ext. hddve- to USB? speed?

[Joe]

I haven't been keeping up with hardware developments for several years- so
this is a dumb question to most of you- but, just noticed an external hard
drive which can plug into a computer's USB port or via a firewire.

Just curious but how much speed is lost by using such an external drive
plugged into a USB port compared to installing the drive into to the
computer? (more or less)

Wondering about this because if I do need to install a second drive, it
would be somewhat more convenient to use the external drive.

Joe

 

[Arno Wagner]

I haven't been keeping up with hardware developments for several years- so
this is a dumb question to most of you- but, just noticed an external hard
drive which can plug into a computer's USB port or via a firewire.

Just curious but how much speed is lost by using such an external drive
plugged into a USB port compared to installing the drive into to the
computer? (more or less)

Wondering about this because if I do need to install a second drive, it
would be somewhat more convenient to use the external drive.

Personal experience with USB under Linux: I see about 25MB/s transfer
rate, as opposed to 2-3x that with direct connection. Still reasonably
fast IMO. Not suitable for a page-file or I/O intensive application,
but well suited for backup, media storage, document storage and the
like.

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

I haven't been keeping up with hardware developments for several years- so this is a dumb question
to most of you- but, just noticed an external hard drive which can plug into a computer's USB port
or via a firewire.

There's more flavours than just those two now.

Just curious but how much speed is lost by using such an external drive plugged into a USB port
compared to installing the drive into to the computer? (more or less)

The speed is noticeably lower. Not half the speed tho.

Wondering about this because if I do need to install a second drive,
it would be somewhat more convenient to use the external drive.

The eSATA connections work at the same speed as an internal drive.
Not as convenient cabling wise tho.