Pros and cons of external or internal hard drive

Hi

My brothers hard drive packed up after about 13 months and the computer store he bought the HP desktop only offers a 4 month quarantee. The literatuer from HP gives a 2 year guaruntee - but brother is too lazy to pursue it. He is also a computer ***.

I would like to know the pros and cons of external hard drives. We live in darkest africa and the stores here are not good at stocking the spares of items they sell.

Can anyone please advise? I am capable of instaliing an internal hard drive - but I cannot find one for his computer

 

I would say that internal HD are more reliable because you are eliminating the USB connection. If it is possible to install an internal drive I would definitely recommend that choice over an external.

Why are you having trouble finding an internal drive for that computer. What type is the original? IDE HD are getting harder to find these days but if it is an IDE drive any size IDE drive will work up to 500gb.

 

We live in a shitty country in Africa, they buy the computers and do not stock the spares. The cmputer is an HP serial MXLII3IKPS. African counr ties are renowned fot their short sightedness! Believe it or not this applies to their military hardware too!

 

That number isn't the model number. I think the model numbers end in AK or KA.

If the computer has SATA interface then you could get an external and remove it from the case and use it as an internal. If the computer is IDE that won't work.

I have nothing against externals except that I see many threads here where external drives are suddenly seen to be empty when in fact they have a lot of data on them. The solution is usually to connect them internally to get a simpler connection and hope they are recognized. Using an internal drive eliminates this common problem.