Buying New Hard Drive. External or Internal SATA Connector on MOBO?

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YmeneChra

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Jan 4, 2016
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I'm planning on buying a new HD for my PC which is primarily a Gaming Rig. This new HD will be used to store my games. However, I have a sort of dilemma with my Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128714

I'm not sure if my new Hard Drive would be able to perform the way I need it to on my Motherboard. For instance, this is my current Hard Drive that I used to store just my games:
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-640GB-Hard-Drive-MK6465GSX/dp/B0039ZED1U

That Hard Drive is quite slow and was used to just store photos, videos and other documents but in the last month I've been storing a couple of new games on it as well as playing from it. The problem with it is I get slow loading times on some new games like Arkham Knight and even worse issues with specific games like Dying Light. I suspect it's because the HD is quite old and the RPM is 5400. I also suspect that it may be the SATA connector that this Toshiba HD is connected into. The SATA connector is coming from one of the 6 SATA 3 connectors that my MOBO supports but I'm unclear on whether this means that this makes this Toshiba drive external or internal because the SATA connector is connected in a slot at the top of my Case where I can plug a HD into without having to open my case.

So because of those problems I want to get a new HD. My inquiries are this, If I get this new Hard Drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236625&cm_re=Western_Digital_Black-_-22-236-625-_-Product

Will it be able to run and play my games well despite the outside SATA connector. Also, should I get a 2.5 inch Western Digital Black HD? Because my outside SATA connector does not support a power connector for the 3.5's. I don't have any other cables or parts for an Internal Install so If I go that route what do I need?
 
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Boogieman_WD
Hey there, YmeneChra. Welcome to the community and Happy New Year! :D

Your motherboard has SATA III ports (as you've laredy mentioned), so this shouldn't slow down the speed of your drive in any way. No hard drive can reach the top speed offered by this interface.
As for faster loading times, yes it's only natural for a faster drive with higher RPM to be able to load your games faster (of course it won't be no way near as fast as if you get an SSD for example), but there should be a noticeable difference compared to a 5400RPM drive. Furthermore, the drive which you're thinking of getting is our high performance model, designed for mainly for gaming, video editing and demanding software in general, so it's a pretty good choice for a...
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

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Jul 31, 2014
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Hey there, YmeneChra. Welcome to the community and Happy New Year! :D

Your motherboard has SATA III ports (as you've laredy mentioned), so this shouldn't slow down the speed of your drive in any way. No hard drive can reach the top speed offered by this interface.
As for faster loading times, yes it's only natural for a faster drive with higher RPM to be able to load your games faster (of course it won't be no way near as fast as if you get an SSD for example), but there should be a noticeable difference compared to a 5400RPM drive. Furthermore, the drive which you're thinking of getting is our high performance model, designed for mainly for gaming, video editing and demanding software in general, so it's a pretty good choice for a gaming rig. You can see all of its features here: WD Black
As for the SATA connection, when you connect your hard drive, there should be 2 SATA cables, one for power and one for data. They are both connected to the drive. The other end of the data cable goes to the SATA port on the motherboard and the one of the power cable goes to the port in the PSU. I really don't know what you mean by "outside SATA connector", perhaps you could post some picture of what you're talking about if it's not going to be too much of a hassle for you (you can use imgur.com to upload the images)? As for connecting a different drive, if you don't have cables you can just get 2 of them and connect it with them to the mobo and the PSU.
If you want to connect a 2.5" WD Black drive externally, you should have a SATA to USB adapter, an external enclosure, or a docking station in order for this to happen and it would be through a USB port.

Hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions whatsoever.
Boogieman_WD
 
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YmeneChra

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Jan 4, 2016
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First, thank you very much for the reply! I appreciate it a lot!

I've got some pictures to share about my outside sort of docking station for my secondary storage device. This SATA port is located at the top of my PC case:
https://gyazo.com/225254610d8dc9160204ac27f2bc9621
https://gyazo.com/b04547f1ff3f0f02166dc33ece6de423

I believe that SATA port only supports 2.5 because I've plugged in a 3.5 HD before and I get no results at all. That's the only reason I've inquired about getting a 2.5 HD to store my games. But yes, my minds made up on the WD Black to get the best performance for my games. With my Toshiba HD, which I salvaged from an old laptop some time ago, I had major issues with a game called Dying Light which made it unplayable but I installed it onto my primary drive and the issues are no more.

You've pretty much helped me on everything I needed to know. So thank you again!
 
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Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

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Jul 31, 2014
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Now I understand what you meant when you've said that. It's odd that it can't power up a 3.5" drive. If you're going for a new HDD I'd recommend that you just connect it internally and get a 3.5" one so that you don't need mounting brackets for a 2.5" one if you don't have 2.5" HDD slots/bays in your case.

Don't hesitate to ask if there's anything else.

Cheers! :)
 
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