External Hardrive Help

[Leppy]

Guys just looking for a bit of help with buying an external hard drive to back shit up on.

I was just after personal experiances on what brands were good or whether they are worth the effort at all.

Thanks.

[andyhui01]

I just bought an External 120Gb Harddrive yesterday... I built it myself by buying the HD and the case seperately... the 120gb 2mb buffer HD cost about 91AUD and the case was about 16AUD .... btw, I'm talking about the big 3.5" HD and not the laptop ones... if you're intending to carry it around alot, I suggest you get the laptop ones as you don't have to plug in power for those.... for the big ones I have, its more for backup and extra storage

[Leppy]

ahhh right o

Yeah I wasn't looking to carry it around. Just more like storage of FG/TG and music n what not.

Whats the difference between SATA and IDE hard drives?

oh and building it yourself mean you bought like a caddy and a hard drive and all that seperatly then put it together?? is it at all hard?

[Kip_6666]

What kinda computer do u have? If your computer only supports usb at version 1 speeds it isn't really going to be worth everything?

[viilaaja@pt cruiser]

Originally Posted by Leppy

ahhh right o

Yeah I wasn't looking to carry it around. Just more like storage of FG/TG and music n what not.

Whats the difference between SATA and IDE hard drives?

oh and building it yourself mean you bought like a caddy and a hard drive and all that seperatly then put it together?? is it at all hard?

putting them together isn't any hard, and in the caddy may have istructions.

[Overheat]

LaCie make the best external hard drives. Go check them out.

[andyhui01]

na... putting the HD in the cadie is pretty much common sense... you find the matching plugs, put them together, screw the HD into the case and close it... then format the HD and you you're done

[TechZ]

You need to also make sure youre getting an IDE caddy for an IDE HD and a SATA caddy for a SATA hard disk

For fixed data backup I got a HD (3.5") and put it in a caddy, for data to be carried around, I got a 2.5" HD in a caddy.

Check your sysytem for USB2.0 and putting a hard disk in a caddy is extremely easy.

SATA is a newer format for HD's, IDE is older.

http://www.directron.com/patasata.html

http://geeks.com/pix/techtips-010605.htm

[swek]

Out of curiosity. I know SATA is supposed to be a little faster than IDE but doesn't the effect get lost if you connect the HDD via USB 2.0 to your PC. Wouldn't it therefore be pretty silly to get a SATA HDD and a case ?

[pdanev]

i have this case with a 120gb maxtor in it. works perfectly fine, usb2, fast enough, has a cooler in it, never had any problems. it was a much cheaper alternative then an external drive, so i went for it. i actually also use it just for storage, since the harddisk i have in my laptop wasnt big enough. but it can be carried easily as well, so thats no problem. have it for more then a year now...

[bahnstormer]

i went with a 5.25" firewire enclosure for like 25 bucks

in there i can stick either my dvd writer, or a harddrive

its really easy

don't but the prepackaged ones from lacie or other companys
u'll overpay, and not have as many options....

[Leppy]

Originally Posted by Kip_6666

What kinda computer do u have? If your computer only supports usb at version 1 speeds it isn't really going to be worth everything?

Why?

[swek]

USB 1 has a transfer rate of 12 Mbit (1.5 MBytes) per second, while USB 2.0 can handle 480 Mbit (60 MBytes) per second. It would take you ages to transfer files via USB 1 protocol. Don't worry though since you can buy USB 2.0 PCI add-on cards for ~15 $

[TechZ]

have to be careful with those usb2 addon cards, its hella tricky with old motherboards

USB2 would be better for a SATA hd in an enclosure rather than an IDE Hd in one, as it would be faster IMO