Hard drive swap: Can it be done?

SO... my e1705/m1710 has a NASTY parite bug... (Yeah, the one that writes all zero's on your most used programs making it not run?) so I decided it's best to format and start fresh.

BUT, given that it only has a 50 gig hard drive, I might as well upgrade. SO! Here is my plan. I am going to purchase a Seagate 250G external drive, (ST902504EXA101-RK) which AFAIK is powered by a 2.5" SATA 2 platter hard drive.

I plan to remove the hard drive from there, place it in my Dell, and put my old hard drive in the external, as opposed to having to back everything up, I'm just going to swap the drives. But, what I want to know is; has this been done before? Can it be done?

And if not, what are USB 2.0 speeds @5400 compared to a 5400RPM internal drive? Cause if this won't work, perhaps I can just install my big programs on the external?

 

No reason you shouldn't be able to swap the drives. The full USB rate should only be slightly slower than the max throughput of your small drive, but it may be closer to half of the max throughput of your big drive.

I wouldn't recommend installing apps on an external drive, though. Just sounds like more trouble than its worth.

 

Well it would be apps that are usually read by sustained data, as I use my computer to record music, my VST libraries are almost 120gb in size, but if I can swap the drives around, and just have the 250 inside, then I don't have to worry about a thang! lol