Hans Fugal wrote:
It's time to play the hardware advice game again.
I'm out of disk space. On my laptop, on my workstation, everywhere I
turn. I'm too poor/cheap to go get a huge drive for the workstation. I'm
definitely too poor/cheap to replace the drive in my laptop. So I'm
thinking an external drive might be the way to go.
Here's my criteria, in order of importance:
- Price. Did I mention I'm cheap?
- Decent speed, not necessarily bleeding edge high performance, but I
will be compiling copious amounts of code on it daily.
- Decent size. 10G would be plenty, 40G+ would be niiice
- USB 2.0, because my workstation doesn't have firewire
Powered through the usb port would be nice, if it's reliable.
I thought this would be an easy thing to decide, but there seem to be a
lot more factors at play, upon closer inspection. Disk speed, transfer
rates, power issues, etc. So do any of you have
recommendations/warnings?
_______________________________________________________________________
/*
PLUG: [1]http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net
Unsubscribe: [2]http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug
Don't fear the penguin.
*/
Hans:
Don't buy an external hard drive. Make your own. It's much cheaper.
Really the only "extras" that come with a prepackaged Maxtor or other
brand external hard drive are a bunch of "backup help" software that
is usually only Windows compatible, and maybe some pretty lights. I
assume you are just interested in using this drive with Linux, so I
wouldn't worry about Windows backup software packages. Find a well
priced enclosure, then find a used or new (there are great deals out
there) IDE Hard Drive and make your own. It's usually a very easy IDE
interface inside, so it's quite easy to do. You just have to format
the drive (I recommend FAT32 if you want the best possible
compatibility) and plug it in to the enclosure. The trick with going
cheap is buying a 3.5 inch (regular desktop) as opposed to a 2.5 inch
(laptop) hard drive. But if you're willing to spend a bit more, the
smaller laptop drives are more portable and durable. Luckily for me,
I inherited a dead laptop, found a special on a 2.5 inch HDD
enclosure, and had myself an 8 GB external, USB 2.0, portable hard
drive for around $15. You might want to shop around for specials to
find the best prices. If you are lucky, you will only have to spend
much on the enclosure and you can find a dead computer to gut (like
me) or a used hard drive to do it with. Unless the drive is small,
(laptop 2.5 inch), I recommend external power supply, it will mean
less worries about USB power support.
A quick search on
[3]http://www.pricewatch.com/
came up with:
1. [4]http://www.pcdirect.com//product.asp?promo=pricewatch&PID=1&Sku
=HDEUSB2-3.5
USB 2.0 Hard Drive Enclosure for $16.99 with free shipping with
promotional code "pricewatch"
It even comes with a 1 year warranty.
2. [5]http://www.pricewatch.com/hard_drives/2119-1.htm
Gives a great listing of inexpensive Hard Drives in the 40 GB
range.
Good luck shopping.
-Ed Felt
References
1. http://plug.org/
2. http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug
3. http://www.pricewatch.com/
4.
http://www.pcdirect.com//product.asp?promo=pricewatch&PID=1&Sku=HDEUSB2-3.5
5. http://www.pricewatch.com/hard_drives/2119-1.htm
/*
PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net
Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug
Don't fear the penguin.
*/
