i need an external hard drive

GreenGrass · 18 Jan 2006 at 16:26

basically, i need a hard disk to move my work back and forth to uni, im getting fed up of using email and cds and some extra storage would be nice.

so..Ive had a look at the external hard drives, and also thought about getting a normal hdd + an external enclosure.. the only thing is i take it they need an extra power cable?
any ideas which would be better? dont really want to spend over £90/100

Tour

hardc0re_tid · 19 Jan 2006 at 19:31

not all of them need an extra power cable to my knowledge, some of them use 2 usb cables to power them and send/receive data.

i bought a black icy box and a maxtor 250gb ide. cost about 110 i think. it needs its own power supply though.

EDIT: just had a thought, why not get a 1GB pen drive? surely that would be enough for emails and word docs etc, aslong as u dont start packing it out with mp3s etc you should be fine.

EDIT again: just looked and you can get a self powered USB2 5gb segate pocket hdd off here for £61.39 inc vat, im sure that is all you will need for what its going to be used for and more.

hardc0re

ajm · 20 Jan 2006 at 09:56

There are other options too...

Western Digital WDXML400UETE Passport 2.5" 40GB Portable Drive (HD-056-WD) Price: £51.95 £61.04 Including VAT

GreenGrass · 20 Jan 2006 at 13:45

yeh just had a look at them, was thinking if im gonna spend some money a bit of space would be good for future stuff, found that this week they have:

LaCie External, Design by F.A Porsche 250GB USB 2.0 Hard Drive £88.07

or i can just get

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 200GB 6L200P0 ATA-133 8MB Cache
in a
Icy Box External Enclosure IB-351U-B-BL USB2.0 for £83.75

there any performance advantages from using a standard hd? as there both going through a USB 2 cable...

Tour

jimblowscash · 20 Apr 2006 at 13:08

theres n real performance issues with either of them, however for a few extra quid youll have an ext hdd that some one else made, will work first time, an extra 50 GB and will all be coverd under warrenty if for instance the bridge goes or the power supply dies.

if you dont want the hassle of carrying arround a power supply you might look at the mobile range of hard drives, powerd through the usb bus, only downside is the spindle speed of the drive 5400 rpm, still for general back up and movie playback more than enough