Are External HDD's Slower Because Of USB?

[12twelve12]

Example: If I put a game on my external hdd, which connects via usb 2.0, will the performance be less than running same game from my internal hdd due to the usb connection? (let's assume both internal and external drives are equal model).

Thank you!

[GraemeM]

Unless the drive is eSATA or external Parallel, it will be far slower than an internally connected drive (or well, the transfer speed will be, not the actual drive speed)

While the difference between parallel and serial drives right now is moreso theoretical (won't really notice any difference), the difference between pata/sata and usb is still huge and very noticeable.

Whether USB 2 is fast enough to run a modern game, I have no idea. Depends how much needs to be transferred, but I'd have to think that most modern games wouldn't run well, if at all of a USB drive. If you have a good reason to install it on an external drive, get an eSATA enclosure, not USB or Firewire. I believe eSATA has the same transfer speed as internal SATA (I'm not sure about this)

Just try transfering files to a USB harddrive and you notice a huge difference than between two internal drives.

[silentbobdrummer]

I'm pretty sure you want to avoid installing programs on secondary drives. Most likely, the game or program will run faulty if at all.