- Apr 19, 2013
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Hi all,
Kind of an off-the-wall question. I've been accumulating new gear for a household network. Through a comedy/tragedy of errors I have way more storage than I need. One component is a new Seagate Backup Plus 3TB external drive. Another component is an HTPC with a 1TB WD Green drive (and a 60GB SSD for the operating system). I'll need to reinstall all the software on the HTPC and there isn't anything on the Seagate. Either drive would hold everything we plan to transfer from our computer hard drives but the 1TB would be better than half full with more to come as the movie collection expands.
My question is whether it is faster/better/wise to pull the external drive from the case and use it to replace the WD in the HTPC or just plug it in when the first drive needs help? The Backup Plus has USB 3.0 and so does the HTPC (both the motherboard and auxiliary ports). I don't need the 1TB drive immediately but might come up with something later -- maybe as a RAID component in my main home desktop or at work.
I understand the guts are the same as the internal device Seagate sells but don't know if the transfer speeds are different when wired internally. The power supply in the HTPC is pretty beefy. Increasing the HD in the HTPC would also mean one less device and wall wart off the TV console. I confess I don't know how a wired external drive works as far as managing the data and finding specific files, movies, music or anything else. At any rate, the time to decide all this is before I start loading the HTPC up with data.
Thanks for looking and for your interest, sh
FWIW I also have a 2TB Qnap NAS that could get dusty.
Kind of an off-the-wall question. I've been accumulating new gear for a household network. Through a comedy/tragedy of errors I have way more storage than I need. One component is a new Seagate Backup Plus 3TB external drive. Another component is an HTPC with a 1TB WD Green drive (and a 60GB SSD for the operating system). I'll need to reinstall all the software on the HTPC and there isn't anything on the Seagate. Either drive would hold everything we plan to transfer from our computer hard drives but the 1TB would be better than half full with more to come as the movie collection expands.
My question is whether it is faster/better/wise to pull the external drive from the case and use it to replace the WD in the HTPC or just plug it in when the first drive needs help? The Backup Plus has USB 3.0 and so does the HTPC (both the motherboard and auxiliary ports). I don't need the 1TB drive immediately but might come up with something later -- maybe as a RAID component in my main home desktop or at work.
I understand the guts are the same as the internal device Seagate sells but don't know if the transfer speeds are different when wired internally. The power supply in the HTPC is pretty beefy. Increasing the HD in the HTPC would also mean one less device and wall wart off the TV console. I confess I don't know how a wired external drive works as far as managing the data and finding specific files, movies, music or anything else. At any rate, the time to decide all this is before I start loading the HTPC up with data.
Thanks for looking and for your interest, sh
FWIW I also have a 2TB Qnap NAS that could get dusty.
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