I'm running out of space on my harddrives so I'm thinking about buying a new one. The question is if it's gonna be an internal or an external. I'm doing alot of video editing on my computer so it has to be over 100 GB. I've looked up some options and one of them is a Lacie external drive. They're quite expensive if you compare with any internal drive but they're mobile and they won't interfere with the other drives. Help me...please?

if you don't want to limit yourself, you could get a good internal that's however big you want it and buy an external enclosure to put it in so it is mobile if you want it to be, but if you would decide you wanted it in your case you could just take it out of the enclosure and make it an internal

Are you going to be using it purely for storage or would you also like to install apps to it?

If the latter then I would suggest an internal. If you just want it for storage of files then external would do the job. Thats just my opinion though.

If money isn't an issue I'd suggest both an internal SATA ( if supported byyour mobo ) or IDE as they're faster and an external for mobility. Otherwise I suggest you buy an external Firewire hard drive to do your job quick. Just check for Firewire ports on your PC. If you don't have any you could buy a PCI add on card.

With the video editing I agree with some of the earlier folks, get yourself a monster internal, also look for a drive that includes some form of tranfer software that allows you to clone the drive that way you can remove the current drive and turn it into the external transportable .

I agree with ginogsm, a internal SATA drive would be the best, it is much faster compared to firwire and there is really no point spenting alot of extra money if you are not going to move it around much.

Internal is the only way to go unless you are going to be moving large amounts of data to different computers alot. Even USB 2.0 external's don't hold a candle to the speed of an internal. As every one else has mentioned SATA is the way to go if your mobo has controllers.

There are enclosures for internal Drives whre they can be easily removed and transported to another machine, you buy one tray to hold the drive and however many cradles you need. this make it portable but still gives you full IDE speed. I have a 250GB Drive that I move between machines frequently and this did the trick. Any external drive, even firewire, will be significantly slower than a PATA IDE connection.

~Robrowe~ wrote:

There are enclosures for internal Drives whre they can be easily removed and transported to another machine, you buy one tray to hold the drive and however many cradles you need. this make it portable but still gives you full IDE speed. I have a 250GB Drive that I move between machines frequently and this did the trick. Any external drive, even firewire, will be significantly slower than a PATA IDE connection.

Agreed there. All our developers at work carry their own HD and, thus, have their own personalized environment to work with on the target systems.

Here's a link to a hot-swap hd tray.

And yes, it's pretty hard to get any serial interface to outdo a parallel buss.

As has been said a few times before (I may's well just say it again to up the post count...), if you're looking for something speedy on which to install apps and run things from, then you will probably need an internal. However, if you're using it just for storage (and seeing as you plan on putting videos used for editing on the thing, this seems to be your aim,) go with outboard USB2.0 or 1394.

My friend just purchased a LaCie 80GB drive for the same video editing purposes, and it's really nice.

The idea to buy an enclosure is a nice one as well, and it could possibly save you money. Enclosures are dirt-cheap (check ebay), and often better deals can be had on internal disks than on external. That may be the way to go, and it still allows you to be indecisive.