Hardware Is it possible to use an External Hard Drive as a Hard disk drive?

[ky]

I've looked at many articles on this topic.Some say you can some say you can't,so I decided to turn to you guys.Is it really wise and is it possible to use an external hard drive as your computers hard disk drive?I currently have an 18 GB Hard disk drive in my computer and want to put in a 250 GB external hard drive.

 

[orb]

Depends on the drive itself and the computer. I have currently inside of my laptop 160 GB hard disk which I bought as an external drive in first place (USB). And the 60 GB drive I had earlier inside of my laptop is now in that external drive's external shell. Some computers allow to boot from USB devices as well, so external drives can be used as boot drives without exchanging disks too.

 

[Grover]

to depends how much fiddling you want to do, its like C++, you can do near anything within reason

 

[Keatah]

I always prefer to have a small super-fast drive inside the computer for the OS and APPLICATIONS, preferably an SSD. Or in the days of the mechanical PATA interfaces, for example, a Samsung SpinPoint HM160HC.

And then for storage and working datasets and my general everyday documents..Port that off to an external drive or at least a separate directory, or perhaps just a 2nd drive internal to the computer. 1TB and 2TB mechanicals can't be beat for cost/capacity.

As far as using a USB drive as your main boot disk, sure its possible. Just not recommended due to the slow speeds.

 

[garyw]

You can if the BIOS supports USB booting. I've used this method to install operating systems on machines without CD drives.

however, I wouldn't recommened it. I have a 40GB boot drive and a 200GB second drive for all the other bits and pieces.

 

[ky]

I dont think I can add a second hard disk drive to a Dell GX260.

 

[fsci123]

Everything ORBITER including the developer version and the regular versions which compose of 3GB are stored on a harddrive... So i will assume yes you can use a backup drive as a hard drive if you use it as an addition to computer storage...

 

[garyw]

If you've got the small form factor or the small desktop then no, you only have space for one unless you remove the CD Rom and put a Hard drive in it's place but won't look very tidy.

 

[Screamer]

Personally I don't think it is worth it. An 18 gigabyte hard drive is small. And by that I am curious what the rest of your computer consist of? The motherboard, cpu, ram and video card specs. If it have an 18 gig hard drive, I suspect it is a rather old machine. And 500 gig hard drive's is cheap....cheaper than a external drive. So, if your computer bios allowed it, why not install a 500 + gig hard drive?
Boot times will be very slow on a external hard drive that use usb.


I miss that post. The Dell GX260 are shipped with a 40 gig hard drive. That means the hard drive is been swapped with an 18 gig hard drive.

http://pcworld.about.net/news/Aug222002id104306.htm
http://www.pcworld.com/product/14100/dell_optiplex_gx260.html?p=specs

 

[Krikkit]

It all depends on how clever your BIOS is.

For a long period of time I had a laptop, whose original HD crashed, running Debian off of a $20 4GB thumb drive. I later switched to my old 15GB ipod because it was faster.

But even before that I had the whole thing running ubuntu off of a DVD-RW.

It is amazing how little disk space you need when you have another computer to hold all your music and movies.

 

[agentgonzo]

Throughput of USB is much smaller than SATA/IDE, so you're disk performance will be a bit weak. Plus you are reliant on USB drivers, so if there is a problem with the USB driver for whatever reason, then your computer will crash. If Windows decides to update your USB driver for a driver update it will tank your computer.

Apart from that, I can't see a problem with it.

 

[Keatah]

I've looked at many articles on this topic.Some say you can some say you can't,so I decided to turn to you guys.Is it really wise and is it possible to use an external hard drive as your computers hard disk drive?I currently have an 18 GB Hard disk drive in my computer and want to put in a 250 GB external hard drive.

Bringing us around to the beginning. What is it exactly you want to do with the external drive? And why? What sort of data is going on it?

---------- Post added at 04:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:49 AM ----------

The gx260 reeks of proprietary-ness and there doesn't seem to be room for a 2nd internal hard disk. You could do a hack-job, something like plugging in a usb cable to the outside port in back. Then feed that cable into the computer somehow, you might need to cut a "U" shaped hole or enlarge an existing hole or something, or somehow just get the cable going back into the machine.

You then could get a 2.5 external usb drive, strip it out of the casing, then tuck that assemblage of drive/interface in the pc case, there looks like enough room to do so! You could get 1TB going, irregardless of the bios settings! WOW!

You could also get a pci/ide/sata interface card, Or a usb card with an internal connector and go that route. From the looks of it, your system's hardware will only support 2 ide devices off the mobo. And I'm sure, with the cost cutting, that they didn't develop the bios to exceed the capability of the motherboard anyways.


http://www.lorine.fr/ebay/photos/GX260/gx260-1.jpg

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opgx260/en/ug/sffdrvs.htm#1136008

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opgx260/en/ug/index.htm

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opgx260/en/ug/sysbrd.htm

 

[garyw]

And 500 gig hard drive's is cheap....cheaper than a external drive. So, if your computer bios allowed it, why not install a 500 + gig hard drive?
Boot times will be very slow on a external hard drive that use usb.

500GB is in the realm of SATA and above. this machine is IDE so you'll get 250GB but even so, 250 is better than what's already installed!

 

[ky]

@Screamer:I got this computer from a program at school that gives students computers that the school district doesnt want.It would normally have 40 GB but a smalle hard drive was installe for school purposes.I didnt really need this but they gave it to me anyways.

---------- Post added at 12:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:42 PM ----------

If you've got the small form factor or the small desktop then no, you only have space for one unless you remove the CD Rom and put a Hard drive in it's place but won't look very tidy.

In the program I installed something similar to that setup.But it was in an HP computer about 6 years old.Lots of space for another hard drive.I'll try this idea.

---------- Post added at 12:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:45 PM ----------

Bringing us around to the beginning. What is it exactly you want to do with the external drive? And why? What sort of data is going on it?

Flight simulator X,Orbiter ,the contents I currently have on the 18GB Hard disk drive,whatever else I can find lol.I currently have less than a GB of space on my Hard disk drive so installing the 250 would be a HUGE improvement.

 

[garyw]

Flight simulator X,Orbiter ,the contents I currently have on the 18GB Hard disk drive,whatever else I can find lol.I currently have less than a GB of space on my Hard disk drive so installing the 250 would be a HUGE improvement.

There is another option and it depends on how confident you are to do this.

• Remove the CD drive and install a 250GB Hard Drive.
• Use Clonezillia (booting from a USB stick) to clone the 20GB drive to the 250GB
• Remove the 20GB and the 250GB hard drives
• Install the 250GB in the hard drive slot
• Restore the CD Rom.

Done.

 

[ky]

There is another option and it depends on how confident you are to do this.

• Remove the CD drive and install a 250GB Hard Drive.
• Use Clonezillia (booting from a USB stick) to clone the 20GB drive to the 250GB
• Remove the 20GB and the 250GB hard drives
• Install the 250GB in the hard drive slot
• Restore the CD Rom.

Done.

Wouldnt I need a hard drive power cord for the external hard drive going in the cd roms place?

 

[garyw]

You'd take the IDE cable and power from the CD-Rom and plug them into the second hard drive. You'd need to remove the CD Rom I suspect.

 

[ky]

Ok i'll do that.

---------- Post added at 02:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:27 PM ----------

It is in my computer although I put it in the floppy disk slot.When the boot screen came up it said that there is a disk drive running out of its parameters.

 

[agentgonzo]

When the boot screen came up it said that there is a disk drive running out of its parameters.

Parse error on input sentence. Please remove jam from the toaster and try again

 

[Wishbone]

Reinstall Universe and re-boot.