External Disc

[lungbing]

I want to buy an external disc I can then use for security dumps of my system.

Of course I don't mean external floppy drives.

Do such discs run off the USB port? ie no external power source is required.

Do you have to buy a separate disc disc and put it in an external drive holder

or do they come complete?

In other words would some kind soul give me the idiot's guide to external disc drives.

(I'm the idiot, not you)

Thank you.

[Tywais]

Most external drives will run off USB but also require a power source due to the power requirements of the hard disk. Usually this is a power brick but some units have the supply internal and just an AC power cord needed. You can easily get them complete, that is box, disk drive, power supply (cable).

If you absolutely must have a unit without external power then a USB flash drive could be used if your needs are less then ~2GB. The external hard drive is the better choice though.

Here is a site with examples you can look at > Shop4Thai

Edited December 11, 2006 by tywais

[Crossy]

Pretty much with Tywais on this

As a general rule, external drives that use laptop hard disks (2.5") are very small and portable, these run off your USB port (laptop drives use only a 5V supply).

The larger 3.5" disks need a 12V power supply that USB cannot provide, these will have an external power block that you plug in to the wall.

You can buy either type of case with or without drives installed (in case you want to use a spare drive you already own). It may be marginally cheaper to buy the case and drive seperately and assemble yourself.

[Tywais]

As a general rule, external drives that use laptop hard disks (2.5") are very small and portable, these run off your USB port (laptop drives use only a 5V supply).

I forgot about the 2.5" models, never looked for them due to their slow spindle speeds and also byte for byte more expensive. However, they can be very compact and easy to carry along if you use a notebook too.

[wpcoe]

I upgraded the 2.5" hard drive in my notebook to a larger size and decided to buy an inexpensive USB enclosure to use the old one as an external drive. I brought the enclosure home, inserted the drive, plugged in the USB cable and couldn't get the drive to run. Took the enclosure back thinking it was defective. I watched the tech test it. One end of the USB cable has *two* plugs, you need to plug BOTH of them in to your host computer. It draws power from two USB ports on the host. There wasn't enough power from a single USB port. Lesson sheepishly learned. (I had wondered about those two USB plugs. )

[kayo]

I use an external hard drive in conjunction with my laptop, to store data/music etc... and partitioned it into two 75 G segments: One for back ups and the other for general storage.,

It's a samsung, and runs off the mains (power adaptor brick) and connects with standard USB (best to have USB 2.0 compatible if your laptop USB jacks support it.

However there are also hardrives available (smaller storage size) that will run off the USB alone. but you'll need to top up/recharge it off the mains from time to time. My brother has a 15G external he uses just for backing up, and it works off itself (through the USB power supply) but every now and then he has to charge it up. He go a power supply cable with the machine, but it also works with regular phone charger cables (in this case, Nokia standard cable)

[endure]

I upgraded the 2.5" hard drive in my notebook to a larger size and decided to buy an inexpensive USB enclosure to use the old one as an external drive. I brought the enclosure home, inserted the drive, plugged in the USB cable and couldn't get the drive to run. Took the enclosure back thinking it was defective. I watched the tech test it. One end of the USB cable has *two* plugs, you need to plug BOTH of them in to your host computer. It draws power from two USB ports on the host. There wasn't enough power from a single USB port. Lesson sheepishly learned. (I had wondered about those two USB plugs. )

It depends on the model of the hard disk that you're using. I have a 2.5" external drive that runs off just the one USB port.

[autonomous_unit]

It depends on the model of the hard disk that you're using. I have a 2.5" external drive that runs off just the one USB port.

Did it come with one of those cables with the extra tap for power? There is a limit to the amount of power that "should" be drawn over USB according to the standards, but all software does not necessarily enforce this and some devices may be able to deliver more than the nominal amount of power. However, I personally would not want to risk that since the failure behavior of the drive with insufficient power could be silent data corruption.

As for speed, the bottleneck is probably the USB2 and not the disk drive. (Have you ever seen more than about 20MB/s over USB2, in practice?) However, the price per GB is of course higher. A nice advantage is that you can use the same size/make of drive as in your laptop and maintain a full bootable mirror image. In the case of a hardware failure, you can get out the screw-driver and swap drives to get back online quickly. I have a 7200 RPM, 60 GB drive that matches the one in my laptop...

[markuk]

I have a 180GB external using USB2.0 and a power adaptor stores my music, works fine. It can be a bit slow though when searching.

I am looking at the western digital "My Book" series with 1TB, anyone have any experience? uses firewire to connect.

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/...asp?DriveID=270

[quiksilva]

Looks nice, are they for sale in Thailand? If so, whats the damage?

[monty]

I use an external enclosure for SATA drive, with a firewire connection to my PC.

Pretty fast, much faster then an older USB connected IDE drive I have!

Enclosure was 1700 Baht, and I use a Western digital 5000KS drive (500gb, 7500 Baht)

[autonomous_unit]

By the way, I recently looked into the large-scale multi-disk solutions. Unfortunately there is not really a perfect value out there right now. In terms of performance it goes something like this (fastest to slowest, ignoring cost):

1. external SATA or SCSI chassis

2. firewire 800

3. Linux server with gigabit ethernet for network-attached storage

4. firewire 400

5. USB2 high-speed

note, the solutions can all vary in speed depending on whether one link is shared by multiple disks or whether each disk gets a separate connection to the host computer via a multi-port adapter (of the appropriate type). Note, most of the current "home office/small office" NAS solutions are not comparable to the item (3) above. Because of their wimpy embedded CPUs, the performance does not reach the limits of gigabit ethernet but rather is more comparable to USB2 or maybe firewire 400 at best.

If you have the skills, the most cost-effective thing right now for the small office would be to buy a reasonable PC to stuff the disks into and run Linux as a server to support one or more clients over the LAN! This is still cheaper even if you have to buy a gigabit ethernet switch and extra NIC for a couple of client PCs... of course, if you only have one client and you have large-storage needs, it is probably wisest to just buy a new machine and run the application directly on one with sufficient disks installed internally...

These external storage solutions are really kind of silly if the empty enclosure starts costing as much as a "barebones" PC with a 2+ GHz Athlon64 and 1 GB of RAM... find the current market price for the size of disks, subtract it from the bundled price, and that is your effective enclosure price if it is not offered empty. Is it worth it for you?

[kayo]

I have a 180GB external using USB2.0 and a power adaptor stores my music, works fine. It can be a bit slow though when searching.

I am looking at the western digital "My Book" series with 1TB, anyone have any experience? uses firewire to connect.

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/...asp?DriveID=270

Well, I went shopping yesterday, and I bought a WD 120GB "WD Passport"

It is a portable hard drive, only slightly larger than an iPod/Mp3 player

runs off USB alone.

111GB actual capacity (anyone know how I can retrieve some of those those 9GB's "missing"??)

It LOOKS awesome.

It is SO easily portable.

and so far, so pleased with it.

Just spent the night transferring all y data from my older 150 GB Powered external hardrive (which I will keep stored away as a back up) to this. In a few days I go travelling to India, and I've just lightened my load considerably.

Key Features

Easy - Installation is a snap because you don't really "install" this drive; you just plug it in and it's ready to use. There is no CD to install; the included software loads from the drive the first time you plug it in.

Smart - Powered by the USB bus, so no separate power supply needed.*

Ultra-portable - This ultra-portable drive fits easily in your pocket or purse, weighs only a few ounces and holds tons of valuable data.

Synchronized and Secure - WD Sync™ synchronization and encryption software lets you save your critical data, and take it with you. Plug your drive into any PC, edit files, read e-mail, and view photos. Then sync all of your changes back to your home or office computer. (Windows only)

Fast - 5400 RPM hard drive – almost 24% faster than 4200 RPM drives.

Stylish - Elegant glossy black case with soft-touch base

Compatible - Use with Windows® and Macintosh® computers

* An optional cable is available for the few computers that limit bus power.

Ideal For

* Carrying important files and e-mail between work and home or on the road

* Sharing large files between office and home, between Mac and PC

* Backing up your existing notebook hard drive for extra data safety

System Requirements

* Windows

Available USB port

Windows® 2000/XP

* Macintosh

Available USB port

Mac® OS X 10.1.5+

* Software

Windows 2000/XP

Compatibility may vary depending on user’s hardware configuration and operating system.

Package Contents

* WD Passport portable hard drive

* USB 2.0 cable

* Quick Install Guide

So forgive me, but Kayo's latest toys

MP3 player

Portable hard drive