About external/regular hard drive disc

[dany_100]

hey.
currently I've got 80gb of HDD,the model is seagate barracuda 7200.9 that i got 3 years ago.
i thought about buying an external hard drive disc with 320/500GB of storage.
As you may imagine i want it to be my primary disc without the operating system, it will only contain games,movies and other big files.
1)is it possible to play and use the external HDD without compatibility problems(game saves erase them self/dont work and that kind of stuff)
2)is the USB 2.0 bandwidth limit will be a problem(in HD films or games),or in other words do i really need the 100mb/s transfer on a normal HDD or is 30MB/s with an usb is enought(and if not where exactly)
thanks for the answers.

 

[takenra]

Personally, would suggest just adding another internal hard drive rather than the external if you want to use it a lot. While the external may do the job fine, you will be waiting a lot longer to transfer files back and forth and multitasking the drive will make read/writes very slow.
For single use such as watching a movie it would be fine, but if a game is loading from the external (depedent on game/setup options) you have to wait a long time.
Keep the external drive as a backup drive (set it up to autobackup at night if you leave your machine on overnight)

What sort of system do you have at the moment? How easy is it to add another drive and what sort would it be? PATA or SATA?

Hope that is of some help

 

[dany_100]

Currently this is my system:
2.1GHZ E6300(the old one not the Pentium) processor.
Already sad me current HDD(does 50-60MB/s write/read and 18m/s latency).
palit 9800GT 512MB(can run every game today on high/med and AA in 1280*1024)
17" lg screen.
1GB RAM 667MHZ.
As i sad I'm using SATA with me internal drive(have eSATA also, so external drive with esata would be great).
my budget is 80-100$.
not quite sure if to buy the 2.5inch/3.5inch or 3.5inch internal(thats why i made this thread).
here is my thoughts:
2.5inch:
Pros:I want to get games and movies throw my friends and i dont want to carry power adapter
Cons:expansive and slow.
3.5inch:
Pros:i want to somehow carry info through my friends.
Cons:quite slow.
3.5 inch internal:
Pros:damn fast and cheap.
Cons:i couldn't exchange data with my friends.
btw, 500GB will do the job, i don't need better.(nor the super-fast ssd/15k)

 

[dany_100]

bump!

 

[takenra]

Didn't know that you had eSATA, wasn't in the original post.

If that's the case then if you want to be able to take data/movies etc to friends places then go with the external. On your system, hooked up by eSATA it will be just as fast as being plugged in internally.

3.5" 500GB external eSATA from tigerdirect.com - $75
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3326551&CatId=2429]

Any 2.5" drive is $90+ and won't be eSATA (that I know of)

 

[JackNaylorPE]

My $39 recommendation is to put your old drive in here as an external and connect w/ eSATA

 

[Paperdoc]

If you get an external drive with BOTH USB2 and eSATA connection options (these are very common) you can use the eSATA mode at home which is almost the same as an internal SATA drive and won't slow down your gaming. But when you go to a friend's house to exchange data etc, you can use the USB2 ports because almost ALL your friends will have that. It just would not be as fast for actually playing the game at your friend's house. Get an enclosre and drive spearately and assemble, or buy complete, whichever suits you. Buy the 3½" HDD size - better capacity and lower price - and take the power brick with you - it's pretty small!