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About to buy an external HDD


jamievlong

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For my emulation station set up, I'm using my Alienware 13 R3 and just connect it to my TV via HDMI cable. Well, with the build that I chose for my Alienware, I opted for a 256GB pci ssd and now I'm starting to run out of space. If it is possible, I would like to buy an external HDD and have all my ROMs stored there and played off of there. If I store the ROMs on the external HDD, would I be able to just change the directory and have them loaded from the external HDD instead of off my laptop?

Also, I want to get a quality external HDD too. Who makes a quality external HDD and should I go with 5400rpm or 7200rpm?

Thank you!

Edited by jamievlong
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7 minutes ago, jamievlong said:

If I store the ROMs on the external HDD, would I be able to just change the directory and have them loaded from the external HDD instead of off my laptop?

Yes

7 minutes ago, jamievlong said:

Also, I want to get a quality external HDD too. Who makes a quality external HDD and should I go with 5400rpm or 7200rpm?

Western Digital is always good quality and it probably doesn't matter between 5400 or 7200, you would probably be bottle necked by the USB bandwidth anyways, though I don't know that for a fact.

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I must agree with the Western Digital brand. I have 13 externals, the majority of them are Seagates which I am sloooooowly replacing with WD's.

Reason being is even though at first they seem like a great deal, I don't like how they operate. It is as if they NEVER stop spinning and can get

almost too hot to touch. The few WD's I now own however seem to operate exactly as you would want them too, and never get hot at all.

Just my 2.5 cents! ;-)

 

CHEERS

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I will never buy another Seagate again,everyone I ever had failed before it should have. Currently I use HGST drives but would not have an issue with Western Digital's as they bought out HGST anyway. Not saying these brands sometimes will not fail prematurally but I personally have had bad luck with seagate. 

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I too will also add that I have had 2 usb Seagate drives die on me both after just over a year, Seagate did replace the second one free of charge, but it was a 5TB one and was full with Launchbox and all my Movies and TV Shows at the time so I lost it all. I wouldn't personally buy Seagate again.

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Redundancy is always your best friend.

I have an 8 TB External Drive that I have a backup of all of my collection on.

In a perfect world I would have a server room in my house with a multi-hard Drive storage array.

But the days of backing up all of these files on physical media (CD, BR, Floppy :P ) is long gone.

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some of the larger seagates beat western digital in reliability as shown by Backblaze drive comparison statistic you can google on. the models you get matters. i have several seagates and haven't had any issues.

7200rpm is always better, but may not be worth the extra price tag for usb drive emulation stuff. the 7200 gives you a faster seek time, so even over usb it will be a good step up over 5400.  that said, LB with roms, media, and emulators all running from my external usb 3 5400 drive runs very well.

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  • 2 years later...

I went the budget route with 4x Seagate 8tb Expansion drives (usually $119 on sale)  and a 2tb Toshiba 7200 internal for LB,

I game/edit on a smaller custom build on my SSD only plugging in my externals when needed as to extend their lifetimes-

until they are replaced with higher capacity cheaper drives coming in a few years. Load times are tolerable and should improve

once shucked and installed internally ( Im replacing my 2tb hard drive with a 2tb m.2 soon , shucking all drives and adding a final 5th 8tb).

Some WD drives require adapters if shucked so research before you buy.

 

A lot of times Ive found the contacts found on the pcb are corroded and can be cleaned with a pencil eraser I've revived a half dozen drives -

especially external drives , if you don't have the special screwdriver bits you can lay a rubber band over the screwheads and wedge in a philips head

to get them loose. Vids on youtube ..." hard drive eraser trick "

 

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