FS on external drive?

[JoeEllwood 0]

Lately I've seen external hard drives going dirt cheap here. I think it was AUD$179 for a 320GB external hard drive that I saw in a PC catologue yesterday.

I'm crippled with a 40GB hard drive - and have FSX and FS9 on it along with the fact that this is a family PC - so I try not to hog the space.

Are there any problems with running FS on external drives? I'm seriously considering it - it just seems a bit more quicker and hassle free than buying a normal one and paying someone to fit it for me.

Any input is appreciated.

[mutley 4,495]

Joe,

I've never tried running FS on an external disc, it depends which interface is used to connect it to the mobo. I guess you must have USB 2.0?, that's pretty fast but not as good as an internal on a Sata or Sata II especially if you have FSX in mind.

Installing an internal is really a 10 minute job and the drives normally come with installation software so it's no more difficult than installing a soundboard, graphics card or modem.

Hopefully someone else may be able to chip in?

Cheers

[simi_av8r 0]

I guess you must have USB 2.0?, that's pretty fast but not as good as an internal on a Sata or Sata II........

Indeed, however could i suggest IEEE1394 (i.e. Firewire) as an alternative as, not only can it offer sustained 40Mbit/Sec transfer speeds (thats about 50MB/s in normal money) but also because of the following (and rather cool!) reason:

IEEE 1394b is utilized for military aircraft, where weight savings are desired; even four pairs of wires, to permit multiple redundancy, are far lighter than hundreds of discrete wires. Developed for use as the data bus on the F-22 Raptor, it is also used on the F-35 Lightning II. NASA's Space Shuttle also uses IEEE 1394b to monitor debris (foam, ice) which may hit the vehicle during launch

- N.B. IEEE1394b is a 4-pin version of IEEE1394a and lacks 2 power pins.

As for external units, there are also external SATA II compatible drives, and these use PCI-E based SATA II controller cards and connect just like a normal USB2.9/IEEE1394 HDD would, just usinga SATA cable!

try this one for size! Made by the world renowned (French based) external HDD specialist LaCie. Its called the D2 'Quadra' and sports Firewire 400, FireWire 800, USB2.0 and SATA-2 connectors on its interface card

[simi_av8r 0]

I guess you must have USB 2.0?, that's pretty fast but not as good as an internal on a Sata or Sata II........

Indeed, however could i suggest IEEE1394 (i.e. Firewire) as an alternative as, not only can it offer sustained 400Mbit/Sec transfer speeds (thats about 50MB/s in normal money) but also because of the following (and rather cool!) reason:

IEEE 1394b is utilized for military aircraft, where weight savings are desired; even four pairs of wires, to permit multiple redundancy, are far lighter than hundreds of discrete wires. Developed for use as the data bus on the F-22 Raptor, it is also used on the F-35 Lightning II. NASA's Space Shuttle also uses IEEE 1394b to monitor debris (foam, ice) which may hit the vehicle during launch - N.B. IEEE1394b is a 4-pin version of IEEE1394a and lacks 2 power pins.

As for external units, there are also external SATA II compatible drives, and these use PCI-E based SATA II controller cards and connect just like a normal USB2.9/IEEE1394 HDD would, just usinga SATA cable!

try this one for size! Made by the world renowned (French based) external HDD specialist LaCie. Its called the D2 'Quadra' and sports Firewire 400, FireWire 800, USB2.0 and SATA-2 connectors on its interface card

[allardjd 1,853]

What's needed on the PC end to connect a Firewire external drive?

 

John

[simi_av8r 0]

What's needed on the PC end to connect a Firewire external drive?

John

a firewire PCI card....?

[allardjd 1,853]

Please excuse my ignorance. That's not the same as plugging in to a 10/100 Ethernet connector

I suspect....?

 

I'm dealing with a nearly four year old laptop and don't have an awful lot of hardware expertise

or recent experience. It's a 2.85 GHz P4, but is landlocked with 500 Mb of RAM (maxed out), a

40 Gb disc and a very archaic video card. On the plus side, it still runs business applications

and everything else I use admirably, but just barely manages FS9. I often see frame rates

in single digits, sometimes 1.0.

 

It seems that if you're not in the business or a real hardware afficianado, this stuff soon runs away

from wherever you happen to be.

 

Thanks,

 

John

[JoeEllwood 0]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Yes, I have 2x 2.0 USB ports. Is there any little tool I can run on the PC I can run to check if I have Firewire capability?

[simi_av8r 0]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Yes, I have 2x 2.0 USB ports. Is there any little tool I can run on the PC I can run to check if I have Firewire capability?

you'd be best off looking mate - a Firewire port looks very much different to USB.. it looks like this actually :

Please excuse my ignorance. That's not the same as plugging in to a 10/100 Ethernet connector

I suspect....?

I'm dealing with a nearly four year old laptop and don't have an awful lot of hardware expertise

or recent experience. It's a 2.85 GHz P4, but is landlocked with 500 Mb of RAM (maxed out), a

40 Gb disc and a very archaic video card. On the plus side, it still runs business applications

and everything else I use admirably, but just barely manages FS9. I often see frame rates

in single digits, sometimes 1.0.

It seems that if you're not in the business or a real hardware afficianado, this stuff soon runs away

from wherever you happen to be.

Thanks,

John

you could probably try a PCMCIA cardbus adaptor for IEEE1394/FireWire... like this:

you'r laptop, and very few Windows machines up until very recently for that matter, wouldn't have had FireWire on them. Its used primarily by audio and video pros, and so has been a standard port on Mac systems since way back in 1994! Either way, PCMCIA is the best way to go for a latop and FireWire :yes:

[allardjd 1,853]

Thanks. That helped a lot.

 

John