Internal or External HDD?

[TheDan]

So, a friend wants another hard drive. I'm not sure what kind of Interface, (SATA, IDE whatever) they have. But I'm just wondering what should I look for in the specs of hard drives? And which out of Internal HDD's or External HDD's generally perform better? What are good brands? etc.. and sofourth.

 

[Chris D]

You have Maxtor and Seagate, and most people think highly of them. Personally I don't like Maxtor as I see them become faulty quite often in OEM PCs. I personally am a fan of Seagate.

As for external drives... I only know and use Freecom ones myself. They should perform identically to internal drives, but external drives are more convenient for off-site back ups and portability.

 

[eriknba]

external as a whole....is slower...response time is slower than if u have an internal....but again...external is portable....as for brands? maxtor, seagate....or if u really want a hd....western digital raptor

 

[Barney Fife]

Basically the main concept of external HDD is to use it as storage, never was the intention of executing programs from external HDD, as this will take forever to execute. So since internal HDD does have direct link to both CPU and RAM, internal will always be at least 3-4 times faster than an external HDD.
If your friend is buying this external HDD for simply storing files, he/she is afraid to loose, then its an ideal. But if he/she is trying to run programs from this external HDD, then I wouldn't suggest, but rather internal.

Good Luck.

 

[Glirk Dient]

Basically look into western digital and seagate as the HD brands.

What you want to look for is first find out sata or IDE. Then look at transfer rate, buffer and seek time. Compare those 3 as they are all important.