External Hard drive question

[brooke_82]

Hi there,
Im thinking about getting an external Harddrive and wanted to know a few things about them. I got a memory upgrade last year and now im down to 27% free space already so i cant get seasons unless i do something about my free space. Now i was thinking of either getting a. And external Hard drive or b. a second hard drive and was wanting to know what is recommended and if there are any problems with the external hard drive and running the sims 2

here is my system specs if they are needed

Acer Aspire SA10
Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.80GHz
768MB Ram with 27%free space
Page File: 413MB used; 1464MB avail
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 256MB

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[BeosBoxBoy]

when you have a 2nd hard drive, it is important to consider this:

because you will have to move the my documents folder to get the best use of the new hard drive, you must always have the hard drive attached if you use the computer.  Since you have a desktop (from what I see the Aspire series is desktops) - then adding an internal hard drive may be a better solution.  However an external hard drive is not totally out of the question.

The connectors for external hard drives tend to be slower than an internal on, so one would normally prefer an internal one due to the need for the best performance of the game.  However an external drive does allow you to have a secure back up of data in case of a game problem or system problem that would require a re-install of everything.

Some external drives connect with pretty fast connectors, but these tend to be very costly and may require the installation of a card for the connector (fast SCSI); firewire and USB 2.0 are pretty good, but may cause the game to lag.  old USB 1.0-1.1 type would be pretty much hell.  There are very fast ethernet drives, but these tend to be the very costly sort, and may not be as good as an internal drive.

If you tell me where you are located and the budget you have, I will try to make a best recommendation for you based on a realistic assesment of your budget and needs.

[brooke_82]

Thanks beos.

Im am in Australia, in the NT but not in a big city, nor am i near one so i tend to buy off ebay. Id like to stick to under the $250 mark (im saving for a new video card) if thats possible.

[dorkapalooza]

I just went through all of this with mine,  ended up puttting enough money into the 5 year old computer to almost buy a new one.  I bought a 1.0 gb doo-hickey for 20 dollars.  I moved all pictures, music, and the not so important program exe's to this little thing that plugs in to the usb port.  Then erased that stuff off of my c drive and made a ton of room.

  I eventually bought a new computer with m tax returns for 620$ and its great.  but have the old one running great finally with lots of simmy stuff on it for my daughter.  Everyone here can tell you if this was a good idea or not , i just thought I should throw it out there for you.

[BeosBoxBoy]

Brooke - I see 80 gigabyte IDE hard drives listed new for about US $ 50.00 on TigerDirect.com (SATA hard drives a slightly more, but faster) - that's about AUS $ 64.69 before taxes and shipping.  You might be better servered by a larger hard drive, but 80 GB is more than enough for the average person.

I see 250 gigabyte external hard drives listed new at US $ 70 - 150 (different manufacturers and speeds) at TigerDirect.com - that's AUS $ 90 - 194 before taxes and shipping.  You can get a smaller drive - say 120 GB for the same price range, so the 250 is a better buy.

I checked the price range on NewEgg.com and ebay.com and saw that these prices were not vastly different from what I found there.

dorkapalooza mentions a USB "thumb" or "flash" drive - this isn't what most people would prefer, since these drives are not particularly fast and if you have a large number of downloads or a lot of sims in your neighbourhoods you will need an 8 or 16 GB version.  These run about US $ 100 ( AUS $ 130 ) for the 8 GB models, and about US $ 350-600 ( AUS $ 450 - 775 ) for the 16 GB models.

Look inside the case and see if you have a free bay to add a hard drive and check to see if you have a free power connector on your wires from the power-supply.  Check your computer user manual for details on what size of hard drive is supported and what sort of connections you might be able to use.  Maybe replacing the hard drive you currently have with a much larger one and getting a sort of external case that will allow you to keep the old hard drive and use it as an external would be a better idea.

But if you do have the power connectors and a free installation bay, then an internal hard drive will be more economical and likely give you a better over-all experience.  If you don't then, definitely an external would be the next best thing.

As I mentioned above, getting a bigger internal hard drive and an external conversion case may be the best way to go.  It would mean re-installing the operating system and the games, but would not mean losing your data since it would still be on the old hard drive.

[brooke_82]

Thanks beos. I'll have to come back and read all that later though, when my brain doesnt feel so mushy!!

Thanks for your help, i appreciate it!!

[BeosBoxBoy]

no problem at all brooke, it's why they pay me the big bucks... hang on! they don't pay me! o_0 why am i doing this?? *runs around room screaming "mind control rays! mind control rays!"*