Is it possible to add an external HDD to the laptop as the main one?

Question

Hard disks

Hello.
My laptop's hard drive is dying and I want to replace it.
In stores, the prices for external and internal HDDs are very different.
Question: Is it possible to buy an external HDD, open the box, take out a bare disk and connect it to a laptop and install Windows?
Are external ones also connected via SATA?
Will there be problems?

Answer 1

My laptop's hard drive is dying and I want to replace it.

Elementary, for this there are all the necessary technical capabilities.

In stores, the prices for external and internal HDDs are very different.

Yes, they are different - internal ones are much cheaper, since they are produced much more massively. Even if you buy separately an internal HDD and a Chinese box for it to make it external, it will be cheaper than a solid external one, all other things being equal.

Is it possible to buy an external HDD, open the box, take out a bare disk and connect it to a laptop and install Windows?

Yes, you can, but why? After all, buying and installing a disk inside is not more difficult, and cheaper.

Are external ones also connected via SATA?

Connecting an external drive via SATA (that is, actually outputting a SATA connection to the outside, without power) I saw only on some motherboards for desktop computers. I haven't come across anything like this on laptops. As a rule, modern external HDDs are connected via USB-3.0. They are still sold with USB-2.0, but it makes no sense to buy them anymore.