External Hard Drives And External Media Player Hard Drives

[lingyai]

I was in Pantip looking at external hard drives.

(I am doing this as my laptop will not boot correctly, I can’t access any of my data. I believe it is a software problem and I am downloading the “Ultimate boot cd”to try and fix. So lesson here back up your data!)

For already assembled hard drives there are only a few choices such as Western Digital, Lacie, etc. There are a ton of shops selling external hard drive cases and hard drives, so do it yourself method. It is a bit cheaper doing it this way.

Has anyone assembled their own external hard drive? Any suggestions/advice?

Secondly there are a lot of shops selling hard drive player cases. This is where you can play some video and mp3 files from you hard drive to a monitor/TV without the need of a computer. Is there any drawback to getting one of these? It seems like a nice feature to have.

Thanks for any feedback.

[ZZZ]

I was in Pantip looking at external hard drives.

(I am doing this as my laptop will not boot correctly, I can’t access any of my data. I believe it is a software problem and I am downloading the “Ultimate boot cd”to try and fix. So lesson here back up your data!)

For already assembled hard drives there are only a few choices such as Western Digital, Lacie, etc. There are a ton of shops selling external hard drive cases and hard drives, so do it yourself method. It is a bit cheaper doing it this way.

Has anyone assembled their own external hard drive? Any suggestions/advice?

Secondly there are a lot of shops selling hard drive player cases. This is where you can play some video and mp3 files from you hard drive to a monitor/TV without the need of a computer. Is there any drawback to getting one of these? It seems like a nice feature to have.

Thanks for any feedback.

The shops will assemble the drive for you if want, they will also format the drive, usually for free. To assemble yourself just plug in the drive to the PCB, insert in case, tighten two screws, takes less than 1 minute.

[calibanjr.]

Got a few back up drives. Usually, just pick the box you like and the size HDD you want, have the shop install and partition them if you want. If you want to buy the box and HDD from different shops, it's not that hard to put the USB interface and HDD together and close the box yourself, the use Windows to partition the drive the way you want.

XP path to format a disk is Control Panel/PerformanceMaintenance/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/DiskManagement.

If you're using XP and won't ever need to use an older OS to access data, format in NTFS instead of FAT32, if you have a shop do it, they'll probably do it in FAT32 unless you tell them not to.

Set one up last week, bought a 320gig SATA Seagate for 4100 THB, box was 1000 THB. Got em to throw in a 512meg thumb drive for a total of 5k. Shop was at ICON in Chiang Mai.

For backing up data, I use Norton Ghost, will make a mirror of any drive, and if you keep it running in the background it will update your backup on request as data grows, incrementally. Will also compress the data in the mirror to varying degrees.

Edited January 21, 2007 by calibanjr.

[Tywais]

Has anyone assembled their own external hard drive? Any suggestions/advice?

I've assembled probably 15-20 external drives and this is my preference and cautions. Be sure it has an internal fan for the drive. I prefer the ones with the internal power supply, just uses an AC cord plugged directly in with no external brick. Have the shop assemble and verify it. I've had problems with boxes that could not handle large capacity drives (power supply not sufficient). An example, two boxes worked fine with 80GB but putting in 250GB, disk would not spin up.

[RedCardinal]

Has anyone assembled their own external hard drive? Any suggestions/advice?

I've assembled probably 15-20 external drives and this is my preference and cautions. Be sure it has an internal fan for the drive. I prefer the ones with the internal power supply, just uses an AC cord plugged directly in with no external brick. Have the shop assemble and verify it. I've had problems with boxes that could not handle large capacity drives (power supply not sufficient). An example, two boxes worked fine with 80GB but putting in 250GB, disk would not spin up.

Yep, I have similar experience. I have a number of external drives for back-up/storage.

I have always ordered the drive and an external case - you can usually save anything up to 50% and get the very latest HDD.

But do take care that your chosen case will support the HDD you buy - in some limited cases there may be some incompatibility.

I always bought items online (at home more savings - any online merchants in Thailand?) so I cant say about shops assembling the items for you, but it is not too difficult - if you can use a screwdriver and your eyesight and patience are in good stead you should have no problems (it's normally just a few screws to turn and perhaps a casing to attach to the HDD).

[lingyai]

Thanks for the replies.

Would there any reason NOT to buy one of the cases that come with a remote and that allow you to play some files on a tv/monitor (they are not that much more in price) ? Also if a case has a firewire port then logical one could use firewire when accessesing the hard drive right?

[britmaveric]

Thanks for the replies.

Would there any reason NOT to buy one of the cases that come with a remote and that allow you to play some files on a tv/monitor (they are not that much more in price) ? Also if a case has a firewire port then logical one could use firewire when accessesing the hard drive right?

Wondered myself how well these sort of devices work...

[JustAnotherFarang]

I have an external dvd driv LG gsa 5169d which is an excellent replacemment for my old and broken internal dvd drive

On the box, its says that you can record directly from TV, video, audio and record it onto DVD, sounds amazing, just plug it in and record all your favourite tv programs.

But alas, its not entirely true because you have to connect the dvd and tv through a program which is installed on the computer. The tv streams through the computer, is compressed by the computer and then recorded to DVD..........still pretty smart but if you have a video capture card, you could do this anyway

I feel that hard drive that plugs into the tv and just plays mp3, movie files etc etc might be the same method but in reverse......... or that the hard disk has an operating system/program able to play music

Just my tuppence worth

JAF

PS Still very pleased with the external dvd drive, very fast and far better than those cheap n nasty drives you get when you buy a laptop nowadays

[Smithson]

I feel that hard drive that plugs into the tv and just plays mp3, movie files etc etc might be the same method but in reverse......... or that the hard disk has an operating system/program able to play music

Just my tuppence worth

JAF

I was going to buy a standalond DVD/Dix player with a USB port. However an extrenal drive that can be plugged into the TV to play media files sounds much better.

Can anybody tell provide some info on price, brand and capacity?

Thanks!

[Grover]

Has anyone assembled their own external hard drive? Any suggestions/advice?

I've assembled probably 15-20 external drives and this is my preference and cautions. Be sure it has an internal fan for the drive. I prefer the ones with the internal power supply, just uses an AC cord plugged directly in with no external brick. Have the shop assemble and verify it. I've had problems with boxes that could not handle large capacity drives (power supply not sufficient). An example, two boxes worked fine with 80GB but putting in 250GB, disk would not spin up.

these issues can be avoided by getting a 2.5' hdd (laptop HDD) and external case. Heat is less and can be powered from USB.

[crockett]

Has anyone assembled their own external hard drive? Any suggestions/advice?

I've assembled probably 15-20 external drives and this is my preference and cautions. Be sure it has an internal fan for the drive. I prefer the ones with the internal power supply, just uses an AC cord plugged directly in with no external brick. Have the shop assemble and verify it. I've had problems with boxes that could not handle large capacity drives (power supply not sufficient). An example, two boxes worked fine with 80GB but putting in 250GB, disk would not spin up.

these issues can be avoided by getting a 2.5' hdd (laptop HDD) and external case. Heat is less and can be powered from USB.

Thats right, only thing is you don't get the capacity of the 3.5' drives.

[mahdoo]

I have woxter media player. - - http://www.woxter.com/contenido/productos2...a=22&id=207

It takes a 3.5 hard drive upto 500Gb. I brought mine in Fortune town on the Ratchadaphisek Rd, MRTA Phra Ram 9 Station.

I have a 320Gb Harddrive for 4000Bt and the media player was 3000Bt.

There are cheaper smaller alternatives to this one but they do not have the LCD display and no controls on the player itself only from the remote control.

It plays all Mpeg video and music, divx, avi and wmv. A friend of mine who has been busy downloading movies brought over a similar media player with around 300Gb of movies, over 300 movies in total and some music which has been keeping me from buying dvds.

All in all a great unit, I have not used my DVD player or watched TV since I got it.

Mahdoo

[Smithson]

I have woxter media player. - - http://www.woxter.com/contenido/productos2...a=22&id=207

It takes a 3.5 hard drive upto 500Gb. I brought mine in Fortune town on the Ratchadaphisek Rd, MRTA Phra Ram 9 Station.

I have a 320Gb Harddrive for 4000Bt and the media player was 3000Bt.

There are cheaper smaller alternatives to this one but they do not have the LCD display and no controls on the player itself only from the remote control.

It plays all Mpeg video and music, divx, avi and wmv. A friend of mine who has been busy downloading movies brought over a similar media player with around 300Gb of movies, over 300 movies in total and some music which has been keeping me from buying dvds.

All in all a great unit, I have not used my DVD player or watched TV since I got it.

Mahdoo

This unit looks great, although maybe a little large. Thanks for that. I'd be interested to hear of other similar players.

Edited January 26, 2007 by Smithson

[lingyai]

Thanks for all the replies.

I have 2 last questions. 1. Which type of hard drive would you get SATA or IDE (I know that some hard drive enclosures take one kind some the other kind)

2. Do most of the enclosures come with power supplies that can accept 115v-240v? So if one went to other countries where the power is 115v it would work?