Internal or external HDD

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

I'm disabled and use Virtual CD as I can't physically insert DVD and
CD disks easily. I have two HDD's (40Gb and 120 Gb), but am running
out of space. So would I be better using a USB external HDD or fitting
a PCI IDE card and another internal drive. I do use it for watching
films.

BTB

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

<deman@nospa.cablenet.com> wrote in message
news:7jage0dji87tf0okrsr27rskj2sdf7lfmj@4ax.com...
> I'm disabled and use Virtual CD as I can't physically insert DVD and
> CD disks easily. I have two HDD's (40Gb and 120 Gb), but am running
> out of space. So would I be better using a USB external HDD or fitting
> a PCI IDE card and another internal drive. I do use it for watching
> films.
>
> BTB

If your only using it with one compter I would think internal would be the
way to go. Heres a couple of things to consider.
If you add an external drive make sure it is USB2 or Firewire(1394).
If you add an internal drive make sure the power supply is powerfull enough
to handle the extra drive/card.
HTH

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

<deman@nospa.cablenet.com> wrote in message
news:7jage0dji87tf0okrsr27rskj2sdf7lfmj@4ax.com...
> I'm disabled and use Virtual CD as I can't physically insert DVD and
> CD disks easily. I have two HDD's (40Gb and 120 Gb), but am running
> out of space. So would I be better using a USB external HDD or fitting
> a PCI IDE card and another internal drive. I do use it for watching
> films.
>
> BTB

I would say internal, as you will be able to get a bigger size for your
money which is what you need for virtual disks.
Have a look out for the new 400Gb disks.

hamman

 

[Charles]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

With WIN XP and a good motherboard you might be able to use SATA Hard
Drives with around 300GB capacity. I would get rid of the 40 Gb Hard
Drive at least. I bet that is the one with the Operating System or
you could have replaced it easily. This is an instance where
replacing the motherboard may be worth it if it does not support SATA.
If you dont have SATA on that motherboard, then you might be able to
get say 2 180GB IDE hard drives. With your existing hardware.


There may also be some devices you can use to use an SATA Hard Drive
on an IDE Channel. They are small and go between the hard drive cable
and the drive.

One option may be a newer motherboard. Newer motherboards may have
better options. Just pick the right motherboard. Some motherboards
have RAID that can do JBOD which is "just a bunch of Drives". Raid
cards or SATA cards can be fairly expensive, but may be able to move
to the next motherboard.

Explore your options and see what is the most cost effective solution.
Sometimes in the long run a new motherboard is the best solution.
Just depends what you want to spend.

 

[Charles]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Well you could also use an external USB CD RW+- and DVD RW+- combo.
If all you do is use it to load the CD initially, it does not have to
be internal. That could free up Two IDE Ports.

>I'm disabled and use Virtual CD as I can't physically insert DVD and
>CD disks easily. I have two HDD's (40Gb and 120 Gb), but am running
>out of space. So would I be better using a USB external HDD or fitting
>a PCI IDE card and another internal drive. I do use it for watching
>films.
>
>BTB

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Hi deman,

I recently put together a USB/IEEE1394 external enclosure with a 80gb WD SE
hard drive for $67 for the drive and $50 for the enclosure. Bought the parts
at newegg.com It works very well and of course is transportable.

The reason I bring this up is when I read your message a lot of thoughts
went through my mind. One of which was that if this person wants to add more
storage, perhaps would or should consider out of the case solutions. Why you
may think? Well, first of all you could conceivably connect about 127 of
these usb cases on just one of your usb ports with appropriate hubs etc. I
have another box with a 250gb drive in it that will hold approximately 50
dvd movies in vob format at about 4.35gb per movie. So you definitley want
to think about just how many movies you would like to have at your
convenience at one time. I'm also thinking what kind of a task plugging in a
usb cable to your computer, hooking up power cables etc would place upon
you. I don't know your limitations or work-arounds as well as I know my own.

But you could for example have musical films on one drive, comedies on
another and so on. That would make it kind of cool for locating a certain
film.

Another question is "how long did it take this person to max out the
capacity drives he/she already has onboard"? as well as "how many more do
they want to get?"

Your computer case is not some holy temple where you can expect your data to
always be perfect just because the hard drive is tucked inside. On the other
hand if the external case were to be dropped, some serious, perhaps
unrecoverable damage could occur. The in the case option should prevent the
accidental damage issue.

Adding an additional hard drive inside your case will put an additional
load on your power supply and also bring about more heat being added to the
inside of your case.

These are mostly just some thoughts I had and tried to throw them out to
you. Maybe you can make more sense out of them.

Bezt Regards, Bob "hopelessly insane machine warrior" Troll


deman@nospa.cablenet.com> wrote in message
news:7jage0dji87tf0okrsr27rskj2sdf7lfmj@4ax.com...
> I'm disabled and use Virtual CD as I can't physically insert DVD and
> CD disks easily. I have two HDD's (40Gb and 120 Gb), but am running
> out of space. So would I be better using a USB external HDD or fitting
> a PCI IDE card and another internal drive. I do use it for watching
> films.
>
> BTB

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

> Adding an additional hard drive inside your case will put an additional
> load on your power supply and also bring about more heat being added to the
> inside of your case.

This is an important issue. I have a case with 4 slots for hard drives,
and if I ever filled them all I'd have to cut a hole in the side of the
case to install another fan.

Of course, internal drives don't clutter the desk

But if you have room for external drives, they do have a lot of advantages.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Hamman wrote:

> <deman@nospa.cablenet.com> wrote in message
> news:7jage0dji87tf0okrsr27rskj2sdf7lfmj@4ax.com...
>
>>I'm disabled and use Virtual CD as I can't physically insert DVD and
>>CD disks easily. I have two HDD's (40Gb and 120 Gb), but am running
>>out of space. So would I be better using a USB external HDD or fitting
>>a PCI IDE card and another internal drive. I do use it for watching
>>films.
>>
>>BTB
>
>
> I would say internal, as you will be able to get a bigger size for your
> money which is what you need for virtual disks.
> Have a look out for the new 400Gb disks.

You might also want to look into a way of reducing the size of the
images. For example, re-encoding them to DIVX/XVID AVIs or running
DVDShrink over them to create smaller DVD images.

--
Paul

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Thanks for all the thoughts, all good stuff which everyone is grateful
for in these newsgroups.

I'll probably opt for the external option, I don't think my 300w power
supply will be good enough for a big internal.

Thanks again,

Bob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

On Sun, 04 Jul 2004 17:10:14 +0100, deman@nospa.cablenet.com wrote:

>I'm disabled and use Virtual CD as I can't physically insert DVD and
>CD disks easily. I have two HDD's (40Gb and 120 Gb), but am running
>out of space. So would I be better using a USB external HDD or fitting
>a PCI IDE card and another internal drive. I do use it for watching
>films.
>
>BTB

I use a removable drive bay to solve that problem. We have computer
shows in our area and they sell the entire kit for around $10. The kit
consists of two parts, an enclosure that goes in an empty 5 1/4 drive
bay and a piece that slides in and out which contains your internal
IDE hard drives. You can buy several kits and put the enclosure in
another PC if you have a need and use the removable part to install
another hard drive in that. After you have the enclosure installed,
there is no need to open the PC again to add another hard drive. All
you have to do is slip another drive into the removable part and you
are ready to go. They sell the removable part by itself, but it's
almost as much as both pieces, so I buy the whole kit. Some of them
are even "Hot Swappable" which means you can install and remove a hard
drive while the system is running. The better ones are made of
aluminum to help heat issues. I couldn't find one at the time I needed
it, so I went with a plastic one that includes a couple small fans.
This is the one I am using.

http://www.genica.com/Harddrives/gn-210.htm

http://www.genica.com/drivers/GN210man.pdf - This link downloads a
manual to explain how it's installed. The actual kit doesn't come with
instructions which was a real pain. I took one back because it
appeared not to work. The directions said to set the drive jumpers to
Cable Select and it worked properly. They also work on UDMA 133.
I used one of mine to take hard drive to hard drive disk image backups
with Symantec Ghost.

Hope this helps.