External HDD, some Q's!?

[AMDXP]

Hi, I dont have room for a 3rd HD so I was thinking of an external firewire/2.0 usb one with a 7200RPM 8mb Cache drive (250GB), I will store music,games,documents and misc files on there.

I really would like to know how they work like would the bios detect a 3rd Harddrive or what?

Will it act like a noraml hardrive? Can I move it around from computer to computer ?

Thank you,

AMDXPCottonFire22

 

[BoyBlunder]

Hi, I dont have room for a 3rd HD so I was thinking of an external firewire/2.0 usb one with a 7200RPM 8mb Cache drive (250GB), I will store music,games,documents and misc files on there.

I really would like to know how they work like would the bios detect a 3rd Harddrive or what?

Will it act like a noraml hardrive? Can I move it around from computer to computer ?

Thank you,

AMDXPCottonFire22

If it's Firewire/USB2 it would be plug and play. Like a USB thumbdrive. Except a lot bigger.

Most of the time it'll need an AC adapter so if you move it from PC to PC, you'll need a spare plug somewhere.

What I do with my external is share it on the network that way all computers on my network can access it

 

[mystblade]

It will act like a normal drive but slower than an internal drive. I would just use it for storage and not for games or anything like that. It would be slow, unless you got alot of ram so that it can load the game into the ram and not access the HD during the game, otherwise you will get major slowdowns

 

[AMDXP]

i have 1 gb of ram

 

[Doc Holiday]

It will act like a normal drive but slower than an internal drive. I would just use it for storage and not for games or anything like that. It would be slow, unless you got alot of ram so that it can load the game into the ram and not access the HD during the game, otherwise you will get major slowdowns

There not that much slower then an internal HDD. If you use Firewire 800 there isn't a difference. Just remember that USB2 is slower then Firewire400. I know that USB2 is rated at 480Mbps and Firewire at 400, but Firewire has less overhead and can move data better.

 

[AMDXP]

alrighit 480 mbs per sec seems fast anyway.

 

[Lazn_Work]

alrighit 480 mbs per sec seems fast anyway.

480 Mbps is not 480 MBps (small b vs Big B)

in fact 400 Mbps firewire is faster than 480 Mbps USB2.

USB2 = 480 Mbps = 60 MBps (slower than IDE - ATA66, much less ATA133 or SATA 150)

Firewire = 400 Mbps = 50 MBps, even slower (in theory) than USB2

In practice USB2 has more overhead (to support different types of devices) that a Firewire drive will be faster than a USB2 drive.

==>Lazn

 

[AMDXP]

whats a normal internal hd do?

 

[Lazn_Work]

whats a normal internal hd do?

depends on the drive, they will all have their specs available on the MFG's website.

==>Lazn

 

[cv643d]

Is there external harddrives that you can connect directly to you router?!

 

[Lazn_Work]

Is there external harddrives that you can connect directly to you router?!

For what purpose?

Do you mean a little home router with a build in switch? if so you are looking for NAS (network attached storage) and yes there are such things example: http://www.outpost.com/product/3767426

If you mean a drive that a high end router can access directly, I have not heard of such a thing.. Most routers don't have hard drive interfaces... Serial (V.32 or V.35) ethernet, or with internal CSU's you can have T1, DS3 etc. interfaces but no hard drive interfaces.

==>Lazn

 

[cv643d]

I have seen an external harddrive with built in wireless network card. But I would prefer 100mb ethernet instead.