Transfer rate between external & internal

[Dolby]

HI,

Just wondering if there is any difference between transfer rates?

I want to buy a new HDD to store my movies - which will be streamed via ethernet to a media streamer. Would the USB2 port be a bottleneck?

 

[The_Techie]

You shouldn't be able to notice it, no (since it's just streaming media)

 

[LazyLion]

HI,

Just wondering if there is any difference between transfer rates?

I want to buy a new HDD to store my movies - which will be streamed via ethernet to a media streamer. Would the USB2 port be a bottleneck?

No, USB 2.0 has a transfer rate of 480 Mbps which is enough to stream movies. Should be fine.

 

[.Froot.]

I get ~31MBps when writing from a 5400rpm SATA2.5" drive to a SATA2 via USB. If you mention ethernet, you can safely cut it to around 10-12MBps.

 

[milomak]

Aren't most ethernet on motherboards capable of doing 100Mbps?

 

[The_Techie]

Aren't most ethernet on motherboards capable of doing 100Mbps?

Yes they are, but 100Mbps translates to roughly 12.5MB/s (or MBps as froot wrote)

 

[.Froot.]

Yes. In megabits per second, not megabytes. 100Mbps->12megabytes per second. Laptop hdd ->~30megabytes per second, 3.5" SATA2=~80-110megabytes per second.

 

[boramk]

You won't notice a difference Dolby

 

[milomak]

ah wasn't taking much notice. shame on me.

 

[kronoSX]

So running a game from a external hDD via usb will not hamper performance.?

 

[.Froot.]

Not at all. I have played a game or two on my external [in Vista] but should add that my external's filesystem is ext3, which I do find to be a lot faster than NTFS.
But of course it does depend whether you are running a laptop or desktop. On a desktop [if a game actually goes above ~20-30MBps writing?] you might see a little speed difference. But not on a laptop.