Windows 10: Should use usb expansion drives as system disks or not?

Going to build a new machine I look around for a hdd for it.

Everywhere they're selling 'expansion' drives and 'backup' and 'portable' drives and their prices are good and reputable manufacturers, I think.

All USB devices.

It is easy enough to set up my computer to boot from a USB drive, I think? Usually? My board is an Asus H170. I could check that on an Asus forum or by going have a look through Bios. But I'm just talking generally, 'state of the art' sort of thing. Is this what is usually happening now?

Your system disk is an external 'portable' and, ultimate in security, you just take it away when you're not there?

Or should I definitely shop for a more 'normal' sata drive to use for a system disk?

Or should I avail myself of these well priced drives and remove them from their containers to access the sata connection inside and use them as system disks in that way?

I ask here because I run win10 and I'd like to know, of course, if there's any peculiarities with win10 that might have a bearing on this.

*Smile

:)

 

Windows 10 Not Recognizing External Hard Drive

Our PC was recently updated to Windows 10 from Windows 8.1. Before the update, we had been using a 2 TB Seagate Expansion drive with a USB 3.0 connection to store much of our files. Just after the expansion drive was plugged in, a little message would
come up along the side, as it often does when you plug in devices. It recognized that the external drive had been plugged in, but it said that there was a problem with the drive and that I should click there to scan it to fix the problem. I didn't want it
to accidentally delete any files, so I've just ignored this problem. This problem started after we had been using the drive for some time.

However, it worked fine for a few days after the upgrade to Windows 10, but since yesterday the computer hasn't recognized the hard drive under File Explorer. However, when the device is plugged in and unplugged from the computer, the computer makes the
usual sounds, and the blue light is shining on the top of the drive.

The cords seem to be in perfect condition, and all the drivers are up to date. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drive as well as rebooting the computer to no effect. Many people suggest to find your external drive in Device Manager>Universal Serial
Bus controllers to uninstall/reinstall the USB drivers, but all I see is 8 different ones like Intel(R) ICH10 Family USB Enhanced Host Controller and Intel(R) ICH10 Family USB Universal Host Controller, and 2 "USB Composite Device" ones and 8 "USB Root Hub"
ones. Not one says "Seagate Expansion Desk" or anything that makes me think of an external hard drive. Since I'm not very knowledgeable about computers, I'm hesitant to uninstall USB drivers because I don't want to mess up a crucial component or anything
like that.

In addition, I've tried plugging the external drive into a laptop. This laptop ran Windows 7, but was upgraded to Windows 10 several months ago. The expansion drive has always worked with the laptop, but now, it has the same problem as our PC. The interesting
part is that I had used the expansion drive on the laptop just fine several hours before we experienced problems with it on the PC.

However, I think the problem could lie elsewhere. When I open Disk Management, a dialog box pops up that says, "You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it." and it wants me to select a disk. The only option it gives me is "Disk
2," which is the Seagate Expansion Drive. Regardless of whether I press OK or Cancel, Disk Management says that Disk 2 is unknown, not initialized, and unallocated. I tried to initalize it, but it said that the device was not ready. I read on the Microsoft
Community that someone said not to initialize the drive, as you could lose your files. Since we have a lot of important files on the drive that aren't backed up, I don't want them to be deleted. How can I overcome this problem?

Could someone please tell me how to fix this issue? Your help is very much appreciated.

 

Windows 10 USB hard drive incorrectly identified as SCSI(UAS) ?

Since update KB3081448 my Seagate Expansion 1Tb USB 3 portable drive formatted NTFS is not shown in File Manager. I noticed when using "Safely Remove Hardware ...." it shows the disk as SCSI (UAS). I was using this successfully for File History. It still
performs perfectly on my Windows 7 desktop and disk check shows no errors. Usb pen drives are identified correctly. My system is a Lenovo E520 Edge 64bit Windows 10 Professional. Is there a fix for this?

Since posting this I have tried another portable drive - a WD Elements 2Tb USB drive also formatted NTFS which also fails to appear in File Manager but works perfectly on my Windows 7 Desktop PC

 

My ten cents.

If your are going to build a system buy an SSD. Depending on what you are going to install in the way of programs a 120GB to 250GB is all you need.

Then buy yourself a storage drive, a place for data. If you want to buy a USB drive and tear it apart so be it but where I live I can buy an HDD cheaper without enclosure. (And I don't have to deal with goo and heat dissipating substances.) Beside you know exactly the specs of the HDD when you buy it OEM.

If you want your data secure use Bitlocker.

Yes you can boot from a USB but long term running your system on a USB device will cause you very serious health issues. There is absolutely no sense in buying a "today" motherboard with a very modern CPU and then tying a USB boat anchor as a system drive.

Other will have their opinions.

 

Well that's the kind of answer I want. There's something there. What it is it you're saying? I think USB data rate, is that it?

HDD cheaper? Yep, well if I can find them I'll buy them.

 

Even USB3/3.1 is way slower that SATA so much longer boot and program opening times are to be expected. If you are going to build a new machine, make sure you have SSD for OS drive.

 

Yes and agreeing with CountMike. USB is soooooooooo slow.

Check out data transfer rates of USB 3.1 and Sata III on Google. Really no comparison. Get M.2 to smoke Sata but that is another story.

If you have a PC download Ubuntu onto a key and boot from there. I know it's not Windows but you will get the feel. Don't install Ubuntu just test. Don't want to mess up one of your machines.

When looking at HDD there are the premium drives, the good drives and the cheaper drives. Each has its purpose. WD Blacks are premium and cost more where for a data storage drive a WD Blue works nicely. I avoid WD Greens but that is just me, I started paying a carbon tax in Canada so that is my justification.

 

Round my way 2.5" 1TB drives can be found slightly cheaper as a USB drive than as a bare drive (strange but true). But as I read the OP, the question was could you install and run the OS on an external USB drive.

As others have said, USB3 speeds are much slower than SATA so it wouldn't be a good idea. Apart from that, Windows setup won't let you install to an external USB drive and you can't boot from one, not as it is formatted by the manufacturer. It's possible to wipe it and create an active partition to allow that, but it's not straight forward, you can only do that from a command prompt using Diskpart.

For best performance, the OS should be on an internal drive - an SSD would be the fastest.

 

If you are building a computer you want to do things right. Part of that is using parts that were designed for the purpose. It is usually possible to install an OS on a USB drive (often difficult) but they were not designed for this and performance will suffer. There can be other issues as well. On top of that drives labeled as "expansion", "backup" and "portable" are often large capacity drives but lacking in performance. That is fine for their intended purpose but not for the OS.

The operational and performance characteristics of an SSD are a good match for the requirements of a modern OS while those of a conventional drive fall far short. In the past they were used for this purpose because there was no viable alternative. But in 2017 using a conventional drive for the OS is only an economy measure, and one that is becoming more and more difficult to justify. For use as storage drives the limitations of conventional drives are less of an issue and the cost is still considerably less. But that too is changing.

 

This seems the definite consensus. SSD. Okay. But is 250GB really enough? Is 120G really enough? Because Windows just expands all the time, doesn't it?

Everything you install adds things to Program Files and things sneak past you and go into Documents and Downloads even when you're trying to direct all traffic to somewhere else - your data disk.

I've never got it clear in my head what the 'system' part of a windows install is and what isn't part of it.

By that I mean firstly what gets overwritten when you make a new install of Windows on top of the existing. This is obviously the first thing I should get straight because this is where I might have stuff about to get destroyed.

Then after that what will always get created by Windows during its life that you have no control over where it goes. This makes for expansion I can't prevent.

Then after that what gets expanded by third party stuff always looking for that place to install itself or write data to. This makes for expansion I can sometimes prevent by directing elsewhere.

All complicated by a vague fear - i.e. I have nothing concrete to point to - about various things wanting various other things to be where they expect them so's they can interact with them - and that place being the default place, the C: drive, the system disk.

I know I'm a bit vague. It's a vague fear. Maybe totally unfounded. But there's many things won't install unless something else is there - .Net frequently needed for instance as a first example. And you get Codecs required. And you get .dll libraries and I don't know what else.

And maybe there's nothing to fear at all but whenever I direct things away from the C: drive onto my E:, for instance, I wonder if I'm creating a problem here.

daft, eh? l *Smile

I'll shop for SSD and for internal hard drive.

I see a couple of guys have the same experience as myself: drives of the same capacity cheaper as 'portable' or whatever.

 

250 GB or so is the minimum I recommend for OS drives these days. On my most recent build I used a 512GB, M.2 Pci-express SSD. Love having no power or data cable to it.

I have a 2TB stoarage drive in this computer. Its a 7200 RPM seagate which moves nearly 200MB a second.

 

Don't use an external USB drive due to poor performance compared to an internal drive. For maximum security, you could install an internal HDD/SSD via a SATA connection but install it in a removable disk caddy which you can then remove and store securely.

 

Yes, forget about USB as system drive, it's slow and unreliable in the long run.

As previously stated, use SSD 120-250 GB (512GB-2TB if playing a lot of games and want speed) connected to M.2 or SATA port for system and applications. Use a second HDD 1-8TB (your choice) for data. And use an USB drive (2-8TB) for system and file backups. Alternatively you can use a network connected drive (NAS) for your backups and long term archiving of files.

 

can anyone define the 'system' part of a win10 system disk? and how it is likely to grow - i.e. which files/folders will increase and we can't stop it or at least not without difficulty?

got it. that's nailed.

I'll have to look that up. My experience with backups across our LAN is they're pathetically slow. It is a wireless lan.

I like that idea.

 

Everything installed will of course ad to system disk, even programs installed on another disk will ad files to system disk. Drivers also have repository in Windows/System32/ drivers, DriverStore and Drvstore, Temp folders are all over the place and tend to fill up. If you uninstall a program without using Revo Uninstaller or another program like that may leave a lot of files behind. Restore points may also pile up even when it's not active for windows itself because some programs make them during installation. Tons of stuff leave at least some traces all the time, browsers for instance download and keep every page you open on internet as well as cookies. To speak nothing about updates and also the need to have at least 10GB free in system (C:/) partition.