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1 TB External HDD BENEFITS?

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  • 20-08-2012 8:39pm
    #1
    ITS_A_BADGER
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,232 ✭✭✭


    Hey guys, so i was wondering, are there any benefits to having a 1TB HDD attached to your laptop all the time or is it only good to have it on the laptop when your saving stuff to it instead of the C:/ drive, does it improve speed, performance or anything like that? or is it just the same as a huge USB stick.
    I hear people talking about how they have a 1TB external Hdd attached and how it helps when running games etc help appreciated!
    Tagged:


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    #2
    Torqay
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,835 ✭✭✭Torqay


    ITS_A_BADGER wrote: »
    does it improve speed, performance or anything like that?

    No, it doesn't.
    ITS_A_BADGER wrote: »
    I hear people talking about how they have a 1TB external Hdd attached and how it helps when running games etc

    Nonsense.

    If anything, it will have a negative impact on the overall performance, for example if it is an NTFS drive with indexing enabled.


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    #3
    ITS_A_BADGER
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,232 ✭✭✭ITS_A_BADGER


    Torqay wrote: »
    No, it doesn't.



    Nonsense.

    If anything, it will have a negative impact on the overall performance, for example if it is an NTFS drive with indexing enabled.

    so anyone that says they are getting a boost off an external HDD is a load of bull?


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    #4
    emo72
    Registered Users Posts: 6,207 ✭✭✭emo72


    ITS_A_BADGER wrote: »
    so anyone that says they are getting a boost off an external HDD is a load of bull?

    yes. its only storage space. no performance benefit.


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    #5
    ITS_A_BADGER
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,232 ✭✭✭ITS_A_BADGER


    so its just an expensive USB stick then :(


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    #6
    Procrastastudy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,224 ✭✭✭Procrastastudy


    ITS_A_BADGER wrote: »
    Hey guys, so i was wondering, are there any benefits to having a 1TB HDD attached to your laptop all the time or is it only good to have it on the laptop when your saving stuff to it instead of the C:/ drive, does it improve speed, performance or anything like that? or is it just the same as a huge USB stick.
    I hear people talking about how they have a 1TB external Hdd attached and how it helps when running games etc help appreciated!

    It possibly could if the HDD in the machine was uber slow - and the external one was on USB 3 and uber fast or an SSD. Very unlikely though.

    The massive - and I mean massive - advantage to external hard drives is being able to hide them from the wife.


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    #7
    emo72
    Registered Users Posts: 6,207 ✭✭✭emo72


    Procrastastudy wrote: »

    The massive - and I mean massive - advantage to external hard drives is being able to hide them from the wife.

    haha. the thought never crossed my mind. now its firmly lodged there!


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    #8
    BostonB
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,056 ✭✭✭✭BostonB


    Unless you've an especially fast laptop drive, I would assume most will be slower than the average desktop drive. Of course they are all limited by the interface, USB, SATA they are connecting through.

    Desktop external 3.5" drives are generally faster than the laptop 2.5" drives thats even assuming you have a fast laptop drive and most don't most have slow drives. But if you are using the disk a lot, for movies, photos, loading games and levels, a desktop external definately feels quicker. Also you can get desktop drives in bigger capacity, and they are cheaper. Thats assuming the external is a 3.5. But theres a lot of factors at play, faster controller, size of the cache, size of the platter.

    If I'm loading 90GB of music in iTunes, I prefer doing that on a desktop drive than a laptop one.


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    #9
    Torqay
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,835 ✭✭✭Torqay


    3.5" external drives are usually of the 5,400 rpm sort. Faster drives getting a lot warmer, not a good idea in an enclosure.


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    #10
    BostonB
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,056 ✭✭✭✭BostonB


    Maybe for people who don't know what they are doing. I assume an enthusiast would know to use a fast drive and cool it. If their aim was to speed up disk access.

    Heres a test of external 2.5 and 3.5 with USB 3.0

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/usb-3.0-superspeed-external-drive,2670-10.html

    I don't know if it still true. But lots of creative types used to use fast external disk arrays for working with video, photos etc. You could get 2 or 4 bay disk arrays that you could work from. Things like this...

    http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10549
    http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10573
    http://www.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx?m=192&region=en-global&rsn1=40&rsn3=47


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    #11
    Torqay
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,835 ✭✭✭Torqay


    Yeah, if you mean by a "1 TB external hard disk" four 256 GB SSDs in a RAID0 array on an eSATA interface, I would imagine some improvement. :D


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