PDA

View Full Version : Will HEM database run fast on a portable 5400 external HDD?



samwY
03-28-2009, 04:58 AM
I'm thinking of using a Western Digital Passport USB external hard drive to store my 30gig database. Will the program run slow on this drive? Will retrieving stats and HUD updates take a long time?

I want to share a database between my laptop and computer but if its too slow, I might just pick up a 1TB 7200 rpm external hdd but it willl be less portable. Please let me know if you have any experience with this, thanks.

JackBileDuct
03-28-2009, 05:22 AM
I'm thinking of using a Western Digital Passport USB external hard drive to store my 30gig database. Will the program run slow on this drive? Will retrieving stats and HUD updates take a long time?

I want to share a database between my laptop and computer but if its too slow, I might just pick up a 1TB 7200 rpm external hdd but it willl be less portable. Please let me know if you have any experience with this, thanks.


There are some externals that are not a single drive. Some of the TB drives are 2 500's striped. You have the option of mirroring them for 500 GB of fault tolerant space or striping. Having two drives striped gives much better performance but of course you have no fault tolerance. An enclosure with two SATA drives striped is going to be just as good I/O as as anything you'd find in a desktop and much better than a laptop. Your only limiting factor is going to be the connection to it but I'd think USB 2.0 or firewire would be plenty fast. I'd recommend taking a look at newegg or mwave provided you are in the US.

JackBileDuct
03-28-2009, 05:27 AM
Here is an example of one with two drives that allows you to stripe across them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822204070

samwY
03-28-2009, 06:07 AM
Thank you for the info. I hear these are really good too: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822205005&Tpk=g-raid

However, my first choice is something very small and portable, so I can bring it to a coffee shop or lecture hall. My first choice is something like this: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0296305
How fast would my 30gb database run on a external hdd like this one? Would it be efficient enough to use?

JackBileDuct
03-28-2009, 02:44 PM
I really couldn't say. I'd hate to tell you, "Oh that would be fine" and then you have some slowness that was more than you could stand. If it were me, I'd try to steer clear of a 5400 drive as I bet it is IDE. The description of the one you pasted doesn't say. A SATA drive is going to have better read / write performance than an IDE drive.

Karsten4130
05-12-2009, 06:21 AM
I just benchmarked an 1.5TB 3.5" 7200rpm USB HDD and an 120GB 2.5" 5400rpm USB HDD and the speed is the same, slightly above 20MB/s.
If i put a large DB on my external USB disk, will this slow HEM/postgresql down a lot? Or is it more about CPU Power?