External hard drive??

[Russ fett--3]

My friend would like to know if he has a external hard drive that he can use it with out buying a internal one. Like just use that external as his main hard drive.

 

[USAFRet]

My friend would like to know if he has a external hard drive that he can use it with out buying a internal one. Like just use that external as his main hard drive.

To use as the OS drive?
No.

 

[Rogue Leader]

My friend would like to know if he has a external hard drive that he can use it with out buying a internal one. Like just use that external as his main hard drive.

In theory you could, however most external hard drives connect via USB which is very slow compared to SATA. You'd really need to use eSATA for good usable performance. What is he doing this on and why does he want to do this?

 

[R_1]

if he boots a linux distro off of usb, he could install the distro to the external.
I just installed puppy linux to a usb flash drive.
its possible.

typed on a laptop with no hdd, booting and running puppy linux from usb.

 

[johnmanth]

You can do it (in theory) but is a bad idea cause external hard drives are much more prone to functionality problems, usb is way slower than sata and you can use this hard drive only at one computer(you need a fresh install for each computer)

 

[Samer1970]

You can do it (in theory) but is a bad idea cause external hard drives are much more prone to functionality problems, usb is way slower than sata and you can use this hard drive only at one computer(you need a fresh install for each computer)

USB3 is not waaaay slower than SATA ... and you can use ANY drive of ANY quality in USB3 Drive BOX .

The only thing here missing is that Windows does not allow booting from USB3 , but there are ways around it by getting a box with BOTH USB3 AND eSATA connection , and put an external eSATA in the PC and connect it directly to the sata port.

 

[johnmanth]

You can do it (in theory) but is a bad idea cause external hard drives are much more prone to functionality problems, usb is way slower than sata and you can use this hard drive only at one computer(you need a fresh install for each computer)

USB3 is not waaaay slower than SATA ... and you can use ANY drive of ANY quality in USB3 Drive BOX .

The only thing here missing is that Windows does not allow booting from USB3 , but there are ways around it by getting a box with BOTH USB3 AND eSATA connection , and put an external eSATA in the PC and connect it directly to the sata port.

Well, if you are about to connect something to the mob's sata anyway why don't you just get a internal harddrive?

 

[MauveCloud]

The idea might have been to avoid spending extra money on a separate internal hard drive. If that's the situation, it might be possible to remove the drive from the USB external enclosure and turn it into an internal drive. Admittedly, the quality of such a drive could be much lower than a separately purchased internal hard drive, or it could turn out to be an IDE drive which will be difficult to connect to a recent motherboard.

 

[Samer1970]

You can do it (in theory) but is a bad idea cause external hard drives are much more prone to functionality problems, usb is way slower than sata and you can use this hard drive only at one computer(you need a fresh install for each computer)

USB3 is not waaaay slower than SATA ... and you can use ANY drive of ANY quality in USB3 Drive BOX .

The only thing here missing is that Windows does not allow booting from USB3 , but there are ways around it by getting a box with BOTH USB3 AND eSATA connection , and put an external eSATA in the PC and connect it directly to the sata port.

Well, if you are about to connect something to the mob's sata anyway why don't you just get a internal harddrive?

Because you use it External as well . some boxes have both USB3 AND eSata ports like this one

https://www.startech.com/HDD/Enclosures/esatap-usb-3-sata-6gbps-hdd-enclosure~S251SMU33EP

and 3.5 inch

http://www.fantec.de/fileadmin/downloads/products/festplattengehaeuse_festplatten/DB-Alu3e-6G/datasheet/FANTEC_DB-ALU3e-6G_datasheet_en.pdf

 

[Rogue Leader]

You can do it (in theory) but is a bad idea cause external hard drives are much more prone to functionality problems, usb is way slower than sata and you can use this hard drive only at one computer(you need a fresh install for each computer)

USB3 is not waaaay slower than SATA ... and you can use ANY drive of ANY quality in USB3 Drive BOX .

The only thing here missing is that Windows does not allow booting from USB3 , but there are ways around it by getting a box with BOTH USB3 AND eSATA connection , and put an external eSATA in the PC and connect it directly to the sata port.

Correct USB 3 is not way slower, but USB 2 is and to work under the assumption that a PC whos hard drive has failed so the person wants to use an external hard drive has USB 3. Its best to ask however the OP seems to not be around. On top of that eSATA is rare so its tough to rely on that.

I have a feeling its a person whos trying to get away with plugging an external hard drive into a good old USB 2.0 port which while yes is bootable, I am not sure if Windows would even install to a drive like that (never tried) and is pretty slow.

Hios best bet would be to pull the drive from the enclosure and install it in the system. It eliminates all these problems.