External hard drive

Im thinking of getting an external hard drive for my laptop but have a things i need to work out first.
I have only looked at a couple of different ones so far, is 7200rpm at the higher or lower end for speed for these drives?
Which is better firewire or USB 2.0?
I was thinking it would be good to use the external hard drive for video games that I install, instead of them clogging up space on the laptop. I was wondering if having them on the external drive wouldnt work because it would take longer for the computer to access them instead of having it right there on the laptop itself? Similar to this, can you use the drive for normal programs like photoshop or other software i may not use everyday and not on the road. Or are these drives suppossed to be used mainly for storing data and backing up your system?
I have windows vista, do you think there could be compatability issues with things like this or are they usually just plug and play?

Is there anything else I should be looking into when buying one of these?

Thanks

7200rpm is decent speed. You can buy 5600rpm and probably faster ones too for a price.
Firewire and USB 2.0 are about the same speed. pretty hard to tell the difference.

Hmm i'd avoid installing software/games onto the external drive because of the fact its removable. Software installs files on the C drive with links to where the software is installed. If the drive letter changes or something on the external drive all the links will be broken and you'll get error messages. Easy to fix, but not worth the hassle!

Yes you can do it, but its much better for storing data on. I'm also unsure about how the speed of USB2.0 and firewire will affect this.
Vista should be fine and pick it up as an external drive. Windows XP did this so I'd hope vista would.

If you want the speed, consider eSATA if you computer supports.
For data archival USB or Firewire are ok. USB is quicker but it slows down eventually. Firewire is slower but its got higher rate of tolerance.

Little files many of them may not differ a lot. If you are using huge (few) files or backing up a HDD etc .. one huge file, Firewire can be faster than USB. Above all I think I get external SATA. Or the experts may use external SCSI.

Question: Which is faster Hi-Speed USB 2.0 or FireWire?
Answer: In sustained throughput FireWire is faster than USB 2.0.

Read and write tests to the same IDE hard drive connected using FireWire and then Hi-Speed USB 2.0 show:

Read Test:
5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 33% faster than USB 2.0
160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 70% faster than USB 2.0

Write Test:
5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 16% faster than USB 2.0
160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 48% faster than USB 2.0

More at www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm</a>

I have a 7200 rpm drive in my laptop and a 7200 rpm external drive, running it through USB 2.0 they are about equal in speed. I have all my games and photo work and many application programs such as Photoshop only on the external drive and it works fine.

Just make sure it is named as a hard drive and not a removable drive like a card reader or a mp3 player. Mine is drive H, I found when it was not plugged in and I plugged my PDA in it would be called Drive H and all hell would break loose.

Moral, use the same setup all the time and make sure the external hard drive is plugged in when you introduce another external drive unit, like mp3 player or what not. This will prevent them from using the same drive name, or just make sure you change the drive name when you plug in your external hard drive devices.

May I jump on the band wagon? Anyone care to give me their opinion on this external hard drive?

This explains a bit more and is in English and I see that it is eSATA. In Spai it's priced at €149 ($198 or £101)

sdavi3680: For a desktop drive 7200rpm is standard, for a laptop drive it's fast. Higher RPM usually means increased performance, but often it means increased power consumption, more heat and more noise. Sometimes a 5400rpm drive may actually perform better than a 7200rpm drive - but usually the higher spin rate drive will win. If you get the option, find a drive with FDB - fluid dynamic bearings, they usually make the drive cooler and quieter for a given spin speed. Also look for a drive with a larger cache (16Mb+ ideally). The drive mechanism inside the housing is important, as some models are very reliable, and some are hopeless - often casing companies vary the drive manufacturer between capacities, and sometimes even between batches. Check reliability of the drives themselves at storagereview.com (use a bugmenot.com login).

Some laptop (2.5") drives will use the laptop power, but most drives will require (and ship with) an external power supply - if you're planning to travel with it, get a laptop powered 2.5", otherwise a 3.5" drive will usually be faster and cheaper for a given capacity.

billp: USB 2 and Firewire both have advantages and disadvantages. Different chipsets have very different performance characteristics. In general I think Firewire is better, but you really have to evaluate on a case by case basis - if a drive uses a native USB chipset, but the Firewire implementation is a kludge, it'll run far better on USB...