Which HDD would be faster: External 7200rpm or a Internal 5400rpm?

I know there are internal 7200rpm for notebooks, but the question got in my head and now needs an answer. I know the usb connection is slower, but would the faster speed of the 7200rpm HDD overcome that and give a little perfomace to boot if you installed a game on it? [on the external 7200rpm HDD as compampared to an internal 5400rpm]

 

I don't think so, at least with the results I see with my notebook hard drive versus a USB hard drive.


WD 2.5" 250GB 5400rpm


WD 3.5" 500GB 7200rpm via USB

 

An external 3.5 inch drive will definitely be faster than any 2.5 inch notebook drive, but in almost every situation you will be limited by the USB throughput, not by the raw speed of faster hard drives. You may get faster seek times with a 3.5 inch external drive, but it won't make up for the transfer speeds you're loosing by using the USB port.

In short, it's usually not a good idea to install a program on an external drive (but there may be exceptions that I cannot think of off the top of my head).

 

The USB interface will significantly reduce the performance of a fast hard drive. Here's a screenshot of HD Tune benchmark of a Samsung Hard drive connected internally. It was posted by Ghola at another thread


And here's my HD Tune benchmark of the same hard drive connected externally.


As you can see, the performance drops dramatically. So to answer your question: an internal 5400 RPM hard drive will definitely be faster than an external 7200 or even 10,000 RPM hard drive.

 

Ok, thanks.

 

I would add that if you have an ExpressCard slot then you can install an eSATA adaptor, put you external HDD in an enclosure with a eSATA port and then get the full speed of the external HDD. This might also be possible through a Cardbus adaptor, but I haven't tested that solution.

John

 

^^ What about using an enclosure with firewire as opposed to USB 2?

 

Wont be much of a difference. USB will be more handy as its a universal inteface, not all computers have firewire

 

Firewire (FW400) will have a small increase in transfer speeds over USB 2.0 and less cpu utilization. The downside is that the firewire port in most laptops are unpowered, which means the drive requires external power. I frequently use my USB drive more than the FW400 one for that exact reason. As Flipfire said, the USB is more handy.

 

I have a decent sized HDD on my laptop, the external would probably just stay on my desk for music/vid files I don't NEED to be portable so I don't really care if I have to run a power supply. Firewire400 seems better, but at any rate, it isnt hard to find a cheap enclosure that offers USB and FW. Is USB2.0 fast enough to play movies off of? It seems it should be a piece of cake right?

What is unfortunate, is how costly an eSATA enclosure is! I can only see 1 option on newegg and it is 90 bucks on top of the expresscard adapter you'd need also

 

I have played movies from my USB drive without issue. As far as eSATA goes, I was initially looking into this but was scared off by the Expresscard heat and random Windows boot issues experienced by some.

I figure I'd just wait for my next lappy with an eSATA port.

 

Yes USB2.0 is fast enough to play movies off of, I use a USB stick to play movies on my XBOX 360.

I have a Vantec Sata Enclosure that comes with one cable for USB2.0 and another cable for eSata. It also comes with an eSata bracket to be mounted in a desktop pc as well. Great product overall, no problems yet, and decently priced ($34.99 on NewEgg right now).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145167

Hope this helps.

 

I seem to remember a higher number than that for my USB 2.0 cap on external file transfer speed somewhere near 45mb/s wich is really close to the average speed of an internal drive so there wont be a huge difference. In conclusion tho it depends on how fast your usb port is unless your going to use usata or firewire then thats better. Even within 5400 internal drives tho speed can go anywhere from 28mb/s average to like 50+ depending on quality/size.