Need help deciding between external or internal for media

Flare

Flare

Flare

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I want a high capacity drive pretty much purely for ripping films onto but i am in a dilemma as to what opetion to go for out of the following 3:

Internal drive: most likely a Samsung F3 Spinpoint 2TB @ £130
External drive: anything from a Hitachi SimpleDrive Rev. 3 2TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive @ £115 to Western Digital My Book Essential @ £158
Internal drive used externaly: most likely a Samsung Samsung F3 Spinpoint 2TB with a caddy @ ~£160

The main advantage of going for an external option is obvious, that i can take it places easily.
Obviously going for an external drive such as the Hitachi is most appealing because it's the cheapest but is there much of a difference in perfance with that and other viable options?

Any other tips/ bits of advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Flare
 
2Tb over USB? No thanks.

USB will give you, if you're lucky, about a third of the speed of eSATA or an internal SATA disk.

If you want the most flexible solution then go with an external (either pre-built or a make your own) that gives you both eSATA and USB. That way you have the speed when you want it but you're not limited to connecting it to machines with eSATA.
 
I am usually impressed by ethernet speeds so how about a NAS?

Or how about a Buffalo DriveStation USB 3.0 you would need a PCI-e adapter card also.
 
So you're all saying that having a 2tb external drive that was designed to be used over USB 2.0 will be far too slow? :confused:
 
Your looking at 30mb/s with usb 2.0 so do the maths.

esata is about the same as usb 3.0, firewire a bit slower than these two.

Why is nobody interested in usb 3.0!!
 
rz30 said:
Your looking at 30mb/s with usb 2.0 so do the maths.

esata is about the same as usb 3.0, firewire a bit slower than these two.

Why is nobody interested in usb 3.0!!
Click to expand...

Because while you can get USB 3 PCI cards, finding an affordable enclosure is extremely hard.
 
Zarf said:
Why not get an F2 or WD Green if it's just a media drive? Save some cash and they are quieter/cooler

Caddy wise, get one of these - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-060-AK&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72

Very handy to have around, you can archive the drive away after you fill it and slot another internal drive in it's place. If you want to get at something from an old drive it couldn't be simpler to swap it back in.
Click to expand...

This.
Makes the most sense imo
 
Zarf said:
Why not get an F2 or WD Green if it's just a media drive? Save some cash and they are quieter/cooler

Caddy wise, get one of these - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-060-AK&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72

Very handy to have around, you can archive the drive away after you fill it and slot another internal drive in it's place. If you want to get at something from an old drive it couldn't be simpler to swap it back in.
Click to expand...

I ideally want a 2TB so i would be looking at an F3, the 2TB WD Green is more expensive than the F3.

I'm not going to be swapping drives around and would rather not just have my drive completely open on my desk like it would be in that caddy. Why that caddy over another that has a eSATA?
 
Flare said:
I ideally want a 2TB so i would be looking at an F3, the 2TB WD Green is more expensive than the F3.

I'm not going to be swapping drives around and would rather not just have my drive completely open on my desk like it would be in that caddy. Why that caddy over another that has a eSATA?
Click to expand...

I picked out that caddy because it's versatile, you can quickly hotswap other internal drives in.
If you arn't interested in doing that though then any e-sata caddy will be fine.
 
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