[SOLVED] Maybe the stupidest question ever about HDD

[varun12]

Hi,

I'm sorry if this is the stupidest question ever but I wasn't able to decide. So in September I'm going to university, where I'd be living on my own. Now the dilemma is that I have a 500 GB external HDD and I have a 250GB HDD in my MacBook I'm wondering if I should pull out my MacBook's hard drive and change it with the 500GB one so I'd have more space onboard and I'd still have 250GB external?

What are your thoughts ? Should I do it or leave as is? and btw my external HDD is signature mini 500GB with a Hitachi hdd in it the one MacBook has in it , I'm not too sure.

Thanks In Advance

 

[Ijack]

It's a personal preference, but I would say that it is more useful for the external drive to be bigger than the internal one. Are you running out of disk space on the MacBook?

 

[hawks]

If you are using the external drive for backup, you want the 500 gb drive in the external. Time machine requires an equal or greater amount of space in order to run.

 

[Collie147]

I'd say leave it as is, otherwise you'll just end up spending ages messin with the os anyway

 

[varun12]

Not really, I still have enough space on my MacBook but I just thought if have enough space on my internal hdd then I wouldn't have to use external for anything

 

[Ijack]

I just thought if have enough space on my internal hdd then I wouldn't have to use external for anything

What about backups? No point keeping them on the same disk as the OS.

 

[RetiredChief]

Someone once said - There are NO stupid quest ions, only stupid answers.
THIS is NOT inferring above response are stupid.

(1) is the extrnal Hard drive a 2 1/2" or a 3 1/2 In drive ? I know, another stupid quest, But need to ask.

(2) I would probably use the 500 Gig in the Laptop as the performance is probably better. Are both drives 5400, or 7400 RPMs, use the faster one. Even if both are the same speed, the 500 Gig would be faster as more of the files would be written to the outside diameter of the platers. For backup: ( 1) Used win 7 BU to do a boot disk and an image file of "C drive - only have operating system +programs on C. Then periodically do a BU of all my data. I KNOW you have Mac, but assume you have similar ability. What about power, do they both have the same power consumption at idle/load, if so lower power = longer battery Life (another reson I switche to an SSD).

(3) I went the other way, looking at performance, I installed a 128 gig SSD, and an 80 Gig SSD in the older Laptop. Greatly improves the performance and I still have plenty of room on the 128 Gig laptop. I use a combination of (1) external 2 1/2 in estata/USB HDD - if needed, and (2) large thumb drive (32 Gig) to put temporary files such as DVD movies that I watch when on Plane.

 

[varun12]

OKay so here's what I did , I put in the 500 gig and I think it's 2.5 inch , both drives are 5400 rpm if they were 7200 rpm then i might not have had changed because it would eat my battery up and yes , on a little bit of space I would be installing Windows 7 too on my laptop; and once I have the money I would definitely go with the ssd


Thank YOU people

 

[varun12]

Best answer selected by varun12.

 

[jim donalson]

should be fine the way it is...

 

[nsquid]

believe me, i've heard stupider questions about HDDs.