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Topic: Internal vs. External HD

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Which is better for performance? Internal Hard Drive or powered external HD?
 
Posted Thu 20 Aug 09 @ 1:58 pm
As already discussed in about half a dozen threads, it's doesn't matter if the hard drive is external or internal - it's the mechanism of the drive that counts.

Cheaper and/or smaller laptops usually use 5400rpm (=rounds per minute) internal drives. Most smaller/cheaper external drives also use 5400rpm units. So if you have an internal 5400rpm drive and a external 5400rpm drive, the performance is roughly the same...maybe slightly in favour of internal drive.

Bigger/expensive laptops have 7200rpm drives, just like bigger/expensive external drives. Higher RPM means higher performance. However, there are slight performance differences between connection types of external drives. Firewire is usually a bit faster than USB2.
 
It's best to run VDJ from your internal drive and keep your music, videos and karaoke on an external drive.

With the VDJ program running on an external drive the speed of access is only as fast as your USB connection. Keeping your content on a separate drive puts less strain on the internal drive that is running the program.


DJ RuDe
 
AurelCandy

Actually the difference in speed between an internal 5400RPM drive and even a 10000 RPM external drive favors the internal by a large margin.

Actually search the net (an I have done my own tests too). USB 2.0 transfer rate average tops around 25 M/bytes sec. Sata=60M/bytes sec.

I found using the exact same drive on USB and eSATA, trasfer rates on the exact same data. Takes about 2x-3x longer using USB 2.0 than eSATA. So if you have access to eSATA then yes performance can be faster depending on the drives specs, but when comparing USB to internal SATA, then the bottleneck is the USB transfer rate, and the RPM's won't make a difference.

Now with that being said. USB is fine for using with VDJ since it will only be a negligable defference noticed, during the tracks loading, because once the track is loaded to the software, the work you do is done in memory. Although I have 30,000 320k tracks on an internal 500GB notebook with about 30% free space, so I don't see why anyone should take the risk of using USB, and have to worry about dropped connection, I feel my data is safer in the notebook.
 
I used an external HD for over 200 weddings/special events, running a laptop and a DAC-2, etc.. . . . earlier last year I took the time and money to upgrade my laptop's HD and put all of my music on an internal, separtetly partioned space/drive.

I did not have any speed/data transfer rate issues - though did music (mp3's) only.

It was one of the best decisions I did to my rig in a while . . . no more busting out the hard drive, power supplies, etc. every time i wanted to manage music, or do an event, or even burn a quick disc from iTunes, etc. It's all there with your laptop.

I did a bi-weekly backup (mirror) to my external hard drive (along with a 2nd mirror that i stored offsite) which I carried with me to all gigs.

of course, if your music/video collection is over 300-400 gigs it likely will be hard as laptop hard drives (2.5") seem to be at the 500Gb limit right now. (but seem to be increasing about 100Gb per year based on history over last 2-3 yrs)
 
djblakemiller wrote :
of course, if your music/video collection is over 300-400 gigs it likely will be hard as laptop hard drives (2.5") seem to be at the 500Gb limit right now. (but seem to be increasing about 100Gb per year based on history over last 2-3 yrs)


750's have been already anounced for release, with 1 TB's slated for early to mid '10.
 
No one mentioning firewire external hard drives? They are fantastic! No drop out problems, fast data speed, and you can use that spare USB port on your computer for something else without having to get a HUB. have been using a 1TB drive for about 18 months now and about to buy a 2TB (plus one backup of course). The Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme is a good model.
 
I have mentioned Firewire and the faster eSata drives in other threads. I did a video on hard drives. I mentioned issues with my Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme 1.5 TB which has USB, Firewire and eSata.Unfortunately these hard drives have known issues for dropping out, shutting down or just disappearing even though it appears to be running.

On the video i discuss "Passports" , the Segate FreeAgent and the Western Digital "My Book" issues and recommendations for users of VDJ and other DJ softs..Check it out...




DJ RuDe
 
DJRudeDoGG wrote :
It's best to run VDJ from your internal drive and keep your music, videos and karaoke on an external drive.

With the VDJ program running on an external drive the speed of access is only as fast as your USB connection. Keeping your content on a separate drive puts less strain on the internal drive that is running the program.


I'd be inclined to say that this sounds more like gut-feeling assumption than empiric factual data. After it's started, Virtual DJ seems to do very little HD-operations - other than the obvious audio/video-file loading of course. The performance gain is negliable at best.

djstevieray wrote :
AurelCandy

Actually the difference in speed between an internal 5400RPM drive and even a 10000 RPM external drive favors the internal by a large margin.


stayvirei

That doesn't completely contradict what I said, however you are completely right that I failed to specify the relevancy of connection types (IDE/SATA/USB/Firewire) has with transfer speeds when comparing external and internal drives. But as a sidenote, has anyone seen any 10000rpm external drives? Not saying there aren't any, I'm just curious because I haven't seen them.

djstevieray wrote :
Actually search the net (an I have done my own tests too). USB 2.0 transfer rate average tops around 25 M/bytes sec. Sata=60M/bytes sec.

I found using the exact same drive on USB and eSATA, trasfer rates on the exact same data. Takes about 2x-3x longer using USB 2.0 than eSATA. So if you have access to eSATA then yes performance can be faster depending on the drives specs, but when comparing USB to internal SATA, then the bottleneck is the USB transfer rate, and the RPM's won't make a difference.


I assume the transfer rates mentioned in the first paragraph are measured using the same drive, and not the real-life transfer rates of the bus? Anyway...even though higher RPM's is usually better to some extent, you're right that ultimately USB will be the biggest bottle neck of performance.

So I guess the lessons of the day are:

1) Don't get a external hard drive for any other reason than that your internal drive is too small
2) If you get an external drive go for >= 7200rpm eSATA or Firewire drive, because USB sucks :)
 
Actually it is empirical data that I am presenting, as in information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment. I'm not even sure that you can put the words "factual" and "empirical" next to each other and make any sense. No offense to you my friend.

It would be "factual" to me but not necessarily to another. The only proof of I can present regarding my statements is anecdotal evidence, which does not necessarily denote a fact. So yes, I was presenting an opinion, which however is shared by many in the technical community.

It just makes sense to run your program from your internal and your music from the external. How many DJs do you know that only have 200 Gigs of music? I for one have at least 3 TB of music video, karaoke and music. But that's just me ;)


DJ RuDe


Keep Spinnin'!!
 
Haha, it's very likely that my sentence didn't make sense grammatically...me not being a native English speaker and all... :D

My music collection is actually less than 200GB, but that's because I'm a genre-specific DJ. In other words, I play and buy only those records and tracks that I like. I also don't do video nor karaoke. But for a mobile DJ who has a huge reserve of music for all kinds of tastes and situations, an extra hard drive not only makes sense but is a necessity...especially if one does video and/or karaoke.
 
djblakemiller wrote :
of course, if your music/video collection is over 300-400 gigs it likely will be hard as laptop hard drives (2.5") seem to be at the 500Gb limit right now. (but seem to be increasing about 100Gb per year based on history over last 2-3 yrs)


Use a laptop with multiple drive bays :)
 
I use INTERNAL drive(s) in my DESKTOP, FAST and SECURE. Just one more advantage of using NOT using a laptop. I do have a variety of portable drives (9) I use for back-up, my PC table looks like Fred Sanfords' garage. These are all 500 or 1-Tb drives.



Did I ever mention I'm not a fan of laptops for DJ's purposes? LMAO
 
According my opinion, it's better to have two internal hard disks than an internal and an external but if you are using a laptop that is not possible hence you should put all your music on your external one.

Never forget that connection such as usb, serial, firewire are the bottleneck of the system; that is why you should prefer PCMCIA or PCI or PCI express to hook your sound card up.
 
sischo wrote :
According my opinion, it's better to have two internal hard disks than an internal and an external but if you are using a laptop that is not possible hence you should put all your music on your external one.


As per my post above, a lot of laptops allow you to have two internal drives.

IMHO internal drives are better; faster transfer which is useful for loading video files, quicker setup and less cables :) The downside is obviously capacity though.
 
SBDJ wrote :
[quote=sischo]The downside is obviously capacity though.



Two years ago 750GB was a HUGE desktop or USB drive, and now they are being made in 2.5". So capacity really isn't an issue anymore for most applications.
 
My music video files are on an eSata hard drive which is about three times faster than my USB drives. This same drive has three choices. eSata, Firewire and USB and fortunately my Toshiba Qosmio lappy has all of these ports as well. My laptop has three built-in hard drives. The original 2.5 7200 RPM 320 gig, a solid state 128 gig and an additional 2.5 7200RPM 500 gig. None of which contain music, videos or karaoke. I don't really use the extra 2 internals at all.


DJ RuDe
 
djstevieray wrote :
Two years ago 750GB was a HUGE desktop or USB drive, and now they are being made in 2.5". So capacity really isn't an issue anymore for most applications.


In comparison to external drive solutions, internal laptop drive solutions will always be more limited. I didn't say it wasn't enough, I simply stated it was a drawback of the internal drive. FWIW I only use internal laptop drives :)
 


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