USB External Hard Drive

[Yvonne]

Just wondering if someone could give me an idea of what kind of USB
external hard drive is the best to buy.

I'm hoping to get a light-weight, portable, very reliable USB hard
drive.

So far, I've found these brands - do any of these fit what I'm looking
for?

* LaCie Porsche (or just LaCie)
* Western Digital Dual Option (automatic / on-demand backup)
* Comstar
* ADS Tech
* Acomdata Photon
* T-One
* Iomega

Are there any others?

In addition, what is Firewire 400/Firewire 800 (connectors 6 pin and 9
pin) ??

And, what does HFS formatted mean??

 

[Brett I. Holcomb]

Can't tell you what works best. At work we've used LaCie for the externals
and it seems to work ok.

Firewire is a type of interface and is faster than USB but not all computers
support it. The drive you get should have both USB and if it has firewire
you can use that on your computer and take advantage of the speed. If not
use the USB port.

HFS is High performance file system and it's an Apple format - make sure the
drive isn't for an Apple computer.

 

[Richard in Va.]

Hello Yvonne,

Take a look here...
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...lc.asp?CatId=2213&Nav=|c:1204|&Sort=2&Recs=10

Tiger Direct handles alot of this type of stuff.
Read through the customer reviews if you want.
Re-sort the list for most popular.

I bought the SIIG Firewire 800+USB 2.0 HHD kit.
http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=3&pid=988

Firewire 400 or 800
USB 1.1 or 2.0

I like it because it's simple with no bells and whistles. And only one light for
power-on/read/write.

USB 2.0 and Firewire (400) are about the same speed. Firewire 800 is new and supposed to
be about twice as fast. But you'll need a PC that will support Firewire 800 or buy a PCI
add in card to use it.

I bought it for the upwards compatibility for my next new PC. For now it's using USB 2.0.
The 3-1/2" drive slid in and mounted real easy, no hassle there. It's real quiet too. But
alittle pricy tho, ~$75 or so. That's just for the empty case. You have to provide your
own hard drive. I had several lying around not being used.

It doesn't have the backup feature so many offer. To me, that's a bell and whistle. Just
turn on the power and it is treated just like an internal drive. Love it...!

The only bad thing is that the power button is on the back of the case and the drive spins
at all times when powered up. Even if the PC is off. But I think most or all external
drives do that.

Anyway, look at the TigerDirect web site, there is alot to learn there.

Also, if you read some customer reviews, remember that most of the time, people who have a
complaint are the ones to right in and fuss about it. A grain of salt is helpful!

Hope this helps...!

Best regards,

Richard In Va.
+++++++++++++++++

 

[Andy]

In general terms, what I would look for are:
1. Good cooling in the enclosure, meaning that it uses a fan(s), and
2. Good quality power for the hard drive, meaning power supply in the
enclosure, as opposed to a wall wart.

 

[Yvonne]

Hi,

What is an enclosure? Is that where you take out your hard drive and
put it in a case and take it with you? I've looked at the TigerDirect
website and it seems that's what it is but I'd like to clarify. That
sounds like a lot of work to me to have to take out a hard drive from
your unit.

I think the first thing I need the portable hard drive for is for
backup of my hard drive before I reformat it.

I'm was hoping there was something really good similar to the USB flash
drive - like the Kingston KataTraveler; however, I can only find a 2 GB
one and I need more than that to backup my hard drive.

I would also like it to be plug and play. After I reformat my hard
drive, I was thinking of using the drive as the backup for my data and
travelling with it should I need it so it needs to be lightweight. I
would like to be able to read and write to it like a floppy disk
without any programs or other installations.

Yvonne

 

[Yvonne]

Oooops - meant "Kingston DataTraveler". Too bad we didn't have spell
check.
Yvonne

 

[Anna]

Hi,

What is an enclosure? Is that where you take out your hard drive and
put it in a case and take it with you? I've looked at the TigerDirect
website and it seems that's what it is but I'd like to clarify. That
sounds like a lot of work to me to have to take out a hard drive from
your unit.

I think the first thing I need the portable hard drive for is for
backup of my hard drive before I reformat it.

I'm was hoping there was something really good similar to the USB flash
drive - like the Kingston KataTraveler; however, I can only find a 2 GB
one and I need more than that to backup my hard drive.

I would also like it to be plug and play. After I reformat my hard
drive, I was thinking of using the drive as the backup for my data and
travelling with it should I need it so it needs to be lightweight. I
would like to be able to read and write to it like a floppy disk
without any programs or other installations.

Yvonne

Yvonne:
In addition to the recommendations you've already received re a USB external
HD, allow me to offer this for your consideration...

I'm assuming that when you state your requirements are "using the drive as
the backup for my data and travelling with it should I need it so it needs
to be lightweight" you're exclusively interested in backing up your created
data, i.e., documents that you have created. And that you're not interested
(in this instance) in backing up your programs/applications. So that I'm
assuming we're not talking about backing up 10s of gigabytes worth of data.

If this is so...

Consider using one of the USB mini-drives that are now on the market. These
devices are quite small - no more in most cases than 2" square and very
thin - so that they easily fit into one's purse or shirt pocket. And of
course they're quite lightweight - no more than a couple of ounces. They
need no auxiliary power other than that provided by your computer. They come
in various multi-gigabyte capacities. For example, there's one on sale this
week (today, Saturday is the last day of the sale) at Office Depot. It's a
Memorex 8 GB TravelDrive and it's on sale for $99.99 (after two darn
rebates). Most of these mini-drives I've come across come in capacities
ranging from 2 GB to 8 GB. So if these capacities meet your needs, do
consider one of these mini-drives. They're simple to use - basically plug &
play in an XP environment. No special drivers are needed and no awkward
installation is required.
Anna

 

[Yvonne]

I'm looking at about 100 GB of information between the kids stuff, our
stuff and work stuff.

Yes, I don't want to backup my programs. Someone in the house decided
to download a program and now it's taken over the computer, even when I
removed the offensive program so I'm just going to backup everything
and then wipe out the whole thing and reinstall all the programs I
originally had started with.

Yvonne

 

[Yvonne]

I'm looking at about 100 GB of information between the kids stuff, our
stuff and work stuff.

Yes, I don't want to backup my programs. Someone in the house decided
to download a program and now it's taken over the computer, even when I
removed the offensive program so I'm just going to backup everything
and then wipe out the whole thing and reinstall all the programs I
originally had started with.

Yvonne

 

[Frank]

Yvonne wrote:
|| I'm looking at about 100 GB of information between the kids stuff,
|| our stuff and work stuff.
||
|| Yes, I don't want to backup my programs. Someone in the house
|| decided to download a program and now it's taken over the computer,
|| even when I removed the offensive program so I'm just going to
|| backup everything and then wipe out the whole thing and reinstall
|| all the programs I originally had started with.
||
|| Yvonne
||
|| Anna wrote:
||||| On 16 Jun 2006 17:38:57 -0700, "Yvonne" <[email protected]>
||||| wrote:
|||||
||| |||| Hi,
||||
|||| What is an enclosure? Is that where you take out your hard drive
|||| and put it in a case and take it with you? I've looked at the
|||| TigerDirect website and it seems that's what it is but I'd like to
|||| clarify. That sounds like a lot of work to me to have to take out
|||| a hard drive from your unit.
||| ||||| In general terms, what I would look for are:
||||| 1. Good cooling in the enclosure, meaning that it uses a fan(s),
||||| and
||||| 2. Good quality power for the hard drive, meaning power supply in
||||| the enclosure, as opposed to a wall wart.

<http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/SubCategory.asp?SubCategory=414>

<http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/SubCategory.asp?SubCategory=92>

These may give you a better understanding and help lead you to what you
want.

 

[Richard in Va.]

Hello Yvonne,

If your looking for 100GB+, portable, USB2, and easy to install and use.
Maybe you could consider an external HD enclosure that already has the drive installed.

Try this link...
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=136

I think most drive manufactures offer an external enclosure with their drive already
installed. You'll probable need to format it as well as set up the partition(s).

If you need 100GB, maybe you should consider 160GB drive size. Alittle head room is a
good thing.

As far a portability, I don't think you'll want to put this in your purse on the way to
work. But you sure can unplug it and run out the door if the house catches on fire. And
if you go visit the relatives in the next state over, you can carry the drive (enclosure),
power cord, and usb cord with you. If their running Windows XP, you'll be able to plug it
in to their computer like any other USB device. With XP, no setup or drivers are needed.
They see a new drive letter show up in explorer and your up and running....

Hope this helps!

Richard in Va.
+++++++++++++

 

[Yvonne]

Thanks to all who replied. Your thoughts have made this a very
interesting topic.

Yvonne