quick external hard drive quesiton

[geepondy]

What is limiting the speed factor, the USB2 interface or the properties of the hard drive itself? I'm thinking of getting a nice external hard drive to move from pc to pc as needed but wondered if I would take much of a performance hit over an internal one.

 

[Peter]

The USB interface, definitely. The ceiling there is below 30 MB/s, way slower than even the worst of today's hard disks - as a rough estimate, on USB, your average drive would be half as fast as it could be.

 

[corkyg]

And, if you have a bonafide eSATA port, cable and eSATA external drive, that transfer rate can be up to 5 times faster than USB 2.

 

[Old Hippie]

Recipe for rollin' your own external drive;

1.) Buy a nice SATA HD. You can have any size or flavor you want.

2.) Buy a nice external case. They come in all flavors..USB, e-SATA, Firewire 400 & 800, fans or convection cooling, and there's combo packs too. If you're mainly working with Windozs based machines, you might as well get a USB/eSATA output combo. This Antec MX-1 is a major class act.

3.) Install nice new SATA HDD into case.

4.) Feel good knowing you have a safe place to put your back-ups.