Internal vs External Drives

Lord MJ · Post by **Lord MJ** » 2002-12-08 01:52pm

My hard drive recently failed, and I was wondering whether I should get an external drive rather than an internal one.

Can anyone with experience tell me the benefits/drawbacks of an external hard drive?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-12-08 02:28pm

Befints of external
Its mobile

Disadvnatages
Everything else

Slower, More expsenive, less capabilty, less relible

Post by **Dalton** » 2002-12-08 03:10pm

Go with internal if you're not planning to go anywhere with it. Less chance of it being damaged, and you can power it from the supply instead of using up another outlet.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2002-12-08 03:10pm

External drives are nothing more than an internal drive in some sort of chassis. If it's FireWire or USB2 based, it also has a bridge chip that'll slow it down.

Hyperion · Post by **Hyperion** » 2002-12-08 03:12pm

phongn wrote:External drives are nothing more than an internal drive in some sort of chassis. If it's FireWire or USB2 based, it also has a bridge chip that'll slow it down.

still bound to be one hell of a lot faster than the 10 mb/s prototype SCSI i have running as the OS drive in the #2 comp.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2002-12-08 06:50pm

External's are best used for situations where you need mobility or data back ups.

With an external you can back up your files then put the drive away in another place. ( This is good for a small business that does not have tape back ups and offsite data storage. )

Disadvantages are they expensive and slower compared to an internal drive of the same size.

Mainly they are meant to augment a compter's storage capability not replace it.