External hard drive

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I need an external hard drive. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'll connect it to a USB port. I need at least 120 gigs.

~~ Paul

[malbui]

I've got a Lacie Porsche design thingie that I've been using for over a year. 250 gig and USB - it worked out of the box on XP, W2K and a variety of Linux boxes and I've got no complaints at all.

[AK-Dave]

If you are using it for bulk storage where speed is not a factor, you can go with a 5400 RPM drive. They are a bit cheaper. If you are trying to use it for storing files during movie or sound editing, go with a 7200 RPM one, although a firewire drive would be better than USB for those kinds of things (assuming you have a firewire port).

[thrombus29]

USB 1 or USB 2, that's real important.

USB 1 is a lot slower (you will notice) than Firewire.

USB 2 is a little bit (you won't notice) faster.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I have a Firewire port, but it's in use with my scanner. I don't know what version of USB I have, but speed is not really important.

I'll look into the LaCie, Mailbui. Is it just a coincidence that your avatar is a Porsche?

~~ Paul

[kevin]

I've got quite a few external hard drives. The one I'm happiest with is the one where I bought the case and the drive seperately.

before this drive, I was losing a drive per year in enclosures. Deciding this was due to heat, I purchased a standalone drive with a fan in it. The fan adds some noise but not much. And I haven't had a drive failure on it in two years.

Since the case is designed to be opened and taken apart I can upgrade to a larger drive when I wish. You can also get cases with multiple outputs (i.e. Firewire and USB 2.0).

For drives I like Seagate because they went to a 5 year warranty recently.

This is probably not the cheapest solution.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Does anyone know how to tell which version USB ports I have? Poking around in the Windows XP device manager doesn't reveal anything.


~~ Paul

[kevin]

System Information under the Accessories/System menu item. Under components on my system it has a USB option. It lists my controller as an Intel 2.0 USB Controller. Not sure all 2.0 controllers have 2.0 in the name.

I do know when you plug a 2.0 rated device into a 1.1 usb slot Windows will tell you that the device will be faster in a 2.0 device.

[malbui]

I have a Firewire port, but it's in use with my scanner. I don't know what version of USB I have, but speed is not really important.
If you're not swapping lots of data to and fro constantly USB1.1 speed can be lived with. It can get irritating if you're copying a couple of hundred gig, though.

I'll look into the LaCie, Mailbui. Is it just a coincidence that your avatar is a Porsche?
It is a coincidence. My passion for the car range has existed for many years, whilst I wasn't even aware that they'd got into computer peripheral design until I found myself onsite at a client with a failing laptop hard disk and needed a way of taking a full backup quickly. A quick scan of some fora provided a shortlist of reputable makes and I bought the one they had in stock at the local electrical shop.

[CFLarsen]

I need at least 120 gigs.

Calculate how much you think you need. Then double that.

[Dr. A Sheikh]

paul c,

when you boot up the computer then press del key and enter into bios setup where you can find info about usb port in detail. now every computer is coming with usb 2. the driver is available on net. xp has builtin driver. if you have fat32 system then it will run more fast then ntfs system.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I just ordered a LaCie 160GB drive.

~~ Paul

[Soapy Sam]

Then you better have USB2, or it's the last we'll hear from you for a while.

[malbui]

Then you better have USB2, or it's the last we'll hear from you for a while.
But if we all keep quiet and listen hard we might just hear the external disk spinning. And spinning. And spinning. :D

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I don't think I have USB2, but speed doesn't really matter. It's just for archival data with infrequent access.

~~ Paul

[Patricio Elicer]

I don't think I have USB2, but speed doesn't really matter. It's just for archival data with infrequent access.

~~ PaulOK, but if you ever need to save heavy files (like movies) or to transfer a large amount of files for backup, you'll notice the difference. USB1 is annoyingly slow.

[malbui]

I don't think I have USB2, but speed doesn't really matter. It's just for archival data with infrequent access.
We're just teasing you, Paul. I use my drive to back up an ancient PC that I'm surprised can even cope with 1.1. And even so it's quicker and more flexible than the other methods of backup I've tried.