External Hard drive

cjonesrocks10

macrumors newbie

Original poster

• Mar 26, 2009

• #1

hey, i'm going to be buying a LaCie external hard drive, and was wondering if it would be okay to watch videos right from the hard drive instead of dragging it over to the desktop. I want to make sure it wont mess the hard drive up.

Thanks!

 

P

PrinceOfEgypt

macrumors member

• Mar 26, 2009

• #2

cjonesrocks10 said:

hey, i'm going to be buying a LaCie external hard drive, and was wondering if it would be okay to watch videos right from the hard drive instead of dragging it over to the desktop. I want to make sure it wont mess the hard drive up.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

if your usb cable is too long it might cause the video playback to slow down - it takes more time for the video to travel through the longer cable and get to your computer..

also, playing videos from an external drive can cause your internal hard drive to catch fire. your screen may also crack unexpectedly.

 

A

azdunerat

macrumors regular

• Mar 26, 2009

• #3

I stream movies off of my LaCie all the time. No problems at all

 

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PrinceOfEgypt

macrumors member

• Mar 26, 2009

• #4

i'm kidding if you haven't figured that out...

serious answer, there is nothing wrong with playing videos off your external drive.

 

MasterNile

macrumors 65816

• Mar 26, 2009

• #5

I've got exact copies of DVDs on my external drive that I play on my MacBook and it works just fine, so if you're using compressed videos it shouldn't be a problem.

 

cjonesrocks10

macrumors newbie

Original poster

• Mar 26, 2009

• #6

PrinceOfEgypt said:

if your usb cable is too long it might cause the video playback to slow down - it takes more time for the video to travel through the longer cable and get to your computer..

also, playing videos from an external drive can cause your internal hard drive to catch fire. your screen may also crack unexpectedly.

Click to expand...

oh, so its probably better to just drag the video over to the desktop!

 

cjonesrocks10

macrumors newbie

Original poster

• Mar 26, 2009

• #7

PrinceOfEgypt said:

i'm kidding if you haven't figured that out...

serious answer, there is nothing wrong with playing videos off your external drive.

Click to expand...

hahaha! gosh don't do that! ok! thanks!

 

Bill Gates

macrumors 68030

• Mar 26, 2009

• #8

PrinceOfEgypt said:

i'm kidding if you haven't figured that out...

serious answer, there is nothing wrong with playing videos off your external drive.

Click to expand...

It could actually play more slowly or drop frames if the CPU is already being heavily taxed just to play the video, and the drive is USB. This is where using FireWire is advantageous.