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OT: Which Hard Drive?



I want to add a second hard drive to my new PC (1) and am considering a SATA
internal or USB 2 or Firewire external drive.

Which one is likely to be faster? I think it will be the USB 2 and this will
Erm, and what do you think the native connector of the HD to the
internal whatever-to-USB 2 connector is?
Generally IDE.
That seems to be rapidly changing. SATA drives were becoming cheaper
than IDE last time I looked, implying that their market share is increasing
SATA drives used to have a dodgy reputation for having shorter
lifespans. Especially in high-usage environments, as they're quicker
than IDE. I think that this has probably changed though.

dramatically.


Go SATA.
You'd be silly not to. Especially as you can get eSATA (external
SATA) drives, interfaces, and converters (from internal SATA[1]) these days.

[1] As far as I can see, just the connector/cable specs are different, to
give better shielding, so a converter is probably just the appropriate
connectors either side of a slot cover-plate.

also have the advantage of portability. Will I be able to "see" a USB
connected drive on other PC's in my home network?

Any thoughts.

Mark

(1) Dell Dimension running Vista Home Premium with an AMD x2 Processor 4000
and soon to be 3Gb RAM (currently 1Gb).