External Hard Drive

Mansize_tissue

Mansize_tissue

Mansize_tissue

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I'm in the market for an external hard drive. It'll be used to store/back-up all my files/photographs/music and what have you, and also for transferring data from my laptop to desktop and vice-versa.

It doesn't really need much storage capacity, 250GB should be fine.

I'm not really sure how these work, though. Do some need to be powered from an external power supply or connected to the mains, because I'd prefer one which is just USB-powered. Also, I don't want to have to install any software for it to work.

I'd like to spend as little as possible really, do you have any suggestions?

Thank you in advance.
 
Are you physically moving the HD around, or just need to share data across your LAN? If so (latter) choose a NAS instead. More reliable copying than USB. As for USB power, only 2.5" allow that.
 
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badbob said:
As for USB power, only 2.5" allow that.
Click to expand...
Some laptops dont supply enough power to the USB ports to support external HDD's. Remember that 2.5 inch external drives are more expensive and slower than 3.5 inch external drives. Ive just bought a 500GB WD drive that is slightly smaller than 2 DVD cases on top of each other and uses an external (very small) power supply.
 
badbob, I don't have a network set up so a NAS hard drive won't really ben any more beneficial than a normal external hard drive, I don't think. Thank you for the suggestion anyway.

So all these 3.5" external hard drives, such as this one, come with a transformer/external PSU to power them, right? Are these drives also hot-pluggable, as I don't want to have to turn off my laptop just to connect/disconnect it?

I suppose I can make do with the 2 cables instead of one. What external desktop hard drive would you recommend? Also, if I were to get a portable one, what would you suggest in the 120-160GB range and would it be able to be powered from my laptop?

Thank you for your help so far guys.
 
Some laptops dont supply enough power to the USB ports to support external HDD's
Click to expand...

Most 2.5 enclosures have two USB connectors though, in cases one USB connector isn't sufficient. A couple of times when using just one the HD disappeared in Windows, with two worked ok.

To switch HD from one computer to the other, just disconnect it with the green logo in the taskbar. However if you want to access the HD at the same time from both computers, you can't do this with a USB HD. If you have a LAN you can share that directory from the host PC, but that means the host PC has to be on.

You need a power adaptor for 3.5" enclosures.
 
helmutcheese, do the WD My Books have a large external power supply (like those used for laptops) or is it all internal with just a cable going from the unit to the mains?
 
Mansize_tissue said:
helmutcheese, do the WD My Books have a large external power supply (like those used for laptops) or is it all internal with just a cable going from the unit to the mains?
Click to expand...

Given their size, I would assume there is an external adaptor about half the size of a laptop adaptor.
 
They use a small external PSU with a figure 8 cable plugged into 1 end and hardwired out the other end.


WDPS032.jpg



I also see this on WD site so may have changed:


WDPS034RNN.jpg
 
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I've just got a 320GB WD Passport for £100 (and a hard case for £7)
1 USB plug only and it's as fast as my Maxtor and Lacie 3.5" external drives @ ~25MB/s
 
I bought a 320GB WD 2.5" drive, put it in a Icy Box IB-266STUS-B. This gives me around 58MB/s average over the e-sata connection, and it uses 1 USB cable for power (with the option for 2 if your USB ports dont supply enough).
 
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