Portable Hard Disk

[JellyWorld]

Intially I planned the get a thumbdrive for school, but when I went down to a store to check the prices I realised I could get a portable hard disk with 160 times the storage space at only three times the price. So I've changed my mind and now i'm thinking of getting a Portable hard disk instead. I know null about portable hard disks, so can someone recommend me one to buy?

The main features I'm looking for would be reliability, design (I don't like ugly gadgets) and of course, plug and play is a must.

 

[duffers20]

I assume you are american, so I went to newegg and found this cool little gadget. I think it looks cool and apparently its a good allround portable HD. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822154405
Its also made by a good make, seagate.

 

[JellyWorld]

Nope, I'm not American and I don't have a credit card so I prefer well-known brands that should be available in hardware stores.

Edit: 5Gb seems kinda small, they were retailing 40GB ones for the equivalent of US$100 at the store I went to check. Thanks neways.
Edit: Something like this maybe http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822154406

 

[duffers20]

Yeh that one seems pretty cool, I just thought that you wern't looking for anything that big, when you said you were in teh market for a pen drive, I assumed you were looking for somethign smaller. But it doesn't matter. I think the main thing to look for is the backwards compatibillity for usb1.1 for older pc's. Also I'm not sure how these things get there power, some might be able to pull the power from teh usb port, but you might have to take an adapter with you, somethign to check out.

 

[JellyWorld]

Yeh that one seems pretty cool, I just thought that you wern't looking for anything that big, when you said you were in teh market for a pen drive, I assumed you were looking for somethign smaller. But it doesn't matter. I think the main thing to look for is the backwards compatibillity for usb1.1 for older pc's. Also I'm not sure how these things get there power, some might be able to pull the power from teh usb port, but you might have to take an adapter with you, somethign to check out.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks. IIRC the ones i saw at the store drew their power from USB only.

 

[Lemonking]

western digital make the best

 

[sychopike]

Pics

kinda on this topic can anyone help me? i have a 20 gig laptop hdd and i want to hook it up to my desktop computer i got the adaptor thing to go from 2.5" to 3.5" ide, but it doesn't seem to work. pics below

 

[sinkoman]

kinda on this topic can anyone help me? i have a 20 gig laptop hdd and i want to hook it up to my desktop computer i got the adaptor thing to go from 2.5" to 3.5" ide, but it doesn't seem to work. pics below

I bet you fried the HDD.

And don't jack peoples threads, it's not cool.

But I would think that having one of those little laptop hdd's to carry around would be pretty cool. I'm not to sure if they make external enclosures for laptop hdd's though.

 

[WhiteZero]

For portable hard drives, I'd skip the "External" hard drives and go with an external enclosure + internal hard drive. This way you only pay the price of internal hard drives (~$100 less than an external) plus when you fill it up, you can swap it out with a clean drive. Or you can pop out your PC's internal hard drive and carry it to where ever with easy porability.

External Closure ftw...
Just make sure to get one with a fan if you plan to use the hard drive for extended peroids of time.

 

[duffers20]

On Topic: I have heard of only good things about Western Digital portable drives, if you can find one thats a good size and a reasonable price that is powered from teh usb port, then I would go with that. Lacie (Spelling??) also make portable drives, but I'm not entirely sure how good they are.

Off Topic: You will have blown your hd. I have seen so many people with those little drive converters blow the hd because something isn't write, or they connect the drive upside down in teh converter. My advice would be to use proper portable drives or pen drives.

 

[sinkoman]

Hey, I just found out that there are a large number of 2.5" external enclosures for very cheap (we're talking 10 USD).

I would say buy a laptop hdd, then buy a 2.5" external enclosure. That way you can slip it into your pocket when you're done with the hdd.

Only issue I could see is that none of the ones I saw had a fan on them (easily fixed by a willing case modder) and that the fastest 2.5" hdd's are only 5.4k, which shouldn't be a problem (i'm using a 5.4k hdd as a secondary and it isn't bottlenecking my raptor too bad. Bottlenecking since it's got the swapfile on it).

 

[sychopike]

dont know how this is jacking the thread... but thanks for the help. the hdd isn't fried, i ended up just buying one of those external enclousers. works well with firewire.

 

[sinkoman]

dont know how this is jacking the thread... but thanks for the help. the hdd isn't fried, i ended up just buying one of those external enclousers. works well with firewire.

You could have easilly turned the thread into "what on earth happened to my hdd?".

But i'm giong to try buy a 2.5" hdd and an external enclosure also. It looks like a very good idea for portable storage.

 

[FictiousWill]

Just don't drop it.

 

[sinkoman]

Just don't drop it.

Hmm, never thought of that.

Those transcend thumbdrives are starting to look juicier...