external hard drives

[chunkydome]

So here's the question: I haven't ever used an external hard drive before and i am hard pressed to find out their capabilities (or atleast the oens i want to know about). Like i would like to know since they are plug and play, do they act like massive flash drives?

But at the same time they are also hard drives. Would i be able to install programs such as games and then run them on other OS's? Such as could I install it while on windows XP and then unplug the hard drive and switch to windows Vista and the game still work.

 

[Onus]

So here's the question:...

...do they act like massive flash drives?

Essentially, Yes.

But at the same time they are also hard drives. Would i be able to install programs such as games and then run them on other OS's? Such as could I install it while on windows XP and then unplug the hard drive and switch to windows Vista and the game still work.

Essentially, No. Installing a program puts information about it into the Windows Registry, and may copy .DLL files to Windows system folders. Very few programs run from just an executable any more. If you installed it with identical settings under each O/S, it "might" then work with only one set of files on the drive, depending on how/where any settings and/or OS-specific .DLL files are stored. I wouldn't bet on it, but it wouldn't hurt to try it.

I'm not sure you'd be satisfied with the performance of applications run through a USB port, although USB 2.0 is a lot better than 1.1.

 

[NightlySputnik]

USB HDD are better used to hold data, not applications. Unless this is a "not moving" HDD that stays always connected to the same computer.

I'm saying this because I've heard story of applications not working properly when the computer was started while the HDD wasn't connected even when connected again later. I might be a bit confuse about what happened tough .

Also, remember that USB HDD are a lot slower then regular SATA/IDE drive. They are mostly limited to a maximum of 30MB/s transfer as oppose to more then 60 (and even 80 in some case) MB/s for SATA/IDE drives. This is the limit of USB 2.0 in practice as oppose to the 60 MB/s on paper.

I actually use my 250GB MyBook USB 2.0 drive to hold everything I download (freeware mostly that I never installed ) and my familly pictures and movies. There's only 40GB used, so no rush freeing some space.

 

[g-paw]

An external hdd is really meant for storage A friend of mine has a good size collection of music on an external and can listen to it with no problems with an USB connection so the data is readily accessible.

 

[OldGoat]

I really depends, there are small programs (portableapps.com) that you can run from USB devices and external hard drives. I use a small 5gig external hardrive to run openoffice, firefox & thunderbird. It is slower but I can use it on any windows computer. Like others have said I don't think games will work unless they are compiled to keep all files in the parent directory.

 

[chunkydome]

ok, that pretty much answered the question (thanks for the replies)

i was just wondering if it would work in case i tried it, but i probably won't

 

[ram0166]

I have the same issue. I travel a lot with a laptop provided by my employer and have no admin rights. How do I figure out what portable apps I need to get a game to work from my portable hard drive?