Hard drive - internal or external?

  • Thread starter Thread starter DC
  • Start date Start date
D

DC

"With the advent of external hard drive enclosures and the
ease of plug and play USB and Firewire connections, many
people are asking themselves if they should buy an internal
or external hard drive when it comes to adding more storage
or work space..."

Continued: http://easyurl.net/HardDrive
 
dennis meissner "contributed" in alt.computer:

of reasons to go with internal but it really escapes me right now.
Click to expand...


That's because you're stupid. Think again. Internal drive > IDE or SATA
interface or External drive > USB interface. Now think again once more.
Which drive would perform faster, eh? Think just one more time again now
before you come up with ****witted answers.
 
dennis meissner said:
That's a real good question.

Skill level of person installing this thing.. as you pointed out,
external drives are plug and play... if you can plug in a toaster you
can install an external drive.

an external drive can be easily moved from one platform or pc to
another. Nice for creating backup images of multiply systems.

Portability... easy to travel with... like taking with you to a
friends or relatives home and copying music or movies to it (like
anyone does that)
Guess I can't think of a compelling reason to go with an internal
drive unless one wanted everything in the pc itself. Maybe someone
else can think of reasons to go with internal but it really escapes
me right now.
Click to expand...

One obvious one is if you drop things much. Externals dont last very long if you drop them.
 
I like external HD, but they are a hassle when in mobile situation
like in a airplane. The other problem is that they require a
additional power source or battery. The prices & capacity of internal
HD's have fallen significantly in the past year so price is much less
of a issue.
 
That's because you're stupid. Think again. Internal drive > IDE or SATA
interface or External drive > USB interface. Now think again once more.
Which drive would perform faster, eh?
Click to expand...

eSATA is the winner. External, and same speed as internal SATA.

The only issue is that, before Win7, Windows does not support automatic hotplug detection on eSATA.

More so, some eSATA hardware is just the adapter plug in the chassis slot - piece of metal, socket and cable, internally connected to the usual SATA socket on the motherboard. With such a configuration, this is usual SATA for any software - Win7 included, so, no hotplug detection.

You will need to run Device Manager, disable the eSATA controller, connect and power up the disk and re-enable the controller manually. After this, the disk is detected and works fine without a reboot.

Unplugging the disk is a worse song. Disabling the controller in Device Manager will fail if there are any open files on any volumes on the disk, in which case Device Manager _just suggests you to reboot_.
 
|I like external HD, but they are a hassle when in mobile situation
| like in a airplane. The other problem is that they require a
| additional power source or battery.

Not necessarily. I have a 500 GB Buffalo model that runs off USB power.
 
|I like external HD, but they are a hassle when in mobile situation
| like in a airplane. The other problem is that they require a
| additional power source or battery.

Not necessarily. I have a 500 GB Buffalo model that runs off USB power.
Click to expand...

Yes it's true you can run it off USB Power. The problem however is
that your battery life will be limited. Perhaps when the fuel cells
this will change things.
 
Eg.. If you wanted a 1TB internal SATA drive wouldn't this be cheaper
than a 1TB eSATA drive?
Click to expand...

By enclosure cost only, and it is cheap. The drive inside the enclosure is the same usual SATA.
 
The last time I looked, 3.5" SATA dekstop drives were cheaper
than their laptop counterparts, byte-for-byte. That's the point: Use
a desktop drive for external laptop storage.
Click to expand...

If size, weight and the need in an extra power supply are OK - then yes.

External enclosures with laptop-size drives are usually fed off USB and do not require extra PSU.
 
| On Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:28:46 -0800, "Timothy Daniels"
|
| >"John" wrote:
| >> I believe internal drives are cheaper for the same type of drives.
| >> Eg.. If you wanted a 1TB internal SATA drive wouldn't this be cheaper
| >> than a 1TB eSATA drive?
| >
| > The last time I looked, 3.5" SATA dekstop drives were cheaper
| >than their laptop counterparts, byte-for-byte. That's the point: Use
| >a desktop drive for external laptop storage.
| >
| >*TimDaniels*
|
| I wouldn't mind having a small notebook to take with me wherever. I'd
| only want one that was quite small though with a screen size between
| something like 8 to 11 inches max. I think I'd only use it as a
| synchronised mobile offspring to my main tower system though. With a
| notebook I'd just want that one thing for when I'm using it for its
| purpose of being mobile and "out and about" not to have to lug around
| a bunch of peripherals for it as well.
|
| John
|
You mean like this:
http://www.jr.com/acer-computer/pe/ACE_AOA1501447/
 
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