Using External as Internal

[Nashnir]

I hope the topic explained most of the stuff.
I recently bought 2 ITB WD MyBook Essential Edition and was planning to use them store data as currently I own only a 200GB internal HDD. The prices were almost a steal and hence without thining much I bought them.

I just wanted to know. Most of the External HDD's are just used as back up drives. But will there be a problem if I use them like my internal HDD. I doubt I will run apps on them since I will use my internal HDD for apps. But what about other stuff. Like continuously accessing files and storing files that are accessed by apps.

Sorry for such a long post

My internals get heated very quickly so I got the External ones ( Internal is a Seagate ) and also there is a grinding noise very single moment I access the drive ( But I gotta say, it has served me for 4 years with that noise and not a single complaint from me )

Also my external HDD is very cool compared to my internal HDD and noiseless. But there is small scratch type of sound every time I access the drive ( I think it is when the header repositions to read data or something ). Is this normal.


Edit : Also, the External HDD is in FAT32 partition. WIll there be prob if I convert it into NTFS ? I have converted internals before.

 

[Peaks]

Storing data on an external HDD that is accessed by apps on an internal HDD is fine, if not a fraction slower (but not noticeable). But I wouldn't recommend installing software onto it, think it can be done but there are always possible complications like the external drive not being on, or being disconnected.

In general internal drives are quicker to access because, well its through IDE or SATA, not USB.

 

[sabot00]

Depends, USB2.0's maximum sustained I/O is 30Mb/s while SATA II's is 3Gb/s for documents/pictures/videos it's fine. And there shouldn't be a problem if you reformat them.