Using a portable Hard Drive

[sparklig]

I have a quick question that I am certain somebody could answer for me

In the last few months I bought a portable hard drive to back up information on my HDD. However, since my portable Hard Drive is capable of storing far more than my computer's hard drive, I have begun running programs (games etc.) off it.

Is this a bad idea? I am worried that by doing this I may burn out more portable hard drive as it may be incapable of running programs for an extended length of time. I worry about this because I have heard horror stories about hard drives burning out.


Thanks to all that reply!

[GR@PH;<'S]

sparklig,
I have several external hard drives and as of yet none have give me any worries but I do only use one for my Back-ups.
You can always partition your drive into 2 parts using a partition manager. (Free Program)

GR@PH;<'S   :Hammys pint:

[Temmu]

if your portable hard drive is about 2" x 5" x 7" or so, it has a full-sized, regular hard drive in it.  therefore, you need not worry about burning it out anytime soon.  its life expectancy is that of others by the same brand.  i have a western digital external and hope to get 3 - 5 years out of it.

as to games on the external - depends.  if they are crossword puzzles or other non-cpu / non-graphically intense games, that would be fine.  but to run a high-end first person shooter... well... better to offload your documents and storage to the external and use the newfound space for those games!

[Aaron Hulett]

The external hard drive is like your internal hard drive, only external.  Use it as any other hard drive, but as Temmu mentioned, if you're using a slow connection (such as USB 1.1) you may notice performance issues during times where data flow becomes important.

Now, how are you backing up that one? ;)

[sparklig]

Thank you all for your advice. As it stands, I think I will sit down, figure out what I 'really need' on my internal hard drive, shift those documents etc across and use the portable hard drive for what I originally intended it to be used for... A backup drive!! This was the obvious solution, I just needed someone to tell me my options!

:thanks:

Sparklig

[Temmu]

cool!  let us know. :)