External Hard-drives

[Diabetic]

How reliable are they when it comes to general use? I was considering buying an 80gb external Maxtor one. Then i'm gonna format my current HD and use that for Windows, programs, work and documents and the external for all my games. Would that work out ok or are they unreliable?

 

[Trotter]

I'd put my documents and files on the external, prograsm and games on the internal.

Why noy just buy another internal? It would cheaper that way. Even if you had to buy a bigger case it would still probably cost about the same.

 

[Diabetic]

I'm just thinking external for the ease of install and use (and of course the mobility). Would there be any disadvantage to running games off of the external?

 

[Trotter]

Speed, or the lack thereof.

That's why externals are best for files and media.

 

[Diabetic]

Ahhh right, with them running through USB I thought they may be a bit slower than the norm. Internal it is then, sadly that means 'a fiddling.

 

[TMT]

Get a Firewire 800 drive and you should be fine. But, nothing would beat an internal drive, especially a SATA or SCSI drive.

TMT.

 

[genxingcapsule]

all of u people are talking without Practical Experiene.. Dear diabatic what i can say about the speed of an external hdd is that using 40 gb seagate hddd (3.5") externally it has transfer rate of 28 MB/s it is practicaly (megabytes/second) and using it through 80 conducter UDMA 5 mode gives me a maximum of 24 MB/s so i think if u are using it for externally for games it would be "even" better then using it through UDMA 5 cable ...(ie internally) .. so far reliability is concerned though i have not used it for games but i use it for watching movies and storing and installing diferent softwares.. so far if u use it "properly" u wont go into troubles .... i am saying this because i have nto got into trouble with using my internal harddrive externally ... i am using seagate 40 gb hdd through Cliptec Ide to USB adapter.

 

[TheGr8schlotzky]

you know what? you can go on something like newegg and get a nice, cheap internal harddrive, then get an external case for it, making it just like an external, but for alot cheaper..

 

[Shannon]

I think that for normal use, installing things, etc. internals are best. Cheaper, faster, and takes up less desk space. Not to say that it isn't good to have an external around for lots of helpful uses, like mobility and backups.

I have used those external enclosures as well and they work perfectly for things like backups and transferring lots of files.

 

[CBH]

80gb external Maxtor one.

I have one and it works great for what I need it to do. I use it for a lot of media, saving docs etc and also playing games.

So far it has been working on 3 different systems without one problem.