Use internal hard drive for ripping?

[Mike19]

Hi Everybody.

I am preparing to rip my collection of CDs. I will be ripping about 600 songs (don't know if these are called tracks or files, or both) from about 200 CDs. I calculate I will need about 20 Gb of hard drive space (is "space" the right word?).

 

My desktop PC has a 111Gb drive w/ 96.7 Gb of available space.

 

I have heard that the more hard drive space one keeps available the faster the PC will operate. If this is true, then I want to buy an external hard drive for ripping.

 

Is internal okay or should I go external? ? ?

 

Mike

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Mike - You'll be totally fine with your existing hard drive setup. I like to keep at least 10% free space. It's not really true that your PC will operate faster the more free space you have as long as you have enough free space.

 

[Mike19]

Thanks Chris.

 

Mike

 

[Oystein]

Dear Mike,

 

It is common sense between advanced computer users to have approx. 25-40% free space (depending on who you talk to) left on your hard drive. This will avoid al lot of fragmenting and keeps your data trouhgput up to speed.

If you have the space the internal drive will be the ultimate solution because of speed.

The internal connection ( most used SATA ) is a high speed connection which will be faster than all common hard disks. So the speed of your hard disk will determine how fast your computer will find and play files.

External drives ( most with USB connection ) will be limited by the slower interface over the USB cable.

Anyone will notice the difference in speed if you copy internal from harddisk 1 to harddisk 2 compared copying from an internal disk to an external USB disk.

I have to admit that the newest external harddisk are also available wit external-SATA but then you also needs a computer which supports this. How they will perform I am not sure but I think this will be close to an internal only setup.

 

BTW: if you expect using only 20Gb for 600 tracks you must be using some kind of compression or did you calculate wrong ?

 

Best regards,

 

Oystein

 

 

[Mike19]

Hi Oystein.

 

I haven't even started ripping in earnest yet. Just downloaded EAC last week and need to learn how to use that first. I have like 3 or 4 tutorials on that.

 

Mike