port).

I would not hesitate to recommend it. I love it's performance.

Sandra File System Benchmark shows it's speed at 19827 kB/s.

This is slightly faster than a standard notebook HD (2.5" 80 GB ATA100 4200 8MB), which scores 18139 kB/s...