An External or Internal Hard Drive for more Daz Connect Content
Epic82
Posts: 129
About a year ago, I purchased a SkyTech Oracle - Gaming Desktop computer directly from SkyTech's website. It’s given me a great performance ever since I started using it. But I’ve purchased, and plan to purchase, an enormous amount of 3D content here at Daz and Renderosity, and I can’t install it all into my computer, which contains only 110 GB of storage. I have to constantly install, uninstall, or delete content I'm not using to save storage room. I install most of the content I purchase from Daz through Daz Connect. I wanted to know what type of hard drive would be best for installing more content through Daz Connect: an external or internal hard drive. I’m a novice when it comes to computer technology. So, which type of hard drive would make installing more content through Daz Connect as simple as possible?
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
From the viewpoint of Daz Connect, a hard drive is a hard drive. It doesn't really care about where it is physically located.
As a general rule, external hard drives are slower, because the data bus that they use to connect to your PC is slower. The main advantage is that if you were to get a new computer, they are easier to relocate to the new PC.
To be honest, access times for content isn't that big of a deal though. For instance, I use a solid state system drive, which is very fast; but I put my content on slower hard drives that have more capacity.
If you're not comfortable opening up your computer and connecting cables, etc. and you don't have a techie friend / family member who could do it for you, external drives are easier to setup and I would imagine you'll feel just fine using one.
If you are reluctantto open the side of your PC up then an external is a safe bet. However it will definitely cost more.
You will have more options at lower prices if you buy an internal. You will need to make two connections, you will also need to buy a SATA cable as you likely don't have one and before buying anything you will need to open the PC and verify you have an available SATA connection on your motherboard. You can learn how to do all of this by doing a search on google for "how to install a harddrive."
Just to add... access times to a single internal storage device will drop if there is any type of contention (i.e. mutiple processes needing I/O). For this reason, I have always ever used separate drives going back to 1993. My current setup (iMac Pro) does have a very fast internal SSD (3 GBps). But, I leave that for the OS and applications themselves. An external RAID 10 (660 MBps) then holds all data. And a separate RAID 0 (440 MBps) serves a scratch disk. This keeps each storage device operating near maximum speeds since I/O is spread across them in most scenarios. Finally, where speed wasn't too important, a RAID 1 (220 MBps) serves as a unit for backups.
Something else to consider - and this is something I'm planning on implementing once I get my graphical workstation setup - use an external NAS/RAID setup as your primary archive. Have all your packages sorted there for easy access and have 2 DAZ directory structures on your local drive - a primary for base figures/morphs/scripts, etc. and a second for your active project (specific characters, scenery, props, lighting, etc.). Once your project is completed, ZIP the project directory and store the archive on the NAS - easy enough to retrieve if needed. Keeps your local storage usage low, but still gives access to your content library in a secure way.
You have, at least, 8 external drives? I know Apple has trained their users to spend money but I/O contention is not that big an issue and if you're willing to spend that sort of money you could easily install the same sort of setup internally, if only Mac's supported such.
As to using a NAS, It's a very viable option for a technically savvy user but for someone who isn't sure about how to install an internal HDD I wouldn't recommend it. The plug and play options out there are pretty pricey and by all accounts the quality of the brands I've heard about are questionable. If he knows a technically savvy individual who is willing to build and setup a NAS then sure it's a great idea, I use one for my media files, it replaces my DVR and also holds all my music, pictures etc. as well as serving as my local backup for all my files.