External Hard Drive

saversaurus

ebay.co.uk item number 230441464808

hope thats of some use to some one here

busenbust

^And welcome to MSE save :hello:

supermonkey

John_Gray wrote: »

Has anyone come across a device/cable in the UK that can be used to actually measure the current drawn from a USB port? All I can find is something from Hong Kong...

I've seen such a device, but unfortunately, no idea where to acquire it!

saversaurus wrote: »

ebay.co.uk item number 230441464808

hope thats of some use to some one here

Looks to be a bargain!

custardy

phoodless wrote: »

I've been looking into getting a 1Tb external drive ( with power supply ) for a few months now. They seem to be around the £60+ mark.

However, my main concerns are the lack of on/off switches ( is this really a problem though ? ) and the alarmingly high number of reported failures after a few months - most seem to be related to the drives getting very hot ( and the infamous Seagate "Click" of death ) ?

Why is this ? I have never had an internal hard drive fail on me - I know the PC unit has fans - but surely they don't generate that much heat ??
:think:

i have 5 1TB drives here of various makes
drives are on 24/7 and are used for downloading and streaming HD video,so they work hard
all working fine with no on/off switches
theres no real need for one for my uses
external drives do get more bumps and bangs in general as opposed to a desktop unit

kwikbreaks

John_Gray wrote: »

Has anyone come across a device/cable in the UK that can be used to actually measure the current drawn from a USB port? All I can find is something from Hong Kong...

I've seen this info given by a piece of software but don't recall which (may have been a manufacturers alternatate power settings on a lappy. Worth a google methiknks - I'll see what I can find

===

http://www.devicedriverfinder.com/blog/device-drivers/how-to-check-usb-power-usage

Works on this XP netbook - probably similar in Vista and 7 so no hardware needed

John_Gray

You're probably thinking of
Device Manager -> USB Serial Bus Controllers -> choose one of the USB Root Hubs -> right click and choose Properties -> Power tab
and you get their guess at the power requirements of whatever is attached at the moment: USB keyboards and mice (100 mA each), USB Flash Drives (100 mA or 200 mA), webcam (500 mA in my case) and so on. These are simply estimates - not the actual current drawn when idle or working.

PZH

custardy wrote: »

i have 5 1TB drives here of various makes
drives are on 24/7 and are used for downloading and streaming HD video,so they work hard
all working fine with no on/off switches
theres no real need for one for my uses
external drives do get more bumps and bangs in general as opposed to a desktop unit

Any recommendations ?
Which one performs the best ?
Which is the coolest ? ( temperature wise - not looks :rotfl: )
Which is the quietest ? ( Is this really an issue ?? )

:T

busenbust

^Take a look also at this thread

PZH

busenbust wrote: »

^Take a look also at this thread

Yes - I did look at this thread, but the drives seemed to be geared up to sustain "accidental" knocks and bangs rather than normal everyday use.

I was just curious to see what normal drives were like :T

busenbust

phoodless wrote: »

Yes - I did look at this thread, but the drives seemed to be geared up to sustain "accidental" knocks and bangs rather than normal everyday use.

I was just curious to see what normal drives were like :T

I have the Iomega Professional: on/off switch, reasonably quiet, reasonably cool, certainly nothing to be concerned about IMO. I dislike the WD MyBooks but always a matter of opinion on this forum .