Installing to Mybook Portable HD

[Berzer]

If i install games/applications to my external hard drive will i notice a diminished performance from them versus installing to an internal drive? if so, would attaching it via firewire make a difference or is usb ok to use?

 

[larryiam]

Well yes you would. A usb port isn't as fast as the internal HDD especially if you have a SATA drive. Now if you save it to a firewire External HDD you wouldn't notice a diminishment. What is your Internal HDD SATA or IDE?

 

[Obi-Wan Jerkobi]

Yes, a firewire HDD would not have 'AS' diminished performance. But you have to have the right speed of firewire (Firewire 800 or Firewire B) which is Firewire 800. It's 800 Megabits/second so it's the equivalent of an IDE drive in speed. If you do have the new technology E-SATA (External SATA), I would recommend using that if you want to game. But most normal PC's don't have E-SATA as it is quite expensive and E-SATA drives are few and far. So Firewire 800 would be your best bet, but it would provide an unpleasant bottleneck in today's games. Even then it's not worth it as SATA drives are so much cheaper and faster.

 

[Berzer]

my internal is a SATA. i already have a 320gb mybook so i was trying to avoid purchasing a new hdd if i didn't have to. i will just add another sata hdd. i saw a few well priced ones on newegg. mine was listed as a SATA150. what does the 150 stand for? its a 7200rpm drive so i assume its just a basic SATA drive right?

 

[Obi-Wan Jerkobi]

SATA150 means it runs at 150MB/s (Megabytes/sec). I would recommend just getting another SATA drive since they are half the price of usb ones of the same size.