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Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: Firebat138 on May 20, 2009, 10:01:10 am

Title: External HD for MAME
Post by: Firebat138 on May 20, 2009, 10:01:10 am

I need to buy a new hard drive and I want to get a TB or 2...  Should I be fine in just purchasing a 1TB Mybook and running everything on that?  Does anyone do this and is there a performance degradation...  Thanx

Firebat

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: severdhed on May 20, 2009, 10:48:43 am

If you are going to put it on an external hard drive, then i would go with e-sata.  the usb 2.0 interface is just nowhere near as fast, and could cause performance degradation.  or, you could always just go with an internal hard drive.

you can pick up a 1tb drive for under $100 now, internal or external.     

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: Firebat138 on May 20, 2009, 11:11:09 am

The Mybook has Firewire...would that be better..

And E-Sata   My Precision 340....what sata card could I use...can you provide me a link and a link to a hard drive... i always get that stuff confused...  Thanx

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: severdhed on May 20, 2009, 11:30:31 am

does your PC have e-sata?  does it even have sata II?  what about pci express slots?  i cannot really provide any information without knowing anything about your PC.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: thecheat on May 20, 2009, 01:04:46 pm

Why not just go internal? You can buy a SATA 1tb hard drive for $80 from Newegg.

I second the eSATA but I think that Firewire will do in a pinch. If you don't have either eSATA or Firewire ports, pick up an enclosure with eSATA and a controller card. If you already have FW, get a FW hard drive enclosure.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: severdhed on May 20, 2009, 01:42:12 pm

i agree...internal hard drive makes more sense.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: ahofle on May 20, 2009, 03:21:20 pm

I have a USB external drive and it works just fine with no noticeable performance degradation.  Emulation in general is not very disk intensive at all, so I don't think eSATA is necessary.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: Enforcer407 on May 20, 2009, 11:28:50 pm

I agree about USB being fine.  I've been running all my stuff from an External Notebook Drive (only 5400 RPM) and USB interface.  I've been playing MAME, NES, SNES, etc all the way up to PSX and Dreamcast without any problems.

Just my $.02

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: blind_dado on May 21, 2009, 12:32:33 pm

I too have everything (mame and all emulators) on a 300gb external usb drive an it works fine.  Never noticed a problem.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: Aceldamor on May 21, 2009, 12:46:18 pm

What about LD games on externals?

I've actually been toying with the idea of running my mame data from my server on a GB network, so my data is centralized.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: blind_dado on May 21, 2009, 01:08:10 pm

LD games work fine.  Can't speak to idea of having everything on a network though.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: bkenobi on May 21, 2009, 01:43:07 pm

I ran into someone using a NAS to store his collection a while back.  Even though he had a good network setup, he seemed to be running into problems of network latency.  There may be some tweaks to improve this, so storing your roms on a network drive might be ok.  I wouldn't recommend storing the emulators there though.  Be aware that even a GB network is going to run slower than a USB drive.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: massive88 on May 21, 2009, 02:17:40 pm

Arent non-laser disc Mame roms basically loaded to memory?  I would think the storage site of the roms would not be a big difference as they arent accessed during gameplay.

The emulator itself I would have on a local drive for sure though.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: thecheat on May 21, 2009, 03:39:03 pm

Quote from: bkenobi on May 21, 2009, 01:43:07 pm

I ran into someone using a NAS to store his collection a while back.  Even though he had a good network setup, he seemed to be running into problems of network latency.  There may be some tweaks to improve this, so storing your roms on a network drive might be ok.  I wouldn't recommend storing the emulators there though.  Be aware that even a GB network is going to run slower than a USB drive.

I was going to do this but over Wireless-G, it wasn't too laggy in my tests on CHD based games. For simplicity's sake, and a change of hardware, I decided to just store them locally on a 2nd internal drive.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: Chadwick on May 21, 2009, 04:01:57 pm

All my emulation is on an external mybook also.  I have no noticeable performance problems.

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: heemid on May 21, 2009, 06:04:58 pm

Here is a pretty sweet deal, its USB and eSATA. Use code EMCLSNM47 for an extra 10% off.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?nm_mc=AFC-SlickDeals&cm_mmc=AFC-SlickDeals-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA&Item=N82E16822204069

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: mrserv0n on May 21, 2009, 07:18:28 pm

Quote from: severdhed on May 20, 2009, 10:48:43 am

If you are going to put it on an external hard drive, then i would go with e-sata.  the usb 2.0 interface is just nowhere near as fast, and could cause performance degradation.  or, you could always just go with an internal hard drive.

you can pick up a 1tb drive for under $100 now, internal or external.     

I have run a cabinet off a usb 2.0 ext for a long time and there is no difference in performance. You do not need Esata

Title: Re: External HD for MAME
Post by: massive88 on May 26, 2009, 09:39:05 am

I did some tests using Mame and roms on the same HDD, and mame and roms on different HDDs this weekend, I found zero difference in speed.

This was tested on Blitz and Gauntlet Dark Legacy, both hard drives were internal SATA drives though, not an external.