I have an external USB enclosure fitted with a 300? GB hard drive. I use it for storage/backup as well, so the "slow" USB transfer speed isn't an issue. Suits my needs just fine.

 

Transfer rate for firewire is 400 - - rate for USB2 is 450. If you have USB (not a 2), then firewire is the better choice. But - - do you have a firewire port on your computer? If not, the best choice is add a USB2 card - - you have the best of both worlds. Seems everything is going USB2 for connectivity.

 

Tyler,


I also agree with Chris that the ATA drives are the bomb! Seek time is almost instant, but with an older operating system it may be difficult to have them recognized.


Bottom line, if you just want to transfer all of your music over to the external it is the best thing to do, but if you are looking to move other files over their as well it will make things cumbersome.

 

Actually USB2 is right around 480 I believe (could be wrong). but you are correct that FireWire is 400 which is like 35-40 times faster than USB1.1 so I guess I was assuming that he probably had 1.1. One advantage of Firewire (off topic) is that you can have 3 firewire devices all running at 400 where 3 devices on USB have to "share" the 480....

 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...235835&CatId=0

 

The only thing to keep in mind is how USB ports can easily flake out and all of a sudden you have an inactive connection. Either way personally I recommend a SATA internal HD before going external HD. If you can afford it it would be recommended to get a 10k RPM SATA - those babies are sweeeeeeeeeeeet.

Make sure your Motherboard has SATA capabilities and if not then a ATA drive with a IDE cable may be your only choice.

IMHO watch out for the 'too good to be true' price as you will always get what you pay for. Cheap now may not necessarily mean it will work 6-12 months down the road.

Just my $.02!

J.

 

So I lied. I only have 256mb of ram. I could have sworn I got the up graded. Guess not. I do have a pentium 4 2.4ghz. This computer is 3 years old yall so keep that in mind. All I've got are USB ports. Like I said, when it comes to comps I'm as ignorant as it comes.

 

Trust me man put another 512mb in it and it will seem like a different machine.
Don't remove the 256 just move it to slot#2 and put the 512 in slot#1. It'll wake your machine up. If you can afford a 1 gig stick it will even be better.

 

Well I just might have to give that a try. I upgrade everything else in my life, why not my comp.

 

And the best part is....no tranny in the computer to blow up when you BOMB too hard.

 

Nope, but bombing the computer sure does take away from the tranny fund which is desperate right now since I can turn my TST all the way up finally.

 

BigBlue,

The Dell Dimension 2400 is an entry level computer (this is not bad) and is not worth the money to upgrade it, for the little performance that you will get out of it(kind of like upgrading a Ford ) Don't get me wrong, they are great computers but they are the type of computer that you buy as is, use them till they don't suit your needs and then buy another. The major issue with these PC's is what is under the hood, the Celeron CPU. Now if yours actually came with the P4 2.4 Ghz non Celeron then upgrade away.

My suggestion would be this, since your not happy with the performance of your computer, and you really don't want to install a second internal hard drive. Buy and external USB2 hard drive, move all your songs over to the drive this it's self will increase the performance of your computer. Then after you have saved some money after your tranny purchase purchase an up-to-date PC that will more meet your needs.

Just an FYI if you want a cheaper PC don't buy the Celeron go with a lower end AMD chip. The celeron was created to compete with AMD's lower prices so Intel cut the CPU cache in half to cut their costs to compete with AMD's prices. Just my .02 from an over worked Network Admin

 

Mine should have the P4 in there. It's got the little P4 sticker on the front and when I pulled up the specs on the comp itself it said 2.4ghz Pentium 4 processor.

I'm not looking for performance out of this computer. All I do on it is download music and surf the web and type a couple of papers up for school. That's why I just want to do this cheap and easily. Getting better performance would be nice, but I ain't to worried about it. I just want more hard drive space.

 

grab and external USB drive move your music over, then see if you want more performance. A full hard drive will kill performance.

 

I have 2 external hard drives, and I am very happy with them. one is 60 gig, and that one sits in the closet un-used, and I have another one that is 250 gig, and I put ALL my videos and songs, my documents, etc, etc on it. the 250 gig plugs into the wall for power, while the 60 just went into the USB port. I would strongly suggest a external hard drive, rather than a whole new computer. the file transfer speed is not slow for me. keep in mind, that if you go with a external hard drive, say 100 gigs, then you will be able to use about 92 or so of those gigs, because of the Windows format.

just my opinion, hope this helps