Comments for Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

Comment from Nob on 2009-03-01

2009-03-02T00:33:16Z

I had similar problem than Ronny with an USB flash and may be it can be solved same way. The 2GB drive could copy only 400 MB of FILES in the drive and to further use it i needed to do it within a FOLDER in which the remaining capacity can be utilized.

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A comment on: Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

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Comment from John Neeting on 2009-02-11

2009-02-12T04:55:35Z

My PC is an old 700mh running winXT. I have 12 drives configured as follows 2 internal, 4 drives off a plug in IDE expansion card - 2 primary,2 secondary buses which self configure and check at start up [ all run by a separate external PS ] and 6 usb drives from 2 usb2 ports to 2x4 port usb expansion boxes all PAP.
Speed for transfer e is not much of a problem since I have a mirror back up of everything [ data - programs ] I use Memeo-Auto sync to run in the back ground and take all the time it likes since it only copies something when I change a file on another drive. If a drive ever fails, Memeo copies it all back to the replaced drive, and I don't really care if it takes a few days to do it [ or over night ]. If I don't want Memeo to copy in the background, I just turn it off and do a normal copy - this too I can iconiz and carry on with other things. Because I turn off disk monitor, I never get a disk full sign. One thing to remember when using USB drives, if the drive hick-ups or suddenly stops for what ever reason, WinXP can stop too and leave you wondering whats happened while the system freezes. If this happens, unplug the USB drives first and if this is the problem, Windows will suddenly un-freeze [ and drop the drive letter in My computer ]. Western Digital tools and my book allows for PAP and pulling the cork WITHOUT stopping the drive normally [ Thank you WD :) ]

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A comment on: Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

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Comment from Corneliu Coterbic on 2009-02-10

2009-02-10T18:30:02Z

I have a 5oo GB Seagate external drive with all 3 interfaces, USB, FireWire 400 and eSATA. On USB I get 40 MBytes/sec transfer rate who seams to me OK.
My motherboard has an eSATA conection but it was very dificult for me to get a cable for it.

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A comment on: Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

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Comment from LJ on 2009-02-10

2009-02-10T17:59:43Z

For me, having an external jumbo hard drive was a blessing!I no longer need a jumbo hard drive for my OS since I use only 1 and do not partition. It just simplifies everything since I can "dump off" any "storable" information onto the external HD. This is what works best in MY situation and may not suite everyone's' needs or "tastes".

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A comment on: Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

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Comment from Robert on 2009-02-10

2009-02-10T17:40:51Z

Also consider an external SATA drive (eSATA). These drives have similar performance to internal hard drives. There are eSATA drive bays that install directly into the computer that allow the swapping of drives but removing the problem of an extra box and cables. Here is an overview article on eSATA:

http://compreviews.about.com/od/storage/a/eSATA.htm

List of speeds for various interfaces from the article:

USB 1.1 – 15 Mbps
FireWire (1394a) – 400 Mbps
USB 2.0 – 480 Mbps
FireWire 800 (1394b) – 800 Mpbs
SATA 1.5 – 1.5 Gbps
SATA 3.0 – 3.0 Gbps

Older computers will require a SATA PCI card (and probably best use a USB or FireWire drive), but all newer computers have SATA native on the motherboard.

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A comment on: Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

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Comment from Banyarola on 2009-02-10

2009-02-10T17:14:04Z

I have a second hard drive in my system and use it to make my Acronis true image Images every day.True Image also has this "clone" feature that allows you to make a duplicate of your main C drive so you actually have two C drives in your system and if your main drive fails all you have to do is switch drives and the cloned drive becomes the main C drive and you're back up and running in minutes.

http://www.domdedomdom.com/

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A comment on: Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

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Comment from Chris A on 2009-02-08

2009-02-08T16:39:24Z

Hey Ronny, is there any chance that your external is formatted in FAT32 and not NTFS? FAT32 will let you only transfer a maximum of 4GB at a time. You could always reformat the drive to NTFS and transfer any size file (well not any size, but you wont hit a max any time soon..) :)

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A comment on: Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

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Comment from Seeker on 2009-02-07

2009-02-07T15:19:05Z

There is another option that brings the two solutions together.
There is a case much similar in size to a DVD-R drive. You place it in one of the slots in your PC that are for placing DVD-R drives, screw it in place and connect the Drive cables to it.
The case has a drawer that can be locked in place when used, that comes out. All you have to do is place a regular internal hard drive in it, screw it in-place and slide the drawer back in. This allows changing disks simply, as often as you like and without having to open the case each time. The disk in the case is treated like an internal one, and is in fact connected as one in any important aspect.
However you still have to open the case and place hardware once. The flexibility however is great enough to make me think that the money paid to a technician to install the case that one time if you can't do it worth while.

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A comment on: Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

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Comment from Rahul Mehta on 2009-02-06

2009-02-07T01:08:53Z

The purpose for increasing the capacity plays a major role in making this decision.

One advantage of an external drive is portability. If you are storing media files - pictures, music, video, you can take it along and connect to any computer to have these available there. Performance here is not of question as the media programs use buffering for replay.

For backups, the same advantage comes in to play if your main computer crashes. Your data is safely portable.

If your use will be to access the stored files frequently, internal drive has the advantage. Even in this case I would suggest is an external drive. With a little reorganization moving older less accessed files to the external drive.

My own strategy was to change the internal drive to a larger drive, go through fresh re-installation of the system and converting the older internal drive to an external drive for extra storage. I now have extra storage with better performance for my frequently used files on the PC and portable space for my backup files.

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A comment on: Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Ronny on 2009-02-06

2009-02-06T21:58:54Z

Another drawback (perhaps) to an external USB drive is you cannot copy very large files to them. On my system, I have a 160 GB external drive that is almost empty. I can copy 5GB one hour Tivo files to it but a two hour movie is 10GB+ and cannot be copied to the USB drive. Windows immediately responds with a drive full message in spite of there being plenty of space.

This may not be a USB drive issue. I do have reports, and have experienced myself, Windows choking on copying large files sometimes. You might try alternate ways of copying the file (Windows Explorer, or Copy or XCopy in the Windows Command Shell). I don't have a "this will fix it" for this secenario, but trying other approaches often helps.

- Leo
07-Feb-2009

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A comment on: Should I get an additional internal or external hard drive?

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