Internal or External storage?

sunshinegirl690 · Post by **sunshinegirl690** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 4:23 pm

Which do you prefer? I need more space to keep pics, video files etc...My Dell has the usual one (160GB) I was leaning towards the external. Any particular brand ? Or is it by how much do you want to spend? Any thoughts?

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 4:29 pm

Some people will reply that an external is too slow to capture to, but I have never had a problem with my Maxtor External 200GB.

BrianCee · Post by **BrianCee** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 4:40 pm

I always capture to the internal and then later transfer to the external.

I personnaly prefer external drives due to the portability of them - I can move between computers and locations and have all my video files to hand - also when buying a new computer there is no need to actually transfer files - just plug the external drive into the new computer.

My personal choice is for Iomega - but I wouldn't reject any of the well known makes if they were offered to me at a sensible price at the time I needed a new drive.

The only thing you should bear in mind is that extra drives whether internal or external are prone to the same sort of failures as can occur to your built in drives - so don't forget to make back-up arrangements.

mtchp · Post by **mtchp** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 4:43 pm

We use a 300 gig seagate to archive our video for our High school football team. It works great. We even use it to clip and edit video clips. No video is stored on the computer hard drive. All video is on the externel drive. No lag or problems with speed. We just make sure we back up to a dvd and we archive our DV tapes.

sunshinegirl690 · Post by **sunshinegirl690** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 4:47 pm

Thank you! I basically want to throw stuff in there when I am done using it. Just in case someone comes to me and says, I need another copy of this or that. I do make back up DVD for copying etc...Or when my friend wants to add to an original dvd of her children bla bla bla.....Thanks again for you thoughts!

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 10:09 pm

You will (may?) be faced with a choice between a Firewire or USB 2.0 enclosure for your external drive. (Some have both.) I used always to use Firewire enclosures, which worked fine for a long time: Firewire offers a fast sustained transfer speed, while USB speed is decreased incrementally depending on the number of USB devices which are using the bus...

However, I started having some 'Write to' failures, and discovered that quite a lot of the Firewire enclosures use a chipset which can get quite erratic. So I have now changed over to USB 2.0 enclosures exclusively, and, touch wood, I have not yet had a failure.

Since installing an internal 400 GB drive dedicated solely to my video, though, I nowadays only tend to use my external drives for archiving purposes as you intend to do.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 2:30 am

I use Drive Caddies.

The part you an see on the left fits into one of your drive bays in the same way as your DVD Burner. The part on the right contains your hard drive.

The IDE cable that normally plugs into your hard drive will instead plug into the part you see on the left, plus the power supply cable.

Now with your computer turned off you simply slide in a hard drive in one of the enclosures you see on the right. Its a bit like putting a plug into a socket.
This means you have an internal hard drive that is quickly removed from the computer without having to take the panels off. You can have several hard drives sitting in a drawer and in the time it take you to turn off the computer and turn it back on again, you can swap your hard drive(s).

I have 3 of these caddies installed in my computer (The 4th bay is my DVD Writer) and I have about a dozen hard drives, the ones not in use are in a drawer.

sunshinegirl690 · Post by **sunshinegirl690** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 6:08 am

Oh I like that Steve! Where did you get it and about how much?

raygo · Post by **raygo** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 6:21 am

Had the same problem here so,

bought a 500 gig Western digital external drive.

I do all my capture/edit etc on my internal 120 drive.
When all is done, I transfer any video files I want to keep to the External drive...
this keeps my working internal drive from bloating with video files..

Post by **lancecarr** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 6:55 am

Hi, Steve is probably asleep in England right now so allow me!
Those caddy's he shows are actually available in just aboiut any computer store.
They are inexpensive because they are just a strong plastic case with a little cooling fan built in as well as the ribbon connector for the hard drive. I use them too and they are great.
Just remember what Steve says about turning the computer off before swapping the hard drives!

2Dogs · Post by **2Dogs** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:56 pm

I've used both the removable drive caddies and USB enclosures for my spare IDE hard drives.

My problem with the former was that there just wasn't room in my HP pc case, which is only a mid tower type. To use the caddy, I had to take out the CD drive.

If your Dell has a full size tower case, then you might find the caddies to be the best solution.

Using a USB hard drive enclosure has some additional benefits. You can easily hook the drive up to other pc's you might have. The downside is the additional cable clutter you get with an AC adaptor and of course the USB or Firewire cable. Whilst Ken might just have been unlucky with his firewire enclosures, I've never had any problems with my cheapo USB ones. Although I don't generally capture to the USB drives, they are perfectly capable of being used that way if you like.

You might also find that your Dell will allow you to fit a second hard drive in your existing case.

The sweet spot at the moment for hard drives seems to be around 320Gb. You should be able to pick up an external USB drive of that size for not much over $100 from Newegg.com or similar, or it might be slightly more economical to buy a separate hard drive and USB enclosure.

I've also had good results with a 2.5" notebook hard drive from a dead laptop in a small USB enclosure. This gets power thru the USB cable, so it's a tidier arrangment and very portable.

htchien · Post by **htchien** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 7:37 pm

I would go with drive caddies and USB 2.0 external enclosures, too.

I have 2 drive caddies so I can transfer files between my home and office.

For the enclosure, my Firewire 2.5" enclosure sometimes will suddenly lose the connection with my laptop without a warning, but the USB one never have that issue.

I capture with internal drives and then transfer to the external enclosure for archiving and backup.

H.T.