USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

[eyescene]

While out at Burton's Computers checking out the Macs...I was going to buy a USB External Hard Drive cause I'm tired of backing up to CD or DVD's...anyways the one I wanted was their last one and they wouldn't sell it to me. So I left without one......

Is there anything I need to know about these drives what brand is better how much does one cost the good the bad!!! Any bad things to look for...bus speed????

[Fotno]

Western Digital is pretty good.

[eyescene]

Thanks Fotno

[eyescene]

Here is a list of words I don't understand are these things very important

Average Seek Time: 8.5ms
Cache: 16MB
7200 RPM
Interface: USB 2.0 / eSATA
60MB/Sec bus speed

[Fotno]

Those are good specs.

[bpitt]

External hard drives are cool. They make for easy backups as well as for easy file sharing/swapping, etc. Also, a good place to store your photos/videos instead of hogging up your computers hard drive with them. That's my opinion.

[eyescene]

Hey Pitt I bought one yesterday...250gig for like $100.00 The PC is backed up and ready for reformatting.

count down 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5,.......error error Mr Robinson! we got a problem...

[BassCatter]

I have three.....

A firelight 20 gig and two Western Digital 80 gigs

[MSQueen]

My sister bought me one for Christmas, but all I know is it is a SimpleTech brand. I haven't stored anything on it yet. :)

[Fotno]

I have a simpltech and it hasn't let me down yet.
I think mine is a 80 gig.

[pooker]

I am fixing to have to buy one but I do not want anything smaller than a 500 gig

[Fotno]

Damn pooker.
You better install a fan on that thing.
you might as well buy this.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128400-page,1/article.html

[pooker]

Hey thanks fotno when I do I am defanitly looking at some, I am not sure how many series I have,

But I have the entire claymore series 26 episodes
Fma series 50+ episodes plus movies
Bleach all of them closing in at 200 episodes
Naruto over 200 episodes

Each range in around 130,000 kilobytes to 250,000

I cannot keep all of them on my laptop either haha, I have a 160gb on the laptop and it doesnt have half of those shows and it just has 37 gb left right now.

[Goobersmooch]

the only time it really matters what type of external drive is if you are going to be streaming video or running any programs off of it

if you are using it for just storage then i wouldnt concern myself too much what the stats as long as youve got the storage you want and its a usb 2.0

and while i do recommend buying local for a computer...just run down to best buy or wal mart to grab a peripheral like that

[Fotno]

mine is kinda slow when it comes to transferring stuff.
If I used firewire or eSATA it would speed it up some.

[eyescene]

OK I am not happy with this back up drive...I wantto access my designs and it is now all compressed and I don't know what is what? Next time I will just drag and drop and not use the back up thingy...gee can't these this be complicated?

[eyescene]

and yes US port is slooooooooow but oh so much better than backing up to disk!

[Goobersmooch]

yeah

just use it like a regular harddrive....dont do the 'backup' functions or anything like that

i would reformat the drive and start over...

once you install the drivers if that particular model requires it, it should show up in your 'my computer' just like a harddrive

[eyescene]

Yell it dose show as another drive!! Ummm you reformat these too? How?

[Hobs]

whew... good to be back cruisin on the Interwebz super highway...

i haven't really looked for a extHD but what's the price range for a good 100+G?

i got lots o music, videos, and pics that need to remove themselves from my local HD.

[eyescene]

$79.00 and up!

[TheCapitalist]

I got a Seagate 250gb external couple months ago. Three years of live music recording on it. when i go to friends house to get new music, i just plug it in and he drags it over. Done. It was 79.00 then and the 500gb are close to that now. I kept checking the Sunday ads for Best Buy, Office Depot ,etc. You can do this online if you don't get the paper. Go to the respective web sites. No problems yet. With that much music, burning, keeping, finding, filing discs was getting rediculous. Now i can listen to the whole catalog, or randomly do it under winamp. If i want to burn another copy for me or a friend, it is there. I like.

[eyescene]

Well I can't friggin read mine but...I'm gonna drag and drop next time.

[pooker]

I paid twenty bucks for my 120

[Gorehound]

Eyescene, does your system have Firewire? If so I recommend going with an external with firewire. MUCH faster.

[Goobersmooch]

and you can boot from a firewire drive....

not sure if you can do that wish usb...someone correct me if im wrong

[eyescene]

Eyescene, does your system have Firewire? If so I recommend going with an external with firewire. MUCH faster.


Sad but I really don't know. So just where will I find all that?

[Goobersmooch]

the port looks like this...and the little logo thats on it looks like the flux capacitor

http://www.dpreview.com/news/9908/firewire.jpg

[eyescene]

hmmmm no I don't think...this machine is 5 years old. But I will check it tomorrow. Thanks!! Was that a camera with a firewire port?

[Goobersmooch]

hmmmm no I don't think...this machine is 5 years old. But I will check it tomorrow. Thanks!! Was that a camera with a firewire port?

not sure...it looks like it though.

[Gorehound]

If the machine is five years old then most likely it DOESN'T. But, you never know for certain.

Yes, you can boot from USB. I do it daily with various devices.

[SoMissTV]

There are two types of firewire 400 (also known as IEEE 1392) connections. There's the 6 pin connection that goob posted above, but there's also a 4 pin connection that is commonly found on non-Apple brand laptops. It looks like this:

http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/lifestyle/2001/h4PinFirewireJack.jpeg

If your computer has an extra slot in the back, or is a laptop with a PCMCIA slot, then it is relatively easy and inexpensive to add a firewire card to your system.

[Hobs]

since i asked earlier about 'em i figured i'd update ya'll... I got a Maxtor OneTouch4 250G from Radio Shack for $80.

[TheCapitalist]

Good deal. Maxtor has been around for a while.

[eyescene]

since i asked earlier about 'em i figured i'd update ya'll... I got a Maxtor OneTouch4 250G from Radio Shack for $80.

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u205/eyescene/Smilis/GoodJob.gif http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u205/eyescene/Smilis/tt4.gif

Gotta better deal than me!!

[Gorehound]

Good deal. Maxtor has been around for a while.
Seagate owns Maxtor now.