Storage Solutions External Drives & OSs

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kidrow

kidrow

Herald
Hi. Noob question. Can a PC run on an OS installed on an external hard drive alone?

So supposing, a PC does not have any internal hard drive at all. Will it function if connected to an external drive on which an OS such as XP is installed via usb?

Thanks.
 
H@cKer said:
Yes it can run.If your motherboard supports booting from external devices
Click to expand...

So would that mean changing the boot order to usb in the bios? Or it's got to be specifically mentioned by the mobo manufacturer? Thanks.
 
a sata internal drive will be much faster than a usb external HDD.

the reason is sata II has a transfer speed of 300MB/sec. ( or 3Gbps) whereas a usb 2.0 device has a transfer speed of only 60MB/sec. (480Mbps).

the difference is - sata 2 is 5 times faster than usb...
 
anfjavid said:
a sata internal drive will be much faster than a usb external HDD.

the reason is sata II has a transfer speed of 300MB/sec. ( or 3Gbps) whereas a usb 2.0 device has a transfer speed of only 60MB/sec. (480Mbps).

the difference is - sata 2 is 5 times faster than usb...
Click to expand...

Oh! So I guess the external hdds are meant to be used only as a portable backup solution. They cannot replace internal drives because of the facts you've mentioned. Thanks.
 
^

Nope

If you want it to be used as main drive then you can get an external drive with e-sata port which provides same speed as sata.
 
You could get a low capacity low cost HDD for the system and then spend the rest of money on an external drive.

The system will be rendered useless (unless you are the only user) when you are away with the portable drive.

Besides external drives with eSATA port will make up for the cost difference of an internal drive :)
 
Thanks for your replies H@cKer & Ragin_Ice.

I was thinking along the lines of an htpc. Since it's not gonna be the primary PC, I just thought that maybe the portability would help. Hence the query.

So now I guess it boils down to the price of an ext. drive with an esata port versus an internal drive in the context of the quantum of benefit the former would provide.

I'm assuming that the drive with the esata port would perform the same as an internal drive w.r.t. hd movies & games as well.

Thanks yet again.
 
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