Should I get a External HDD?

[Decade]

Need advice from people who know comps well enough:

I been saving for a few years now for a new desktop. I was going to buy myself one in May as a Graduation gift, but Windows Vista had been announced months before and I figured I should just wait to get my moneys worth.

Vista is now coming out next week I think, and now I got a decision I'm not too sure about:

I need more storage right now and have a 120gb External HDD. It's already almost maxed out and I cant really delete anything else off it (and I cant just burn some of the stuff to disc, I need it on HDD).

I could afford about $100 on a new one, but the question is if I should even bother since I'm going to be getting a new comp soon anyway where I could have an extra HDD installed or just purchase a larger capacity (I been saving up for years, so I have a fair budget).

I been told though that having an External HDD is better than just having a 2nd HDD in your comp, so now I'm not sure what to do.


Is it worth it to buy an External HDD? Is it actually better than just having a 2nd HDD in your comp?

[haterllnation]

I have two ext hdd. Hmm, well it COULD. Say the two in your computer don't equal the same as your external. That's math, so that's assumed. However, you can take your hd with you anywhere and plug it into other computers. It's also great as a backup device. I have one for backups and one for media (in case my friend doesn't have it on his comp or vice versa). Personally, I feel you can't go wrong having an external hd.

With your situation, you could just wait for the computer. However, having an external hd is a good idea. Even if you don't get it now, you should look into it later. It might help if you run out of space, also. You can just dump it on the external to free up space.

[setrict]

I'd opt for an external, but I would NOT get a strictly USB drive. You can pick up a firewire pci card cheap, and get a combo usb/firewire external. Firewire is much, much better as an external drive despite the spec numbers (400mbs vs 480mbs for usb). In actually usage, firewire performs about 50% better and does so without the heavy cpu overhead usb requires. Stability is also much better in my experience. It will be slightly more expensive, but well worth it.

Something like :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817392003
and
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148139
would be my choice.

Externals will be slower than internal, but allow you to backup and swap data between machines much easier. If you never plan to disconnect if from your machine there isn't much point in an external.

Edit: I forgot to mention... most of the retail external drives are formatted FAT32 for compatability, which is another reason to roll your own with a kit imo.

[haterllnation]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148139
would be my choice.


Actually, I just bought that exact one for my Xbox. :clap:

[ZylitoL]

You don't even have to be that much a computer nerd to know about, and need external drives.

My answer is get one if you need it.

If you stock up on media, you'll definitely want to have a backup hdd for your stuff. You'll want to have it portable as well if you exchange lots of stuff with your friends.

2nd HDD? Are you talking about partitioning your hd? If so, then it's not really a 2nd hd it's just one hd divided into 2 sections. If you're talking about putting two together in RAID 0 or w/e...

Brands that are good are Hitachi, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung, and probably in that order. Hitachi HDs are very expensive, but I hear they're extremely reliable. I personally use a Western Digital, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Get fan cooling in your casing. The actual material of the case doesn't matter that much as long as you have a fan.

Format your drive to NTFS since FAT32 is very limiting, such as the fact that you can't have a single file bigger than 4 gigs (I think it was 4 gigs...it's definitely around this range though), and there's some more that I can't quite remember off the top of my head.

[Turtle Stew]

I've got one 100GB external, a 200GB laying around, and two 320's in RAID 0. It depends on what you'd be using it for? Just to back stuff up, or do you actually use it as if it were in your computer? If it's for backups, get an external, if you're going to use it actively and you don't have to travel with it somewhere that you don't take your computer, get an internal. As for Vista, I'd wait on that anyway. Wait for SP1.