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SEALTeamSix
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2003
- Messages
- 2,434
Hey folks,
I'd like to talk about something that some of us
have considered at one point or another - storing your data on an external
hard drive. There are several pros, the most important of which being data
portability/share-ability, and also much-increased storage capacity for
laptop users. I myself am tempted by the idea of dropping a 250GB drive
into an external enclosure and being able to easily share my data between my
laptop, desktop, and all my friends. Before diving into an external setup,
there are a few things to consider:
External Vs. Internal:
How well do external drives perform compared to internal drives? Does
ATA-133 give internal drives a signficant advantage?
USB 2.0 has a maximum transfer speed of 60 MB/s, and that of Firewire is 50
MB/s. At first glance, 50-60 MB/sec interface appears to be a severe
bottleneck; however, under many usage conditions, even modern drives will
not be able to push out more than 60MB/sec. For instance, here are some
speed specs for a 200GB DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA drive:
As you can see, none of these speeds touches the 60 MB/s theoretical speed
of USB 2.0, and only starts to tax the 50 MB/s limit of Firewire. While you
might not be able to acheive the full theoretical rate of Firewire, it
appears the performance will be somewhere between 5 and 20% slower compared
to an IDE drive.
Interface:
While the HD will still spin as fast, the interfaces available to those
seeking an external HD solution are USB 2.0 and Firewire. Here is a quick
breakdown of each:
As you can see, the architectural differences between these interfaces plays
an important role in performance. In this and other tests, Firewire
out-performs USB 2.0, due to the more efficient control of data flow across
the bus. For external hard drives, Firewire is clearly superior to USB.
However, for devices like CD/DVD-RW drives that don't need a blazing-fast
interface, the difference between two is almost negligible.
Conclusion:
External drives are not for everyone. They cannot be RAIDed, they cost more
than an internal drive, they will perform somewhere between 5-20% slower at
most tasks, and on motherboards that can't boot from USB you still have to
have a system drive installed. However, there are also some obvious
benefits to an external drive. When considering an external drive, the
fastest and least system-intensive interface is Firewire, though USB 2.0 is
by far the more common interface. The best solution would be a USB
2.0/Firewire combo drive, which would give the user the availability of USB
2.0 with the option of the speedier Firewire.
As with everything, with added functionality comes added cost. The most
cost-effective way to get an external drive is to buy the enclosure and the
drive separately and then put them together. Given that there are some
crazy-cheap deals on 3.5-inch hard drives nowadays, this tactic makes great
sense. Pair it with a combo enclosure found at NewEgg for $35 shipped, and
you're good to go. If your mobo doesn't have Firewire support, a PCI card
will run you another $7-8 shipped, but it will be money well-spent.
-SEAL
I'd like to talk about something that some of us
have considered at one point or another - storing your data on an external
hard drive. There are several pros, the most important of which being data
portability/share-ability, and also much-increased storage capacity for
laptop users. I myself am tempted by the idea of dropping a 250GB drive
into an external enclosure and being able to easily share my data between my
laptop, desktop, and all my friends. Before diving into an external setup,
there are a few things to consider:
External Vs. Internal:
How well do external drives perform compared to internal drives? Does
ATA-133 give internal drives a signficant advantage?
USB 2.0 has a maximum transfer speed of 60 MB/s, and that of Firewire is 50
MB/s. At first glance, 50-60 MB/sec interface appears to be a severe
bottleneck; however, under many usage conditions, even modern drives will
not be able to push out more than 60MB/sec. For instance, here are some
speed specs for a 200GB DiamondMax Plus 9 SATA drive:
http://www.thetechlounge.com/review.php?REVIEWDIR=maxtor_200_7200 said:
As you can see, none of these speeds touches the 60 MB/s theoretical speed
of USB 2.0, and only starts to tax the 50 MB/s limit of Firewire. While you
might not be able to acheive the full theoretical rate of Firewire, it
appears the performance will be somewhere between 5 and 20% slower compared
to an IDE drive.
Interface:
While the HD will still spin as fast, the interfaces available to those
seeking an external HD solution are USB 2.0 and Firewire. Here is a quick
breakdown of each:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/usb20vsfirewire said:
As you can see, the architectural differences between these interfaces plays
an important role in performance. In this and other tests, Firewire
out-performs USB 2.0, due to the more efficient control of data flow across
the bus. For external hard drives, Firewire is clearly superior to USB.
However, for devices like CD/DVD-RW drives that don't need a blazing-fast
interface, the difference between two is almost negligible.
Conclusion:
External drives are not for everyone. They cannot be RAIDed, they cost more
than an internal drive, they will perform somewhere between 5-20% slower at
most tasks, and on motherboards that can't boot from USB you still have to
have a system drive installed. However, there are also some obvious
benefits to an external drive. When considering an external drive, the
fastest and least system-intensive interface is Firewire, though USB 2.0 is
by far the more common interface. The best solution would be a USB
2.0/Firewire combo drive, which would give the user the availability of USB
2.0 with the option of the speedier Firewire.
As with everything, with added functionality comes added cost. The most
cost-effective way to get an external drive is to buy the enclosure and the
drive separately and then put them together. Given that there are some
crazy-cheap deals on 3.5-inch hard drives nowadays, this tactic makes great
sense. Pair it with a combo enclosure found at NewEgg for $35 shipped, and
you're good to go. If your mobo doesn't have Firewire support, a PCI card
will run you another $7-8 shipped, but it will be money well-spent.
-SEAL
