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Running games off of External HD

post #1 of 7
8/19/05 at 1:13pm
Thread Starter 
I have an XPS Gen 2 and want to expand the storage space I have with a Seagate or Maxtor (which is better?) 120 GB 7200 RPM External firewire HD.
I have never used one - can you run games off of it, or would the performance hit be too significant?
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post #2 of 7
8/19/05 at 1:48pm
I run Diablo 2 LOD off my maxtor 160 gb hard drive. Though When I close up my hard drive it gets hot. But If I open the case up and run the game it only get warm around room temperature. I guess the 80 mm fan on the bottom of the external play a big roll on it too, but overall It never affect my performance in game. So i say give it a try but if your hard drive get hot open the case up so it'll have more room to breath.
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post #3 of 7
8/19/05 at 3:06pm
I would probably go with a Firewire connection if doing this. Higher bandwidth.
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post #4 of 7
8/19/05 at 7:16pm
Been doing it for a year with many games, never an issue. Runs as fast as on the IDE.
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post #5 of 7
8/19/05 at 7:20pm
The only problem is that when you install the game, and unplug the HD, all the shortcut icons and such will be broken. Not that big a deal.
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post #6 of 7
8/19/05 at 9:24pm
What Arkenzo said - Firewire.

If you got a decent 7200 RPM drive it will work fine...
USB is ok too, but Firewire is a SUSTAINED transfer rate and doesn't whore CPU cycles like USB, so that even though Firewire is 400 and USB 2.0 is 480, Firewire is better overall.
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post #7 of 7
8/19/05 at 9:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DocX36
What Arkenzo said - Firewire.

If you got a decent 7200 RPM drive it will work fine...
USB is ok too, but Firewire is a SUSTAINED transfer rate and doesn't whore CPU cycles like USB, so that even though Firewire is 400 and USB 2.0 is 480, Firewire is better overall.
exactly, USB is dumb and Firewire is intelligent... i'm not a gamer but i do a lotta art, graphics, etc. and i have 3 Lacie Firewire 800 500GB drives i connect with an 800 PC Card... Firewire 800 is 800mbps. That translates into 100MBps/1GB in 10 seconds! far faster than any internal drive bus...
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