A question about external harddrives

[Rye]

I'm not terribly clever when it comes to actual computers, so I wanted to ask about external harddrives.

My HD is kind of small. Vista hogged up a lot of space, so I only have 100 GBs of actual space... and now I'm down to about 10 GB since I downloaded Sims 3. If I get an external HD, and I put things like games, photoshop, videos, and music on it, once it's plugged in, can I use everything as if it was on my computer as is, or is it just a storage system? Like, for example, if I put a chunk of my music on it, and plugged it in before I plug my iPod in to be updated, does that still work and will the music go onto it? That sort of thing.

I dunno how dumb of a question that is, so spare the snarkiness if it is.

[o_O]

An external drive will behave the same way as a USB flash drive, basically. There are two main ways that you'd use it:
1. Purely as data storage. That means you would store music, video, documents, photos etc. on there but not programs (you could store program installers there though ).
2. As you would conventionally use an internal drive, meaning that you would install programs and even operating systems on there if you were so inclined.

I tend to only use my externals as data storage, but nothing's stopping you from say, installing Photoshop and Sims 3 to a directory on there. They'll work perfectly fine, only the external has to be connected in order to run them.

[Rye]

Ohhh =O Okay, that's good. I'm reluctant to send my laptop in to get a HD upgrade, so I think I might just buy an EHD sometime this summer, since it'll function how I want it to. Thanks Mike. <333

[o_O]

Yep, I'd definitely recommend getting an external, especially if you'd have to send it in for a new internal drive. They're convenient for legally sharing files with your friends (lol) and you'll pay about a third more for a laptop drive than an external anyway.

[Rye]

Whoaaaa! I found one with 1TB on it for 125 dollars. I think I might just opt for the 320 GB for 60 dollars. I'd never need anymore than 200 more GBs.

[Rantz]

Never say never! I'm using about 1TB out of my 1.75 x) Then again, you could always upgrade later if it comes to that.

[Rye]

It's more the fact that I can't even add much more music to my computer because my iPod is almost full, even after me deleting a couple of albums. xD Besides that, all I need is room for games and videos.

[Momiji]

Last year I found a nice 500GB external at Best Buy for like $70-80.

I found that it is best to shop around a bit though. At different stores, even smaller hard drives cost more than the one I found. *shrug*

Since I carry my laptop between two houses, though, I really just use it as data storage/backup. It's too cumbersome to carry around all the time.

Come to think of it, I'm running out of space on my internal (only have like 20GB left). I should do some maintenance soon. :x

[Mirage]

Photoshop shouldn't take more than a few hundred megabytes. In comparasion, a nice-quality album takes about 80-120 MB. Might be better off installing your programs on your internal drive, and put media files on the external hard drive. The most important thing however, is to handle the HDD with care. It is external and easy to move around, but it can *not* take a lot of abuse. Most failing external drives do so because they weren't treated properly. Try to avoid moving it while it is in use, and take care if you ever put it in your backpack or something. Handle it as if it was a bag of eggs.

[Slothy]

Might be better off installing your programs on your internal drive, and put media files on the external hard drive.

I would do this as well, mainly because a USB connection (or even firewire) won't be as fast as the connection between your internal hdd and the rest of the computer. Then again, it might not make a difference if your internal drive was fairly slow (as some laptop drives can be, though I'm not sure it'd be as slow as a USB drive). Still I wouldn't want to leave myself tied to an external drive to use my programs if I ever felt like leaving it behind when I take my laptop somewhere.

[Mirage]

I'm also of the impression that the USB interface has got higher latency than the S-ATA interface of your internal drive. Additionally, USB uses more CPU power to do stuff. :p.

[o_O]

The extra amount of time used just to open a program should be quite negligible though. After it's opened it will sit in RAM so won't be any slower than normal. I expect you'd only notice the speed difference when transferring a large amount of data or using the drive on a non-USB2.0 port.