External vs. internal hard drive

pugs · « **on:** 8 Dec 2005, 12:21 am »

I need to get a new hard drive. I don't know if I should get an internal or external. I looked inside my HP Pc with Windows XP, and it looks like I have room for another hard drive. There's a ribbon going to the existing drive labeled "Master" and a spare connection labeled "Slave". There is also a spare, four hole connector from the power supply. Now for the questions:

1) Am I correct to assume that the ribbon labeled "slave", and spare four holed connector from the power supply, are for another hard drive?

2) Is there any advantage, such as separate power supply, to having an external drive?

3) Is there any difference in speed or reliability between the two?

I'm planning on getting a 200GB Seagate and it doesn't really look like there's a big price difference between external and internal. Can somebody give me some advice? In case it wasn't apparent, I don't know too much about computers.

JohnnyLightOn · « **Reply #1 on:** 8 Dec 2005, 01:36 am »

If you have good fans inside your computer, and you'll be leaving the new hard disk running whenever the computer's on, get the internal drive. Not only is it cheaper, you'll save heat because the drive will have some space around it and the fans will cool it. Some - but not all - external drives have built-in fans. The ones that don't will cause the drive to be warmer. Heat is not great for hard drives.

If you're using the new drive to store rips of your CDs, you may want to also buy an external drive of the same size to back up your music drive to, which you can then store offsite. It doubles the cost of the internal drive plus about $30-50, but if you have enough CDs you'll sleep a lot easier after finishing your ripping project knowing you have a backup.

Your other questions:

- That "slave" connector, assuming it's on the same cable as your hard drive, is the one you should use for your second hard drive. You should set the jumper on whatever hard drive you buy to "slave". If there's no "slave," use "cable select." Printed on the drive will be the jumper diagram. You can use a tweezer or little pliers to grasp and move the jumper. The spare power connector you can also use for your second hard drive. Looking in your computer's manual will also tell you how to add a hard drive, but it's pretty simple if you don't have the manual or don't want to look it up.

- Biggest advantage to an external hard drive is portability. Biggest disadvantage is heat on the drive if the external enclosure isn't well-ventilated. This, and shocks to the external enclosure, could decrease reliability. Minor disadvantage is increased cost.

- Speed will be fastest with internal drive, but could be plenty fast enough with the external drive.

Horizons · « **Reply #2 on:** 8 Dec 2005, 09:28 pm »

JohnnyLightOn speaks the truth.

The only thing I would add to that is that you clearly have an existing IDE drive interface. Serial ATA is faster but speed is not an issue with streaming audio, even USB2 and Firewire are plenty fast. The cheapest way to go here is buy the largest internal (bare) IDE drive that you can afford. I would stick with WD or Seagate. I would avoid Maxtor. An internal drive should be quieter than an external one all things considered.

External drives always cost more but with some rebate blowout deals, there are exeptions. Also with the cost/$ of storage these days, get a backup solution in place - it's very cheap insurance.

Nick B · « **Reply #3 on:** 8 Dec 2005, 09:36 pm »

If you get a backup drive, how do you configure it to make a backup? Do you need software for that? Also, are there external drives that come with 2 drives and do this automatically?

Horizons · « **Reply #4 on:** 8 Dec 2005, 09:44 pm »

In this case, I would add a second (slave) internal IDE drive. At that point, most PCs will not allow you to easily add another IDE drive. Some do, some don't.

For backup, I would get the cheapest external drive via fireware or USB2 and just copy from the audio drive to the backup drive. Then you can store the backup off-site.

One thing to NOT do for backups is mirror drives. I can't tell you how many people I have known that setup mirrored drives for backup only to find out that all their data was destroyed.

pugs · « **Reply #5 on:** 8 Dec 2005, 10:32 pm »

Quote from: Horizons

In this case, I would add a second (slave) internal IDE drive. At that point, most PCs will not allow you to easily add another IDE drive. Some do, some don't.

For backup, I would get the cheapest external drive via fireware or USB2 and just copy from the audio drive to the backup drive. Then you can store the backup off-site.

One thing to NOT do for backups is mirror drives. I can't tell you how many people I have known that setup mirrored drives for backup only to find out that all their data was destroyed.

What does it mean to mirror a drive?

jakepunk · « **Reply #6 on:** 8 Dec 2005, 11:30 pm »

Mirroring means you have two or more physical drives that are updated with the same read/write operations. If one drive fails, there is an identical drive that can keep going until the faulty drive is replaced. You can accomplish this with software (like your operating system) or a physical piece of hardware that the drives plug into. Mirroring is the same as RAID 1.

I noticed that Netgear has a new device that looks like a toaster that you slap two drives into and mirrors them automatically. You can do it for $0 with your operating system, however there is debate as to whether that's a good idea. If your OS goes south, then it could take your data with it. I prefer hardware RAID myself.

JohnnyLightOn · « **Reply #7 on:** 8 Dec 2005, 11:35 pm »

There are various ways to tie hard disks together through a technology called RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks). One RAID configuration is mirroring, where every write operation is performed on both drives. If one drive goes down, the second takes over, seamlessly. Because the data on both drives is identical, many people mistakenly think this is a good way to have a backup. But they don't realize that a mirrored drive doesn't protect against data corruption. A virus, data corruption, or mistaken deletion will be instantly and automatically copied to the mirror drive. Mirroring is for network servers, to make sure they're kept running even if a hard drive crashes.

It's much better to have a backup drive that's offline most of the time, and that performs a backup function rather than a mirror function. Also, an external drive allows you to keep the backup offsite to protect against fire, theft, etc.

EchiDna · « **Reply #8 on:** 9 Dec 2005, 09:49 am »

Quote from: jakepunk

....I noticed that Netgear has a new d ...

Even better that's a NAS Drive (Network Attached Storage) with mirroring... you can stick it on your network anywhere and any pc (or squeezebox) can access it

Just waiting for the day that I go this type of direction

Val · « **Reply #9 on:** 9 Dec 2005, 01:29 pm »

Maybe the confusion between "internal" and "external" drives comes from some brands offering external drives as if there was some kind of exclusivity. There is nothing special about setting up an external drive; they are both the same kind of drive and an external one is more expensive only because of the need for an enclosure which comes with its own power supply and USB or Firewire connections. It doesn't necessarily have to be noisier than an internal drive either. I suggest you buy a regular Samsung or Seagate hard drive (both are very quiet) and an external enclosure such as this. Slide the hard drive in the enclosure, screw it on, connect the power supply and the USB cable. You can keep it on at all times (music server) or turn it on/off for backups.