External hard drive question

[Legolas]

I've got a dell dimension 4600 and I need more space. I figure I need an external hard drive but I need to know how easy it is to use.

I have a lot of movies on my computer but I dont want to burn them. Can i put my stuff on the external hard drive or can you only store data files? Also, can I watch my movies directly from the external hard drive or would I have to move the file from the external to internal hard drive in order to use them/watch them?

 

[JonathonWally]

I've got a dell dimension 4600 and I need more space. I figure I need an external hard drive but I need to know how easy it is to use.

I have a lot of movies on my computer but I dont want to burn them. Can i put my stuff on the external hard drive or can you only store data files? Also, can I watch my movies directly from the external hard drive or would I have to move the file from the external to internal hard drive in order to use them/watch them?

It's the same as having a normal harddrive when it comes to what you can store on it.

USB2 is fast enough to watch movies off. But you should know that transferring files will be slower because it's usb and it's limited. unless you go with eSata.

 

[Trekker4747]

They're easy to use but I usually reccomend getting an internal harddrive and putting it in an external/moveable casing. External harddrives tend to be.... "unreliable" for some reason in my experience so I think you're better off paying a little more to get a good internal harddrive and then an external casing which allows you to connect to your computer thru USB/Firewire/Serial/LPT/whatever.

 

[the Dagman]

Movies on hard drives ARE data files. You can use an external drive very easily and yes, you can play movies directly from the drive(s). I do this on my Mac all the time. Data is data. And as long as the drive is formatted for the OS you are using, an external hard drive works the same as an internal one except in cases of using it as a startup drive.

 

[Captain Intrepid]

In order of goodness, interfaces go from worst to best, USB, USB 2, FireWire 400, Firewire 800, eSATA.

 

[Legolas]

Excellent replies guys, thanks.

Trekker I've never heard of a hard drive thats both internal and external. I'll look into that. I definately don't want to lose anything I put on the thing so I want it to be as stable as the hard drive on my computer. I'm looking on dell's website now. Any suggestions?

 

[Kryton]

I disagree with Trekker on that point. I've been much MUCH more successful with the enclosed externals than the ones you can drop a regular internal drive into (and I have the same number of both, oddly enough). I've had more failures with the internal drives this past year than the standalone externals, personally.

But that's anecdotal. YMMV.

 

[Legolas]

When you say failure do you mean you lose all your stuff on that drive?

 

[Kryton]

Almost. Some drives (whether external OR internal) give you that "clicking" hint that they're losing their minds. If you're smart you take the drive and put it in your freezer before trying to recover it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But the beauty of modern HD memory is that it has become CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP...there's no reason to buy ONE 500GB drive (for example--around $80 or $90) without buying a second redundant drive as a mirrored backup.

Which now I've done and I have little fear of losing a damn thing anytime soon because if one drive fails, the redundant drive is the lifesaver. Oh, and then go out and BUY a replacement drive to make IT the redundant one right away.

The best part of the external (for me) has been the portability. I've moved drives and info back and forth between laptop and desktop and, for that matter, I personally backed up an HD at work (which I probably wasn't legally entitled to do) which saved our ass when the original drive up and failed a couple weeks back.

External brands I've had success with: The Western Digital MyBook drives, LaCie brand drives. Failures in external enclosures have been WD, Maxtors, and Seagates in the past year (some of those drives were significantly older, so I can't say with any amount of certainty whether or not using them as externals had any impact on their lifetimes).

 

[Amaris]

I'm getting ready to buy an external drive, because my Mac has a 160GB drive and I have half a terabyte of data I wish to store on it. I'm purchasing an already assembled external because of the price. I can buy an external case for $25 (at least, one worth using), and a 500GB HD for $79, or just buy a WD MyBook 500GB drive for $89.

J.

 

[Kryton]

John: I really would recommend going with the MyBooks for that task. Most of my previous internal/external conversion packages were cheap pieces of crap. The MyBooks and the LaCie I reference above are entirely self-contained and both have smaller power supplies than the 5 previous kits.

They are realizing that their market has really opened up since USB2.0 and Firewire (RIP) came along. Good luck, SATA!

 

[Amaris]

John: I really would recommend going with the MyBooks for that task. Most of my previous internal/external conversion packages were cheap pieces of crap. The MyBooks and the LaCie I reference above are entirely self-contained and both have smaller power supplies than the 5 previous kits.

They are realizing that their market has really opened up since USB2.0 and Firewire (RIP) came along. Good luck, SATA!

Yep, that's what I'll be doing. The MyBooks are reasonably priced, and from what I've read are whisper quiet and highly reliable.

J.

 

[Kryton]

I have two sitting about 8 inches from me and I don't hear a thing from them...another halfway across the room.

Unless you have critical stuff requiring encryption or something, get the dressed-down cheap version(s).

I don't know about the MAC filesystem, but the first thing I tell someone getting a MyBook for their Windows computer is: CONVERT IT TO NTFS FIRST! They come formatted for FAT32 (highly inefficient) but there is pre-loaded software to help with that stuff on the drive.

 

[Amaris]

I have two sitting about 8 inches from me and I don't hear a thing from them...another halfway across the room.

Unless you have critical stuff requiring encryption or something, get the dressed-down cheap version(s).

I don't know about the MAC filesystem, but the first thing I tell someone getting a MyBook for their Windows computer is: CONVERT IT TO NTFS FIRST! They come formatted for FAT32 (highly inefficient) but there is pre-loaded software to help with that stuff on the drive.

For Mac, I would want it to be FAT32, as Macs have trouble reading NTFS formatted drives. Now, I'd convert it either way, but it would be much easier and faster if it was already FAT32. I think I will be getting the $89 MyBook 500GB, unless there's a better deal somewhere else.

J.

 

[Kryton]

God, I wish I could remember...I saw a good deal SOMEwhere the other day (I want to say buy.com) with a TERRAbyte MyBook drive for about the same after rebate.

Might check into it. Why buy one when you can get two at twice the price?

 

[the Dagman]

I saw a 1TB USB2/FireWire external Maxtor "one-touch" at Fry's earlier this week for about $120. (the best price I have seen for an ext. drive of that size for about a year) It was listed over at the www.dealnews.com site. A great resource that is always looking for the best deals that is updated several times a day.

 

[Amaris]

God, I wish I could remember...I saw a good deal SOMEwhere the other day (I want to say buy.com) with a TERRAbyte MyBook drive for about the same after rebate.

Might check into it. Why buy one when you can get two at twice the price?

It's okay. I went ahead and ordered the Firewire800 external 500GB for $75. Alabaster white with silver accents, and matches the iMac perfectly.

J.

 

[Kryton]

Oooh...my laptop has firewire but I don't have anything plugged into it at the moment.

Now I'M tempted to see what they've got in the 1TB range.

 

[Jadzia]

Lego,

Internal and external drives are the exact same thing. The external ones have the drive fitted into a case, and have a power adapter and some kind of interface adapter so that it plugs into a USB socket rather than directly onto the IDE bus.

There is no real benefit to an external drive unless you want to be moving it around from machine to machine, or only want to have it plugged in some of the time.


If you want, you can custom make an external drive:

q1. How much are you prepared to spend?
q2. What kind of disk size do you want? (200GB? 1TB?)
q3. What interfaces does your computer have, that you can use, or want to use? USB1, USB2, Firewire, esata?
q4. What kind of bandwidth do you want? (Is 1MB/second enough? Is 100MB/second more realistic?)
q5. What kind of physical size do you want? a standard 3.5 inch drive or a small 2.5 inch drive?

Depending on your choices, select a suitable drive.

Then select an external HDD enclosure which fits BOTH the drive's connector and the interface you want to connect it to the computer.

The HDD enclosures retail at about £30 in the UK.

 

[JoeZhang]

If you have data, you absolutely must keep - I recommend paying for off-site back-up as well. an external drive is great until the house burns down or someone breaks in and steals it. Costs vary but about $40 a year will ensure you have both belt and braces.