Help choosing a USB powered external hard drive

rackle

be aware there usb drives are dead slow

Sublime_2

Mine isn't at all. I've had mine for over a year, and no probs with click of death either. Has always worked perfectly.

DaveG247

Sublime wrote: »

Mine isn't at all. I've had mine for over a year, and no probs with click of death either. Has always worked perfectly.

Have to agree the WD drive I've had for a couple of years is fine just not enough room

lionelator

http://www.box.co.uk/Samsung_2TB_Story_Station_USB_External_H_895499.html

Samsung Story Station 2 Terabytes for less than 80 pounds.
Bought one a year and a bit ago and its still going strong, just bought my second to back everything up, highly recommended.
Also, when hooking up to TV, comp, whatever, turns itself off when you put the TV into standby, which is handy.

DaveG247

lionelator wrote: »

http://www.box.co.uk/Samsung_2TB_Story_Station_USB_External_H_895499.html

Samsung Story Station 2 Terabytes for less than 80 pounds.
Bought one a year and a bit ago and its still going strong, just bought my second to back everything up, highly recommended.
Also, when hooking up to TV, comp, whatever, turns itself off when you put the TV into standby, which is handy.

Cheers for this, looks good but looking for a USB powered drive and that ones mains powered I think

lionelator

Yup its mains powered. Ah well.
Pure USB powered is gonna be about double that as its the 2.5 inch disks.
Youve gotta do what youve gotta do, but Ive got 5 small USB powered disks unused downstairs, and the 1 large mains powered disk thats now taken their place and has more storage than the rest of them combined.

John_Gray

I would point out that internet research "seems to show" that USB-powered hard drives are less reliable than those which are mains-powered, not because of the hard drive itself, but because of the USB circuitry in the unit. It may be the large power draw required while spinning up the hard drive on connection, which an adapter copes with better.

the182guy

Get a mains powered if you can, I got the Hitachi 1TB (1024GB) from Tesco Direct, it's £48.97 and 96 clubcard points.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.207-5413.aspx

petecarter

I would suggest a WD 500gb drive like the one you are replacing, the new model uses USB 3.0 so will be faster once you upgrade to a computer with USB 3.0 ports.

A.Penny.Saved

rackle wrote: »

be aware there usb drives are dead slow

Yes, I wouldn't bother using USB for hard drives until you can get USB 3.0 as USB limits the speed to about 35MB/s tops which is below what most hard drives are capable of when copying large files. Read wise anyway.

petecarter wrote: »

I would suggest a WD 500gb drive like the one you are replacing, the new model uses USB 3.0 so will be faster once you upgrade to a computer with USB 3.0 ports.

USB 3.0 is the way to go and can be added with a small and cheap card on desktops even though most of them are only PCI-e x1 which is not really enough for USB 3.0 bandwidth.

For laptops, it might be more difficult unless any expansion is possible. There might be some laptop expansion cards available but I am not certain of that as laptops are not really my thing (they are lesser computers IMO lol)

I think you should seriously consider the eSATA connector as that will provide the best speed you can get without expanding with USB 3.0. Those are more than fast enough.