My main hard drive is corrupted and failing, so I'm looking to upgrade. My mobo is a little older, an Asus A7N266-VM/AA, but I don't have the money to upgrade that, as well. I have to upgrade my hard drive at this point, so I'm looking at the possibility of buying a Firewire controller card so I can get a Firewire hard drive. I'm looking for speed and capacity. I will be running Linux/XP and will probably get an external as opposed to an internal. Should I stay with the standard for my mobo, IDE, or try to upgrade with a controller card? If I do, which kind would be best for a descent price?
2007-03-02 05:21:43 · 4 answers · asked by brotherneptune 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
SATA IS THE FASTEST/BEST IF you decide to get an INTERNAL.
Far as an external setup I'd recommend Firewire it is a bit quicker than USB 2.0...if you are going for external you don't need to worry about what kind of controller card you have.
You can actually buy external hard drives that support BOTH FIREWIRE AND USB (in case you have Firewire compatitability problem: check out this link, among other shops you can find online FOR PC'S NOT JUST MACS):
http://www.superwarehouse.com/Iomega_External_Hard_Drives/b/127/c/2361
Since Firewire and USB are the main standards for external hard-drives I'd consider a USB&FIREWIRE compatible external drive as the ultimate solution.
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BTW, if you're (instead of the above alternatives) considering getting a hybrid setup with an external hard-drive docking system, there's not much of a point getting faster than IDE. For example an internal SATA drive in a USB external dock will not be significantly faster than an internal IDE drive in a USB external dock, because USB will be the speed-limiting bottleneck not the drive itself. Same goes for EIDE. Just something to think about...
2007-03-02 05:29:13 · answer #1 · answered by M S 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
An all-Firewire setup is too costly. USB not fast but same can be said with Firewire; either SATA or just EIDE but SATA have speed advantage; best of the four.
By the way Firewire is trademarked by Apple exclusively for Macs; same thing correctly said legal speak is IEEE 1934 on PCs.
2007-03-02 05:29:03 · answer #2 · answered by Andy T 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Firewire should be the last thought of speed. When you think speed, you should try out SATA. With just a bit more speed than USB, it has the portability for what you are looking for. This definately is easier to set up in your Linux kernel also. EIDE is just a bit tedious with the Linux kernel as you would have to edit your controller file for your hardware.
2007-03-02 05:35:09 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
If you have SATA go with that, otherwise go with EIDE. Do not use USB or FireWire drices inside your computer as they do not peform verry well compared to the SATA and EIDE drives.
2007-03-02 08:50:56 · answer #4 · answered by Dan 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋