External Hard-Drive Don't Buy Advice

Mr_Vincent

I think this thread should be in the let your rage out board, you know the one that lets you let off steam - vent rage against a company.

Normally whenever you buy hardware, you expect software to accompany it to help you make your new purchase easy for you.

In order to save myself a tenner I opted for a Toshiba external 160BG harddrive when for £79.99 I could've gotten myself a Philips harddrive with one-touch backing up of your main pc's hard-drive which was on special offer from pc world at the time.

Luckily for me, one of my pc mags told me that Norton's Ghost 9.0 could do all this for me (I've yet to install it).
I do have a copy of it.

Another down side to Toshiba is its humming noise.
It's a kind of sonic buzzing noise I can hear that probably would give me a headache if I left it on too long.

My laptop is a travelmate acer.
It gives a lot less noise than my Toshiba hard-drive.
& you need a separate plug for it get electricity from - disappointing.
I am new to external hard-drives and don't know anybody with my level or higher of pc expertise.

If you can help it, don't buy Toshiba's external hard-drive no matter how cheap it looks.

Little_John

There are 2 diferent people that buy hardware
Ones that know what they are doing and buy the device to do what they want and need they tend to already have software ect already to do it.
and
Those that buy the device and expect it to be out of the box install the software and away it goes.

90% of the time the stuff you get with the device is very basic and just about does what it should "special editions" of software are what you normally get and they are limited in what they do. The ones who know what they are doing know what they want to do find out how to do it get the hardware and the software they need to do it. buy full versions of the software that can be confugured to do exacty what they want.

I would rather get the hardware cheaper without poor software and put the money to the proper software. a slighty exagerated example and it is somthing that crops up alot people buying a new Pc and moan they dont get MS office with it, would you be happy to buy a pc and MS office when ms office can cost well over £300 so pc price on its own would be £500 but becasue they throw office in it will be £800 but I already have office so Im spending £300 more than I need. same with printers and printer cables not everyone will be able to use a standard 1.8metre cable some require longer ones and the 1.8 end up in the bin/drawer.

The reason your external drive requires a mains connection is that they require12volt and 5 volt lines to work a USB connector only outputs 5volts

Terry_D

If it's that noisy why don't you send it back for a refund.

There is plenty of free software on the web that will format your new drive and copy your old one across to it. I did this myself some months back - I think it was called HD Clone - it created a bootable floppy. Worked great. :rotfl:

wolfman

Things to note with external drives:

- Yes they can be noisy. This will often depend upon the housing, the make of drive and speed of drive.
- You will require a seperate powerline. Usb, to be accurate running self powered can only support 500mA which is little more than a keyboard.

Always google for reviews of a device before buying it. There are quite a few external hard drive review out there (the Tosh may not be covered though). Maybe see what the Lacie products are like.

Another alternative, would be to buy an internal hard drive (buy a nice slower/quiet one) and buy some external housing for it.

Viz_2

I have just recieved a 250gb Seagate external drive. Hope its ok.
Will I need any software to install it ?

Its still in the packet.

PierceUK

Id you need any software it will be supplied, althought if your running XP it will probably auto find and install (usually)

also for noise and power cables you can now get little laptop harddrives which are powered off USB 2.0 but only come in 40GB and 80GB at the moment. worth keeping an eye on

Zahc

I bought an internal hard drive and got an external hard drive enclosure. It came with installation instructions and software. It hasn't given me a moments bother and was considerably cheaper than 'ready made' ones.

amcluesent

I've got a 250Gb Toshiba brand USB drive and it's fine, but then again the actual disk is a Western Digital model. I very much doubt if Philips make their own hard disks either, so you'll always be buying a rebadged Maxtor, Seagate, Hitachi etc.

The Norton Ghost s/w will be lame, all Norton software is.

*!*HIBS*!*

Viz wrote:

I have just recieved a 250gb Seagate external drive. Hope its ok.
...Its still in the packet.

I would recommend you try out your hard drive now, because if it's faulty, you can take it back for a refund/replacement, which may not be possible when you do decide to use it fully.

Mr_Vincent

I will give it a go at trying to get a refund or replacement on the basis of this thing being noisy but will not be holding out much hope.

As Wolfman says,
these things can be noisy.

I have not attempted formatting the thing.
Littlejohn points out I have gotten a basic package.
Yup didn't know what I was buying alright.

Thanks to all for acknowledging so far by way of response.

IvanOpinion

I actually have 4 Toshiba external hard disks and non of them are noisy ... two are Toshiba branded 160Gb hard disks from PC World (I am guessing the same model as yours), one is a 320Gb Toshiba hard disk (also from PC World) and one is a Freecom that contains an 80Gb toshiba hard drive ... all run virtually inaudible. There may be a fault with yours.

I could be wrong here (would need to check at home) but I thought I did get some backup software with my Toshiba 160s (they definitely have a button that can be pushed to backup).

If you don;t want the burden of another power supply that has to be plugged in then you need to look at one of the 2.5" USB2 powered drives. The problem with these though is that they can zap the battery life from your laptop (also you may have to use two USB ports on some laptops .. one for data one for power).

Ivan