External better then Internal?.

skipper847 · 20 Feb 2013 at 13:56

I have my main windows on a internal 160GBSSD and i use to have a seagte 1tb HDD for games etc. Recently i was taking it out to clean and it was vibrating and making a humming noise. I have had another seagte in the past which did the same and now ive had 2 which both gone the same way and not work. I have got a 500GB external Western didgital black Hard Drive and thought i would use games on there. I mainly use steam these days as most of my games are on steam What i have done is put Steam it self on my SSD and then put the location to install games on my external Hard Drive which also is a 3.0usb. I play a lot of Just cause 2 and using the same graphic settings as be for Ive noticed a lot of improvement in frame rates and graphic glitches. I use to get shimmering objects and trees go dark for no reason but since using the external drive all this has gone and improved loads. Have i had a bad internal drive all this time?. I no one thing i will never get a Seagate Harddrive again but if this is good enougth i will not have to buy another internal hard drive any way and the best bit is that it only cost £40.

But how safe are using external hard drives for games as in it will not over heat my system etc?.

Devrij · 20 Feb 2013 at 15:40

I would have expected an external to be quite slow for loading levels/streaming textures, so I'm surprised you're having good results. I would pick up another internal drive, mainly for performance, but also just because I wouldn't really want to trust an external to run that long flat out without getting toasty and reducing its lifespan.

Philtor · 21 Feb 2013 at 00:11

External drives would need to be USB3 or eSATA. Outsides of that I would always go for an internal option.

Sasahara · 21 Feb 2013 at 00:38

Internal should be faster, if it isn't you have a hardware/software fault.

Even USB3 the interface will have an effect as the external drive is going to be standard SATA drive in a caddy, the transfer from SATA to USB3 is gonna have some effect, probably the access time is gonna take the biggest hit.

eSATA might be the same or very close, depending on the mobo.

skipper847 · 22 Feb 2013 at 10:56

Well i went and changed the sata3 cable which i broke as i had a spare one in the box where my mobo came in. After changing it the humming or buzzing noise stopped so could it have been a bad cable?.

bledd · 22 Feb 2013 at 12:44

ESATA will be the same speed as SATA (providing it's a good chipset on the ESATA)

I've not used USB3 yet, but I imagine there's an overhead to overcome, probably not quite as fast as ESATA/SATA

Personally, I always buy a full set of braded SATA3 cables for each build I make; it may seem overkill, but I now have a ton of spares and I know my cables are good.