What is the fastest external hard drive?

SoSolid · 11 Feb 2007 at 10:12

I am looking to buy an external hard drive and would like someone to recommend me the one with the fastest loading etc.

HEADRAT · 11 Feb 2007 at 10:14

Well it will depend on the interface you use:-

USB2.0 = Slowest
Firewire400 = Less CPU overhead
Friewire800 = Less CPU overhead and faster than USB2.0 and Firewire400
E-sata= Fastest.

HEADRAT

SoSolid · 11 Feb 2007 at 10:23

I was going to use firewire although I don't know which kind of firewire my laptop has. What does less cpu overhead mean?

Will_3rd · 11 Feb 2007 at 10:31

SoSolid said:
I was going to use firewire although I don't know which kind of firewire my laptop has.

Which of the above?

SoSolid said:
What does less cpu overhead mean?

The file transfer has less effect on the performance of the CPU.

Chingoo · 11 Feb 2007 at 12:40

E-sata 4 the win

I have found that firewire hard-drives massivly slow-down boot-up for some unknown reason?!?!

Proc · 11 Feb 2007 at 15:02

Was looking at one of the new WD external drives with e-sata. Do you need an add on card for these as i don't remember seeing external sata ports being mentioned in any mb specs?

jbloggs · 11 Feb 2007 at 17:31

I have a 320GB Seagate SATA 7200.10 HDD in an Icy Box (USB2 & SATA data transfer), which connected to my mobo by eSATA gives me the full transfer speed, ie Average read in HD Tach 68 MB/s, if connected by USB2 I get 35 MB/s Average read.

james.miller · 11 Feb 2007 at 17:32

e-sata is great. not that i really have a need for it, but i have the option to use it with the connectors on my case. its a great system.

At The Gates · 17 Feb 2007 at 15:29

Proc said:
Was looking at one of the new WD external drives with e-sata. Do you need an add on card for these as i don't remember seeing external sata ports being mentioned in any mb specs?

Yes, most likely you will. There are a few (i say that, i've seen one - the Asrock board) boards that have eSATA ports but not many. Also don't get confused with the SATA external extension adaptors that companies like Asus ship with their boards. This is NOT eSATA, and most external drives (WD for sure) won't fit the L Shaped SATA connectors on these adaptors.