DAVE TERRELL wrote:
is there any difference in performance between equivilant spec internal hard
drives versus external hard drives (connected via USB), in terms of time to
access files, , run programs, or anything else?

thanks.

dave


In my experience, it's relative to the drive & interface you are
comparing. A high quality drive like a brand new Hitachi Deskstar
ATA-100/133 will pay a huge penalty going into a USB 2.0 external case.
An older Maxtor 7200 ATA-66 drive will only pay about 25% in real
world difference. I don't know exactly why this happens, the bandwidth
difference between USB 2.0 (60/MBps) and ATA 66 (66/MBps) isn't that
much and drives don't actually sustain that they just burst at it. Yet
it's there. Maybe you have a better chipset for USB than I do and will
get better results. It may simply be a factor of distance and the cabling.

I use one from Cables To Go to make system images for backup, and I
really do notice. It adds about 30-35 seconds a GB and even more with a
network transfer. I tried it with one of my newer Hitachis and it didn't
get much better numbers than with my older Maxtor (and those two in an
IDE interface it's no contest, the Hitachi is over twice the speed of
that Maxtor even though they are both 7200RPM drives).

They aren't fast but they are handy. It's nice to have a 120GB floppy
to tote around for transferring huge files. Something you might consider
if you are going to be toting it around a lot to friends houses is to
build a transport case for it. I used an old shoe box and the foam
padding that my hard drive shipped in to make a way to lug it around
without exposing it to all of the jarring of a ride in my pickup truck.

If speed is the real issue & you are transferring a lot between two
computers, get a pair of pull out trays. Most of the new ones come with
fans and support ATA-100.


-Timbertea