Shoutbox

i am goin to buy a new hard drive and i want to know wat are the good/bad things about internal and external hard drives. i mean wat are the differences, i just want to put my music and stuff i wouldnt like to lose in case of a big system failure.

A couple things:
With external, you can move it around easier than in internal (bring it to a friends house, etc.)
However, there's going to be a speed read/write difference between an external and internal (with internal being faster).

Internals tend to be cheaper than externals. If you're just planning on keeping the drive in your computer and don't have a need for portability, just go with internal.

A drawback would be in transfer speeds to an external, as you're limited to the speed of whatever connection they use. also the possibility of knocking the thing around and damaging it.& it could get stolen easily as well but the bonuses would be easily transferring data between computers......also have a look at this

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1151086&page=1

with an internal Harddrive your generating alot more heat in your computer..so you would have to watch that as well..yet its faster....Id go with an internal Hard Drive..ony cuz of speed and Im a Klutz.

and what DDunk said

There's an inbetween too. You can build in a harddiskrack (these aren't that expensive) and put a regular HD in..you can remove/replace the HD by sliding out the casing that holds the HD (without opening your computer casing to do so).

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Originally posted by Sunshine
There's an inbetween too. You can build in a harddiskrack (these aren't that expensive) and put a regular HD in..you can remove/replace the HD by sliding out the casing that holds the HD (without opening your computer casing to do so).

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Wouldn't that still give the problem of a lower transfer speed? It might be handy if you want to use your internal hard disk on the move for special occasions, though.

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Originally posted by Mippo
Wouldn't that still give the problem of a lower transfer speed?

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If the HD is a normal (internal based) Hard Disk that's on the HD-Rack, no. The connections use the exact same IDE cable and set up, as if it was a normal drive inside the computer. So the transfer speeds would be just the same as if the hard disk was in your computer.
I've heard about this before, but one limitation is that the rack should be properly covered, yet not allowed to get too hot. If the hard disk has valuable parts exposed (with no decent case cover) dust can get in more easily and over a few years the hard disk may cease to function properly. Of course, if it's fully covered, a lot of heat will get trapped inside, which can cause long term damage to the drive.
There's a lot of websites that talk about this, if you google about it. However I don't know anyone that's actually done it personally, so I don't know all the little problems that might crop up.
I also don't know anyone who uses an external as their "primary" hard disk. All the people I know who have externals use them as a data storage device that is portable and not as the disk to act as an OS.

My friend has an external hard-drive, yet I'm not too sure about the benefits. I could ask him for you, he seems to be extremely satisified with it.

My personal adivce would be to purchase an internal drive.  And spend the money you saved on a usb stick for external stuff

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Originally posted by Anubis
The connections use the exact same IDE cable and set up, as if it was a normal drive inside the computer.

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The IDE and power cables would run outside of the PC's case? O_o That sounds dodgy... you'd have to leave the cover off, and keep in mind the maximum length of IDE cables...

You put the power and IDE cables in a sleeve, and only the sleeve is seen connecting the mini rack to the computer. You cut a hole in the case for the cables to go through, instead of leaving a whole panel off.