Whats the difference between IDE and SATA externel Hard drive?
External hard drives are external hard drives. As long as they are using a means of connecting to your computer that your laptop has, such as USB or Firewire – you need not worry weather it’s SATA or IDE. That simply tells you what interface the drive inside the case is using. This would matter if you were putting it inside your computer – however, if it is intended to be external – this isn’t a concern. SATA is newer technology than IDE, and generally SATA drives are going to perform better than their IDE counterparts. USB is a bottleneck between IDE or SATA and your computer – so performance between the two is comperable.
