New storage drive - internal/external questions

[pialia]

Hi folks,

I have yet to pick up a storage drive for my new rig, currently just using my 250gb Samsung 840 evo, but I'm feeling the constraints already. I've been looking at getting a WD Green 3TB, they're going for roughly $100 in the land of the swedes which is very reasonable imho. How are WD drives compared to others nowdays? How are their external drives? Was also looking at a WD Elements 3TB since I don't have a laptop and saves me the time of opening up the rig when I need to move stuff around.

I'm a bit on the fence about WDs since my last WD hdd crashed and it was less than three years old, but most everything I've read they still seem to be one of the preferred brands.
 

Also, are there any real downsides to external drives? If I understand it correctly, isn't it more or less an internal with a plastic onesie?

 

Thanks.

[WoodenMarker]

Just get an internal drive. Externals drives use internal drives that didn't make specifications well enough to be an internal one. 

I'd recommend to take a look at seagate barracudas unless you're getting the green for the quiet operation.

[FlakeyBanana]

Well personally i have quite a few WD drives and none have failed yet

 

also your better off getting the internal one as installing a hard drive is not that difficult, if you need help installing it just post a new topic

[alpenwasser]

AFAIK, HDD manufacturers are all pretty decent these days with regards to quality

(WD, Seagate, Hitachi, which belongs to WD anyway and is mostly active in the enterprise

market, and Toshiba, whose 3.5" manufacturing plants were bought from WD when WD took

over HGST). Sure you can get the occasional dud, but in most cases that's not the

manufacturer's fault but just shipping damage or some other bad luck. Been using WDs

for a few years now without problems. But eventually all HDDs fail, some sooner, others

later, luck of the draw.

From what I've heard the WD Greens are pretty good drives, not too speedy, but also

not very noisy and low on power consumption.

Assuming you hook up your external drive with a fast enough interface (for example, USB3),

I can see primarily two remaining downsides:

1) Since it's bound to be moved around it might get damaged.

2) You probably won't be able to access its S.M.A.R.T. data via USB interface, at least

I've never been able to do that, so it's more difficult to assess the HDD's health.

[pialia]

Just get an internal drive. Externals drives use internal drives that didn't make specifications well enough to be an internal one. 

I'd recommend to take a look at seagate barracudas unless you're getting the green for the quiet operation.

 

Is that really accurate? My Seagate from a few builds ago has been alive and kicking for 6+ years. Are the Barracudas noticibly louder? Then again, I doubt I'll be able to discern any extra noise over my 290's when aftermarket coolers show up

 

Well personally i have quite a few WD drives and none have failed yet

 

also your better off getting the internal one as installing a hard drive is not that difficult, if you need help installing it just post a new topic

 

I have no problems installing it. I'm just lazy and like the idea of only having to unplug a USB if I want to move stuff to a friend's or so. But if the cons just aren't worth it I guess I'll probably just go with a regular internal :c

 

[WoodenMarker]

Is that really accurate? My Seagate from a few builds ago has been alive and kicking for 6+ years. Are the Barracudas noticibly louder? Then again, I doubt I'll be able to discern any extra noise over my 290's when aftermarket coolers show up

I have no problems installing it. I'm just lazy and like the idea of only having to unplug a USB if I want to move stuff to a friend's or so. But if the cons just aren't worth it I guess I'll probably just go with a regular internal :c

Barracudas are louder than greens but aren't loud in general. 

Internal is just better in everything but portability. 

[alpenwasser]

Externals drives use internal drives that didn't make specifications well enough to be an internal one.

Got a credible source for this? I'd be very interested to read more on the subject.

Until then call me a skeptic.

@OP: There are most likely enough people running external drives that if there really

was a large-scale problem with the concept we would have heard something about it by

now. Alternatively, you could always buy an internal drive and put it into an external

enclosure, been doing that for a few years now, works like a charm if you get a good

enclosure.

[WoodenMarker]

Got a credible source for this? I'd be very interested to read more on the subject.

Until then call me a skeptic.

I can't remember where I found the info.  Do continue to be a skeptic as it's healthy to be so. However, if you do happen to find articles that have the info, link me to it. It'd be nice to refer back to since I forgot where I found mine. 

Anyway, I remember reading hard drives that don't perform fast enough as stand alone internal drives are used in external enclosures because it wouldn't make a difference with the usb interface bottleneck evening out the difference. 

[alpenwasser]

I can't remember where I found the info.  Do continue to be a skeptic as it's healthy to be so. However, if you do happen to find articles that have the info, link me to it. It'd be nice to refer back to since I forgot where I found mine. 

Anyway, I remember reading hard drives that don't perform fast enough as stand alone internal drives are used in external enclosures because it wouldn't make a difference with the usb interface bottleneck evening out the difference.

Ah, the speed thing actually makes a bit of sense, I thought you were refering to the

drive's quality (whatever that may mean), which seems a bit odd considering external

drives are probably subjected to more stress by being moved around than internal ones

and selling a lesser drive as an external one seems like a good way to increase your

RMA rate as a manufacturer.

But speed-binning the drives similarly to microchips, yeah I could see that happening.

I'll let you know if I find anything.

Although I suppose with USB3 being faster than mechanical disks it no longer makes as

much sense as it used to, but people are probably still not going to be too bothered

about external drives not being quite as fast as internal ones I suppose.

[WoodenMarker]

Ah, the speed thing actually makes a bit of sense, I thought you were refering to the

drive's quality (whatever that may mean), which seems a bit odd considering external

drives are probably subjected to more stress by being moved around than internal ones

and selling a lesser drive as an external one seems like a good way to increase your

RMA rate as a manufacturer.

But speed-binning the drives similarly to microchips, yeah I could see that happening.

I'll let you know if I find anything.

Although I suppose with USB3 being faster than mechanical disks it no longer makes as

much sense as it used to, but people are probably still not going to be too bothered

about external drives not being quite as fast as internal ones I suppose.

Ahh, you misunderstood earlier. That makes sense. 

Usb 3.0 still adds latency to what would be a short seek time so a hdd that is lacking there could also end up in an external enclosure. 

[LogicalDrm]

100€ for 3Tb is cheaper than in here. I just checked from biggest retailer and they have it at 132€. Over 1Tb is bit big for external drive as its supposed to be used as either backup drive or for temporary file transfers between machines.

[Gronnie]

I always wondered why externals were almost always cheaper than internals when they had to add the extra expense of the enclosure.

 

In regards to SMART, I can access the SMART data for my Toshiba external 1TB no problem.