What to get - external hard drive solution

A[L]C · 1 Mar 2009 at 19:21

Hi all,

Sitaution:

I have a desktop and a laptop. I only have a 100mb network.

I want to share movies between the network (dell dimension 9200) and the laptop (dell d630)

Desktop only has internal sata ports or USB 2. Laptop only has express card or firewire or usb.

I have a few options as I see it.

1) Get an internal drive and upgrade to a gigabit switch

2) Get a sata to estata faceplate like this

And a drive with esata and firewire like this

and use firewire to my laptop

3) Get an internal drive with a caddy like this

and get a sata to estata faceplate like this

and use usb2 to my laptop

Whats my best bet? Will be playing 720p movies.

bremen1874 · 1 Mar 2009 at 21:24

A wired 100mb network connection should be able to handle 720p.

If it won't then a Gigabit card for the desktop and a small Gigabit swich wouldn't cost much. The Laptop should already have built in Gigabit.

If you decide to go with an external drive be aware that the faceplates you're linking to aren't eSATA, they just present normal SATA data and power connections externally.

I assume you are aware that an external drive can only be connected to one machine at a time? Your post seems to suggest that both may connected at the same time.

One option you haven't listed is adding eSATA to the laptop using an express card.

A[L]C · 1 Mar 2009 at 21:31

bremen1874 said:
A wired 100mb network connection should be able to handle 720p.

If it won't then a Gigabit card for the desktop and a small Gigabit swich wouldn't cost much. The Laptop should already have built in Gigabit.

If you decide to go with an external drive be aware that the faceplates you're linking to aren't eSATA, they just present normal SATA data and power connections externally.

I assume you are aware that an external drive can only be connected to one machine at a time? Your post seems to suggest that both may connected at the same time.

One option you haven't listed is adding eSATA to the laptop using an express card.

Thanks for your reply. Yeah I know they wont be able to be connected to both at the same time unless I go NAS.

Ahh didnt know they were just normal sata connections. Does it matter? If I get an external drive with esata, I could just get a sata to esata cable couldnt I?

Are the esata express cards good?

fobose · 1 Mar 2009 at 21:31

100Mbit can easilly play 1080p. You could quite easilly have two or even three computers streaming 1080p from your desktop.

I would get another internal drive. If you dont want want to leave your PC on all the time then I would go for an external drive (USB for ease of use between your desktop and laptop). Just read your above post, why do you want to use esata on your laptop? 30-35MB/s isn't too bad (USB), just do all your copying from your desktop's sata -> esata adapter.