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9330
August 19th, 2008 05:00
external firewire hard drive
my xps m1530 with a 160GB 7200rpm drive has almost run out of space. I play quite a few games on it so i wanted to get the fastest external hard drive i can plug into it. I got a 500gb wd mybook with firewire 400 esata & usb, though i am thinking of getting a Maxtor 750GB with similar interfaces, or a simple usb bus-powered one if the speed differences are negligible. i know that if i am to run a game from it firewire400 may not be enough, but it still is faster than usb i assume. anyone have experience running games or programs from an external hard drive in firewire? Since it also has an esata interface can I add the esata port on to my m1530 (where is the express card slot?), and how much might it cost? Is it possible to have an additional internal hard drive on the m1530.
GodfreyOuwens
274 Posts
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August 19th, 2008 13:00
Depending on what game you play... I play Lineage II from an external USB, and I have also played from the firewire port..
Both were pretty slow at load times compared to having the game installed on the internal drive. I believe that firewire has a more sustained constant throughput while usb has faster peak throughput ( just going from my memory which is fading everyday ;) )
I would suggest going with the largest drive you can afford, and ghosting your 160 Gb drive over to it. This way you have the space and the speed of using an internal drive ;)
There are many programs out there for cloning or ghosting drives, just a matter of preference..
Good Luck!!
TheRealFireblad
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4.6K Posts
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August 20th, 2008 09:00
The ExpressCard slot should be at the front right of the laptop?
It's the same slot into which you slide the remote control.
Adding a 2-port eSATA ExtressCard is very easy, and they're available for <£20/US$40.
But I very much doubt even eSATA will provide the necessary throughput/speed, to play games as smoothly as running them from an internal drive?
So I'd agree that your best option would be to just replace the 160GB drive, with a larger capacity drive.
There are a number of 320GB 7200rpm drives available (my personal favourite is the WD Scorpio 'Black')... or there's the 500GB Hitachi HTS545050KTA300 5400rpm drive ;)