Secondary Storage: External vs HDD

[Azok]

I have a 120GB for my new system, for the OS and whatever main games I'm playing.

I want decent speed with my other programs as well, what would load faster?

1 TB 7200 RPM 64 MB cache SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal
1 TB External Drive w/USB 3.0

 

[Onus]

Consider also safety. An internally-mounted drive is less likely to suffer spills, cord-snags, bumps, and other abuse.
Assuming your PCs PSU is of decent quality, the internal drive will likely be better protected from power anomalies as well.
Finally, an internally mounted drive requires no additional space.

 

[Hawkeye22]

The SATA will most likely be faster since USB bandwidth is/can be shared between different devices on a USB port/hub where SATA is 1:1.

 

[techguy911]

Usb external drives are really for backup you should not be installing and running programs on them due to slow transfer speeds which would bottleneck your system performance.

 

[outlw6669]

The internal drive will probably stay cooler under constant usage as well, increasing the lifespan of the drive.
For day to day usage, internal is the way to go.

 

[game junky]

In all sincerity, I use both on my rig. I have a 120GB SSD for my OS and applications, I have a 1.5TB HDD for my media/document storage and I have a 1 TB portable external drive to backup files and transfer them from my desktop to my laptop.

I also use hosted storage through Microsoft's skydrive for an additional layer of backup. I use this mostly for family photos and tax documents that I don't want to lose in the event of a disaster.

You may not need to do both, but at least for me I feel much safer about a hard drive failure not crippling my music collection or an additional deletion taking out a photo.

 

[Azok]

Best answer selected by Azok.