Picking a good USB HD

So … I want a high-end external HD, like 200GB-ish, so installing Half-Life 2 will take up like 2% of the maximum capacity instead of like 15% (my current situation is a maximum of 37.2 GB, whooo). Maybe with its own USB ports. Anyone got any suggestions on brand and/or where I should get it?

You wouldn’t want to install games and run them off of an external drive, it would be extremly slow as the data transfer over USB is no where near as fast as IDE. Anyway, what I would do is buy a external case (like 20 bucks if you search around) and a harddrive and make it yourself, it usually ends up being much cheaper then buying an external drive.

… Pretend you’re talking to someone who only made it through the college “PC Hardware Fundamentals” class through guesswork and knowing where stuff connects without knowing the names, and also that said someone is operating a laptop which it would be inadvisable to open.

Pay some guy 10 bucks to make you an external drive, instead of buying one.

IDE cables are flat, and are what connect most physical drives (HD, CD, DVD drives, ect) to a motherboard. USB is what outside devices connect to your computer with (keyboards, mice, joypads, ect). With an external case, it has an input inside it for an IDE cable, as which you’d run a short one from the hard drive to that, then the case would also have a USB cable on the outside that you’d connect to your computer.

Basically, an external HD connected through a USB port is SLOW AS HELL!

Yeah, because I totally didn’t already say that Xelo.

Are we talking about externals running on USB 1.0 or USB 2.0? Because there was quite a jump in bandwidth between the two, say, several hundred megabytes. How old is the PC?

It’s roughly a year old. Maybe a little over that. And Epic, I’m not sure how what you’re saying is helping me.

Epic said buy a normal hard drive and DIY it into a external. It’s relatively simple, and if you cant do it, pay a friend with more know-how to do it for you. He said this because it’s like 50% cheaper this way since internal HDs cost pennies compared to same size/speed externals. Also, if you install onto the external, be prepared for games to run alot slower, because USB isnt as fast as internal. I dont see why you dont install games onto normal hd and put all your porn and anime and shit onto the external.

Brandage on internals is like Maxtor and Western Digital. Your mileage may vary, I’ve personally never had a problem with either brand, but you hear shit all the time. Some people also like Seagates, but I’ve never touched them so meh. Ive also never had an external hd so I really cant say anything there.

IDE: Fast, but internal install. Not external in the least.

USB: The external thing most external devices use. I think you know what this is.

What is being suggested is that you buy an internal IDE-based HD, and modify it into an external one.
Thing that gets me is, that this would either A: Change its format (from IDE to USB), OR would make it an external IDE drive, and all the ways I can think of to make that feasible is effectively computer suicide, at least for a poorly built, school-provided laptop.

My suggestion is, check whether you have USB 1.0 or 2.0, or whatever. If its 2.0, its your call, but I’d say thats greenlight enough (technical-specs wise at least, monetarily it might be questionable) to get an external HD, provided it is 2.0 as well. I’m not sure of the specifics, but I do remember hearing that 2.0 is many, many, MANY times faster than 1.0.

But yeah, images, videos, music, and other stuff that can safely be slowloaded should go on the external and games and other performance-reliant stuff on the internal no matter how you look at it. No matter how fast 2.0 is I highly doubt it eclipses IDE speeds, but rather just makes the load bearable.

It’s 2.0, and I’m used to having load times; it’s a laptop.

As for the other thing, it’s not school-provided, it’s Dell-provided, which some would say is almost as bad. Anyone got any more suggestions?

EDIT: Wait, I know! A hard drive that runs through my cable internet port! That’ll be fast! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: