IDE hard drive vs. USB hard drive

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Cutehumor

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I'm going to request a hard drive for christmas. which one do you think is best for my situation? IDE or USB?

Here's my computer: Sony Vaio RS 520, Windows XP SP3, Pentium 4, 3.0 GZ HT, 2 GB ram, Front Side Bus Speed 800MHz, ATI Radeon 9200 128MB video memory,160 GB HD, DVD-rw drive. I have one bay open to install IDE hard drive. or should I go with a USB HD? I'm still not sure how big of a hard drive I can add??
 
Go for the external drive. An internal IDE drive is a poor investment if you want to carry anything forward...

The USB drive might be SATA in a box which could be used in a newer PC should the enclosure S.T.B.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: Onmo'Eegusee
IDE will be faster, but non-portable. USB will be slow but portable. What do you want to do with it?


+1
 
If you get an external drive, it is nothing more than a normal, everyday IDE or SATA drive mounted in an enclosure with a IDE or SATA to USB assembly. You could, then, get the external drive, remove the drive and mount it internally if and when you wish to enjoy the benefits of both.
 
I plan on putting movies on the hard drive. usb hard drive maybe too slow? if I do use IDE, doesn't windows xp max out at 500 gb or so?
 
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Originally Posted By: Gradient
Get an external Firewire / eSATA drive.


What's he going to plug it onto on that system? USB is the only option unless an expansion card is involved.
 
I'd say get an internal one and on top of that an external enclosure. Check if you have SATA or PATA/IDE first and see what type of drive you should get, then download a tool like Seagate Disc Wizard or whatever from your brand for free to migrate your stuff over. Most of these tools are based of Acronis and are very easy to use.

Having a much newer hard drive as your boot/main drive will make your computer much much faster. After migrating the OS/Data over using the manufacture's tool, you can use your old drive in an external enclosure for portable data.

Best of both world with the same cost.
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
If you get an external drive, it is nothing more than a normal, everyday IDE or SATA drive mounted in an enclosure with a IDE or SATA to USB assembly. You could, then, get the external drive, remove the drive and mount it internally if and when you wish to enjoy the benefits of both.


What he has in the Sony may not be the same as what the external drive has inside. Also the warranty for external drive may be voided if you open it up.

Buy them separately, it is cheaper anyways.
 
You need to find out if you have sata on board. If you do, get an esata external encloure connect the header to your onboard sata and there ya go. For movies, I would suggest a 2TB sata (I like WD Caviar Black 32mb cache) they are big, fast and reliable and have a 5 yr warranty. If your stuck with IDE its a different story.
 
As others have stated, IDE will give you best performance, but its just about at the end of its life. 500Gb will be about as large as you can readily find in an IDE drive. But once installed should work fine for movies.

USB will give you portability and a longer product life but it will be much slower. And playin movies across USB would be sketchy.

Another possibility is to get a pci esata controller card (about $25-30.00) an esata external enclosure (about $40.00) and a 1TB 7200RPM drive with a 32mb cache (about $90) and for about $150-160.00 you could extend the life of an aging machine. Nothing too complicated there, if your handy at all with a pc. If you could successfully install an internal IDE you should be able to get that to go pretty easy.

Or... put the money toward a mobo upgrade. Your in a tough spot with an IDE mobo at this point in time, that technology is on the way out. Its all about money and what you want to do with the machine. Hope this helps.
 
Originally Posted By: fascination127
And playin movies across USB would be sketchy.

Why? Just how much throughput bandwidth do you realistically need for watching a movie? I've never found it to be a problem, personally.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: fascination127
And playin movies across USB would be sketchy.

Why? Just how much throughput bandwidth do you realistically need for watching a movie? I've never found it to be a problem, personally.


I agree you don't need a lot of speed for movies. It sounds to me like you just want it for storage of the movies.
 
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