external drive speed

[locosman]

hi i was looking into getting an external drive. however the performance has to be at least as good as an ide drive. will i get the same performance with it ? i waas looking at this one, Maxtor OneTouch II USB2.0 100GB 7200rpm 8MB cache
thanks

 

[The_Other_One]

External drive speeds only get up to ATA33 speeds. If you need performace, DON'T GO EXTERNAL! If you must use external, get firewire, they are about 20% faster(but still only about ATA33)

 

[kof2000]

i have an external sata drive that runs at ata150

 

[The_Other_One]

Ah, I keep forgetting about those

 

[locosman]

can you guide me on how to loo tell i cant find out which one this is... http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=006821&cid=HD.342

also if thats not ata150 kof can you tell me which one is?

thanks

 

[The_Other_One]

That one is obviously "Hi-Speed USB" which is what you might be limited to without upgrades of some sort.

ATA150 is serial ata which not too many computers(well, older ones) have. Plus to get one working as an external drive, I beleive you'd have to get a converter(most computers I see only have internal connections) plus actually find the case(I havn't seen many cases and any premade external SATA drives...)

 

[kof2000]

there one on newegg.

 

[jjsevdt]

The speed will vary in many ways, one big one is the cable length, but it shouldn't affect it too much. The serial ATA is new and quite expensive.