Using HDD'S from desktop on a laptop

lee20010

lee20010

lee20010

Associate
Joined
2 Aug 2011
Posts
1,147
Location
Newbury
I wasn't sure if this should be in the laptop section, or hard drives. But as I'm selling my rig, I'm keeping my hard drives as theres no point selling them for the sake of £30.

My question is, is there a sort of caddie I can put them in so I can turn them into external? So SATA > USB 2/3?
 
lee20010 said:
whys that?
Click to expand...

you would need to buy a usb 3 caddy or else it will be limited by usb 2 bandwidth (30MB/s)

if you did get a usb 3 caddy the controller chips are usually very poor quality so the speed of transfer will get slow very quickly and the chip will get very hot
 
Speeds won't be crap. I use a 1 TB Seagate 5400rom in an external Icybox USB caddy. I get about 30MB/sec according to Windows when copying files. It does feel a bit slower than directly connected with SATA but not massively.

I might try a benchmark in a minute to see what the difference is.
 
I'm not 100% sure but if it is a SATA HDD and you have an eSATA port on your laptop (I know some Dell's do) then surely the speeds would be a lot better?

Someone confirm?
 
It depends what you are using the drives for. Surely it'll just be file storage as you aren't going to install software on them or you'll need them plugged in all the time and the laptop won;t be very portable then! ;)
 
ed79 said:
Speeds won't be crap. I use a 1 TB Seagate 5400rom in an external Icybox USB caddy. I get about 30MB/sec according to Windows when copying files. It does feel a bit slower than directly connected with SATA but not massively.

I might try a benchmark in a minute to see what the difference is.
Click to expand...

with green sata drives (i.e. slow ones) i get just over 100MB/s copying between drives, compare that to the 30MB/s that you are topping out at

if you are using decent drives that can be up to 150MB/s and ssd's are in the 3-500MB/s between drives

personally i think 30MB/s is too slow, but if the OP is fine with that then there isnt a problem :)
 
panyan said:
with green sata drives (i.e. slow ones) i get just over 100MB/s copying between drives, compare that to the 30MB/s that you are topping out at

if you are using decent drives that can be up to 150MB/s and ssd's are in the 3-500MB/s between drives

personally i think 30MB/s is too slow, but if the OP is fine with that then there isnt a problem :)
Click to expand...

I was really replying to the earlier post that "speeds would be utter crap" as if they would be unusable. As you say for a data storage where's the harm in spending £20 on an enclosure?
 
I used a USB dock on my laptop. When you come from internal sata to that, damn its so slow. However you will get used to it. Find a laptop with a smallish HDD then install a SSD. That way you can have your OS on that with your files on the HDD.
 
I do find myself saying to it "come on you ******* slow ***** piece of ****" when I'm using it, but that's cos I am a little impatient!

I'm just doing some comparison speed test - will post the results shortly...
 
Hyburnate said:
I used a USB dock on my laptop. When you come from internal sata to that, damn its so slow. However you will get used to it. Find a laptop with a smallish HDD then install a SSD. That way you can have your OS on that with your files on the HDD.
Click to expand...

If the laptop and/or dock/caddy are USB 2.0 then transfer speed will be limited to ~30MB/s.

If they're both USB 3.0 then you basically get the full transfer rate of the HDD.
 
ed79 said:
I'm just doing some comparison speed test - will post the results shortly...
Click to expand...

I did some a while back:

2.5" 5400rpm drive in a bus powered external enclosure:

USB 2.0 read and write 30MB/s​

USB 3.0 read 75MB/s, write 60MB/s​

3.5" 5400rpm drive in an external dock:

USB 2.0 read and write 30MB/s​

USB 3.0 read 90MB/s, write 60MB/s​
 
All I'd be doing is putting films, tv shows, and music on the drives so the laptop isnt running slow. Then using the external to stream from via xbox or connect to my pc then through HDMI to the TV.
 
Turns out the HD I'm using is a 7200rpm. It's in a USB3 enclosure but my motherboard only has USB2. There was more of a difference than I thought there'd be...

Copying a 4.3GB 720p video from external to internal...
SATA2 88 MB/sec USB2 33 MB/sec

Copying that file back again was a bit slower
SATA2 76 MB/sec USB2 26MB/sec

Demux (seperating video and audio) took 216 secs on SATA and 488 secs USB2

250kqk8.png


HD Tune
155khtx.png


So it's about 2-3 times slower. I'd be interested to see how fast a NAS box copies stuff over a home gigabit network - but that's probably a bit off topic.

This was using a Icybox IB-371StUS2-B. OCUK don't seem to sell it but the IB-318 is about £10 more... http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-060-BT&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72
 
Last edited:
What is a NAS drive because I was going to get WDTV instead as a streaming unit as I use homeplugs for my internet around the house. Would that be faster?
 
I think Homeplugs are up to 200Mbit/sec so 200/8 = 25MB/sec, so even USB2 would be a bit faster - and I doubt homeplugs get that full speed in reality.

If you were to get a NAS box http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=46&catid=2125 on a gigabit network you could theoretically get network transfers of 1000mbit /8 = 125 MB/sec.

Of course you'd need a £400 NAS box PLUS hardisks, plus a Gigabit switch, PLUS cabling - that's why I went for a £30 external USB HD instead which I plug into my TV and lets me watch all my films that way!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom