External Hard drive opinions

G

geo

I'm looking for an external hard drive with the USB 2.0 hook up. Can I get
some opinions on the different ones on the market and what you are using?
thanks,
geo
 
S

spodosaurus

geo said:
I'm looking for an external hard drive with the USB 2.0 hook up. Can I get
some opinions on the different ones on the market and what you are using?
thanks,
geo

A Western Digital drive in a Welland usb 2.0 external case. Works great.

Ari

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/
 
J

Jan Alter

Hi,

I've been using a Maxtor 5000DV (USB2 and firewire) for about a year
and a half now with no problems. I picked it up because it came with Dantz
Retrospect software that allowed me to schedule automatic back ups daily
without any intervention. And with the touch of a button on the case I could
also back up the whole drive as well. To my thinking it doesn't get much
easier.
The same kind of setup can be purchased I think for Western Digital or
probably any other major manufacturer's drives.
Additionally, one can pick up decent external drive enclosures and mount an
internal hard drive into them in about 5 minutes. I'd recommend getting a
firewire/USB2 enclosure. The versatility of connection for $10 - 15 more is
worth it to me.
One other worthy mention is using a 2 1/2" laptop hdd in a smaller
external enclosure. These are terrrific in that they are very very easy to
carry and they allow powering by the USB or firewire connection alone
without an additional power supply to a wall outlet that is expected from
the 3 1/2" drives.
In August I'd upgraded the hdd on a laptop and used the old 40 gb drive in a
Macally enclosure. It is small and powers up by simply connecting the USB
or firewire cable. You might check out the cost of one of these small laptop
drives and an enclosure together if it suits you.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817146604
 
J

Jim

FWIW, I can tell you from perosnal experience, having a Firewire option too
is worth the extra $10-15 (USD), assuming you have the interface. Makes a
big difference in performance, perhaps as much as 50%. I'm assuming anyone
careful enough to solicit opinions prior to purchasing is probably more
sensitive to performance too. Trust me, firewire has it all over USB in
this regard.

Wasn't clear whether you wanted a pre-built unit, or just the enclosure and
would buy the HD separately. Rolling your own is trivial. Most pre-built
units only have a 1 yr warranty. Roll your own and you can save some money
AND grab a Seagate w/ 5 yr warranty instead. I have several enclosures,
some USB only, but the USB+Firewire unit I use most often I picked up from
Dealsonic.com:

http://www.dealsonic.com/arhdal3usb201.html

Argosy HD-360C (fanless design, so DEAD SILENT, if that matters to you),
that's a pretty good price for a USB+Firewire solution. When I bought mine
over a year ago, it went for close to $50, so it's dropped significantly
since then. Now add something like a Seagate 300GB, which has been on sale
at Fry's/Outpost for about $89 after rebate, and similar pricing w/ rebate
at CompUSA, BestBuy, etc., and you have a pretty good deal.

Jim
 
N

Neill

We had problems with Maxtor externals overheating. Seagate externals seem to
be running fine so far
 
S

spodosaurus

__spc__ said:
My brother's had lots of bad experience with them (no details I'm afraid).

"Them" being?


--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/
 
J

John Weiss

geo said:
I'm looking for an external hard drive with the USB 2.0 hook up. Can I get
some opinions on the different ones on the market and what you are using?

Buy a generic USB2 enclosure and the HD of your choice. I'd go with a
Seagate Barracuda, all else equal. Since pure HD performance is not going
to be essential with an external HD, go with the price/capacity/cache
combination that suits your needs. More cache is best, but don't pay too
much for it.

Also, if Firewire is an option for you, go that route instead.
 
S

spodosaurus

Al said:
Do you happen dto know the file system, NTFS or FAT32 and the size of the disk.

I'm taking a survey.

?????

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/
 

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