is there any advantages/disadvantages between an internal harddrive or external?

Question

except from the obvious, that u can carry an external around... is it just as efficient to run programmes off an external HD than it is with an internal HD? and is it in anyway possible to integrate it into drive C:? (prolly a dumb question) ALSO...can u have more than one internal harddrive on ur comp

Answer 1

Last first.... you can certainly have more than one hard drive inside the computer chassis. How many depends on the type of drive and the capacity of the power supply. Many computers have IDE connectors, and this will allow two hard drives (Or CD-ROM, etc ) per connector on the mother board in the computer. Most are configured with a hard drive and a CD-ROM, but there are two IDE connectors, and that leaves space for, say, a DVD drive and another hard drive.

You mentioned the obvious benefit of some external drives. It's important to note the difficulties as well. External drives may be slower. With the new SATA drives internal, things are very fast. There are now though, some external SATA drives that are very fast. Firewire is also speedy.

The last question, about integrating the external drive to your C drive isn't possible with Windows. Linux though, supports that. You can link an external drive to the file system, and actually have a directory structure that spans a number of physical disks. It's much more complicated to understand and maintain, but really helpful if, for example, you setup a web server on an older computer. You find that you need more space in your docs. directory but don't want to rebuild the server by installing the OS on a new hard drive. You can then add teh new drive and create a symbolic link in the directory, and poof! You've got more disk space right where you need it.

Answer 2

Internal and external are the same harddrive, but connect to the computer differently. Because externals use usb2 or firewire, they are apt to be slower. For running programs, I would suggest using internal. Also take note that most externals have problems with overheating, so take that into consideration.
Although it IS possible to integrate into C:, it is not advised if you have intentions of removing the harddrive here and there. (which i'm sure you intend to)
As for your final question, I am running 5 internals and 2 externals on my main computer at this moment, totaling about 1850gigs of unformatted space. Buy ide/sata controller cards to add additional harddrives. Also, power splitters (forgot the exact name) may be necessary if you have run out of plugs from the computer power supply.

Answer 3

I know that external is not as efficient to run external programs/or copy to and from but I also know that it's not a huge problem especially if you have decent connection...(in my case my -firewire- harddrive is slower than my internal but not annoyingly so... I don't believe there is a way to integrate an external with an internal drive... sorry, not sure about your last question.

Answer 4

Both types of drives will be efficent. With some BIOS they allow you to boot from an external drive. This means you could install a differnt type of OS on the external HD without having to do Dual boot partitions etc. As for speed it depends mostly on the drives specs then they type of drive.

Also it is very easy to have more then one internal Harddrive. Assuming your computer has enough hookups.

Answer 5

Internal is faster. You can normally have up to 4 internal hard drives (if you don't have any CD/DVD drives) There are two IDE channels on a typical computer and each has a 2 drives. Also, if you need to, you can buy a card for extra channels.

Answer 6

Internal will be faster, external will be portable