external or internal HD

S

scott42

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Blue MP3 #1169; '06 Subaru B9 Tribeca
looking to add some storage space. any recs on HD's? I'm thinking USB would be easiest, but would an internal be really hard to install, and I'm figuring cheaper? I can't imagine it would be too tough, but wonder; and you guys are always very very helpful. :)
What do you tink?
 
Internal is cheaper and recommended unless you have an application that need to transfer large amounts of data for.

Moose
 
well i just got a seagate 120gb barracudda internal drive for 129 USD from compusa. . . .. BUT. . .there is a 70 dollar rebate going on it righyt now so that is awesome


and i have a couple usb 2.0 external enclosures taht you can pick up for around 30 bux if you really want it to be external. . .

i think tha'ts where im going to put mine...also it is cheaper if you want external to buy an internal drive and just buy an exernal enclosure from what ive seen
 
oh yea. . .this HDD is also one of the few drives taht are left that still carry 3 year warrantee's as most of them today only have 1 year now unless you go to the manufacturer's top models
 
traitorhound: I just checked out that 120gb baracuda and for $60 looks like a great deal. my question is, what's the liklihood it will work with my computer which is probably around 3-4 yrs old. is the ATA/100 a new type of connection that higher end cpus have? As mine is not by any means higher end (128m [now 256], 366 celeron, PIII-brand is DirectWeb(?) got it for free from a friend)
 
ATA 100 just means that if you have a newer motherboard that supports ATA 100 then it will be used (now ATA 133 and SATA has already surpassed ATA 100/66/33) but the higher end models are all backwards compatible with older stuff. thus if you have ATA/66 then the drive would just function as a ATA 66 drive if it were mounted internally..... if used with an external enclosure than it wouldn't matter as the USB bus would be the one directing data flow. . . .with that a usb 2.0 card would be better since the bandwidth is much more thatn usb 1.0/1.2 . That is like a night and day difference between the two. with external enclosure they are also hot swappable so you can just plug and unplug whenever you want

EDIT: my comp is 2 years "old"
athlon xp1700 with 512 ddr and i just wanted to get more room since a dvd burner is on my next agenda for computer upgrades

also i don't htink your comp is that old that it wont even recognize drives that large as this was a problem with some older hardware a couple years ago that the motherboard couldn't not see more than 32 gigs even if the drive was a lot bigger than that
 
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ok, thanks, I need to read that a couple times slowly, and maybe I'll get what you're saying (I'm still learning); which I think is, I should be fine.
:)
Thanks again.
 
Last edited:
scott42 said:
looking to add some storage space. any recs on HD's? I'm thinking USB would be easiest, but would an internal be really hard to install, and I'm figuring cheaper? I can't imagine it would be too tough, but wonder; and you guys are always very very helpful. :)
What do you tink?
Click to expand...


Externals are way to slow and expensive. If all you want is storage space for backups, then externals are ok.

But if you want to store stuff that you will frequently access, then get an internal drive. Ask a friend to install it, or search on google for a how-to on installing it. It's actually fairly simple to do.
 
Re: Re: external or internal HD

LOS-323 said:
Externals are way to slow and expensive. If all you want is storage space for backups, then externals are ok.

But if you want to store stuff that you will frequently access, then get an internal drive. Ask a friend to install it, or search on google for a how-to on installing it. It's actually fairly simple to do.
Click to expand...

externals aren't too slow nowadays with the advent of usb2.0 and firewire. . they aren't as bandwidth limited as before and their performance is almost up to par as the internal drives. . sure it's slower but not enough to offset the new mobility an external drive can give. . . .well that's just my take. . ..i like internal better
 
Re: Re: Re: external or internal HD

traitorhound said:
externals aren't too slow nowadays with the advent of usb2.0 and firewire. . they aren't as bandwidth limited as before and their performance is almost up to par as the internal drives. . sure it's slower but not enough to offset the new mobility an external drive can give. . . .well that's just my take. . ..i like internal better
Click to expand...


I have two drives RAID, so USB 2 seems slow to me. But I also like internal better. Unless you really need the mobility, externals are not really worth it.
 
Re: Re: Re: external or internal HD

traitorhound said:
externals aren't too slow nowadays with the advent of usb2.0 and firewire. . they aren't as bandwidth limited as before and their performance is almost up to par as the internal drives. . sure it's slower but not enough to offset the new mobility an external drive can give. . . .well that's just my take. . ..i like internal better
Click to expand...

Traitor your coming to my place when i'm buying a new Internal HD for my computer so you can help me or w/e =)
 
removable drives are no good for installing programs. if you just want to store mp3s and illegal movies and software you'll be fine with external, but unless you need the mobility get internal. using external drives without moving them is totally hack.

and dont confuse yourself with ATA 133 and sata and all that crap... ata 100 is fine and will only limit burst speeds which dont really matter.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: external or internal HD

LOS-323 said:
I have two drives RAID, so USB 2 seems slow to me. But I also like internal better. Unless you really need the mobility, externals are not really worth it.
Click to expand...

i used to have a raid 0 array with 2 barracudda 40 gigers. . .fast and silent. . . .awesome combo. . but i had to give that up when i built a carputer so ive been lacking storage until now. . man at 70 bux for a 120 gb drive is pretty bad ass
 
ok, I installed the 120gb internal drive that traitorhound reccomended...great price for what you get...
Anyway, i've got it all set up as the primary slave, but I'd like to have it run as the master (since the master now is old, and only 10mb and I'm sure a slow rpm; and supposedly the HDD is a bottleneck in system speed)...problem is, I just can't get it over...I copied all the files over, and followed the instructions provided, but just can't get it to boot off of the new drive...it locks up during boot process..I've tried the jumpers in different positions and changing the properties in the cmos setup...just can't get it.

I switched it back to have the original drive be the master, but it just seems like a waste to have your cpu running off a crappy 10gb HDD when you have a nice new 120gb 7200 rpm sitting in there.

oh yeah, thanks for all of your help fellas. :)

Final price after rebates come in on the drive $59.99
 
sorry, forgot to elaborate. I'm following the copy and formatting instructions that the drive provided on changing the new drive to be the primary master. Im not just copying files over and expecting it to work :)
 
there shouldn't be a problem if you are using the seagate software. . .but whtat im doin is doing a full back as of right now still and then doing a clean format on my "old" 40 gig seagate 7200rpm drive. . im just using this 120 for storage
 
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