upgrade hard drive or buy external?

[philattersall]

should i go to expense of buying a faster spining hard drive to replace the 4200rpm in my vaio, or should i go to the route of buying an external one?

i have 3 usb ports on my laptop. i'm thinking they are all 2.0 (it's an fs115s) so if i plug in a fast external hard drive say 7200 rpm, would i feel the benefits of this? would i be able to run software that demands that speed hard drive? and games?

and notice it was faster. or would the fact it's running though a usb mean it's a no go?

i hope this makes sense....

[William]

Without resorting to theoretical speeds of of USB2 my own preferred option would be to upgrade the existing internal HDD,

This way the whole machine would be speeded up.

The downside would be reinstalling your operating system.

[philattersall]

games like football manager 2006, and programs like adobe pro premiere. need or ideally like a 7200rpm

would then it work?

i was on the understanding that usb 2.0 would be fast enough for this idea to work........



if only they made a sony vaio in daytona 600 yellow

[kee-lo_]

The best thing to do really is to upgrade the internal hard disk - as you have it with you all of the time, and to install stuff on the external hard disk means you'd have to carry that around with you a lot of the time.

[philattersall]

i use my laptop mainly at home due to the short battery life, so it's not really a problem. the only other time i use is to watch dvd's and download photo's and surf the tinternet

i think my fs115s has 3 usb 2.0 and a firewire port

so with me keeping it in one place, would i be able to run adobe pro premiere for example off an external HD?

i did install grand theft auto vice city on to my ipod and that runs.....

[William]

I must admit I have never used an external HDD for the purpose you describe,

I would imagine your computer would then become the bottleneck even if the programmes do not object to being installed an an external HDD.

I would still upgrade the existing internal HDD. but the choice is yours

[philattersall]

I would imagine your computer would then become the bottleneck even if the programmes do not object to being installed an an external HDD.

bottleneck? what do you mean? i heard that usb 2 and firewire (hoping it is indeed a firewire port on the side) offer very faster transfer rates.

after playing grand theft auto vice city, which i installed on an ipod, i'm guessing the chance's are it may work......but.....

adobe premiere pro, is the one. it needs 7200rpm. and i'd rather run it from an external hd. but would it work???

[kee-lo_]

The best thing to do is try if you already have the hard disk.
But as William says there could be a bottleneck, but not necessarily.

[William]

bottleneck? what do you mean? i heard that usb 2 and firewire (hoping it is indeed a firewire port on the side) offer very faster transfer rates

They do, but your operating system will still reside on your "slow" HDD. Like it or not most program installations add bits and pieces to the Windows and program directories.

should i go to expense of buying a faster spining hard drive to replace the 4200rpm in my vaio, or should i go to the route of buying an external one?

It sounds to me like you have already made your decision.