BleepingComputer.com: External HD

I am looking for recommendations for the "best" brand of external hard drive. Seagate, Western Digital, and Buffalo Technology are some I've looked at. I would like between 250 and 500 GB, and the drive to be USB powered. What say you?

You want the drive to have its own power pack, not be dependent only on USB.

USB is a connection technology, like IDE or Firewire...not a powering system (although we may refer to it as such).

That's why so many USB devices (scanners, printers, etc.) have power plants attached.

If it were me, I'd just buy a USB 2.0 hard drive enclosure and put a hard drive inside it...rather than buy an external drive.

As for "best", I don't think there is such...since no one can guarantee the life of either the enclosure or the hard drive. I'd approach it the same way I approach buying hard drives...depends on what the prices are that day .

Louis

Why does the HD need its own power supply? (Why two plug-ins? One for the USB connection and one for the power.)

So, go with the best price?

Actually, it's the enclosure (that the hard drive is in) which needs an external power supply/pack.

Think of it this way...if that drive were directly connected to the motherboard, does it need a power connection? Of course it does, courtesy of the power supply unit which is installed in the system.

You take that same drive, really do nothing to it other than put it in a USB 2.0 enclosure (because you want to connect it by USB or you don't have any motherboard connections to accomodate it, etc....you still need a power connector. A USB 2.0 case with external power connection provides that, just differently than the power supply which is inside the computer case.

If an enclosure doesn't have an external power connection...what's going to feed that hard drive in the enclosure?

The system cannot do it through the USB connection.

I can only tell you that I go with the best price for hard drives when I buy them. I currently have Samsung, Western Digital, Maxtor, Hitachi drives installed...they all do the job without problems.

I have a personal bias for Seagate drives, but I think that's predicated on nothing more than sentiment/ideas that should have disappeared the day I went to using XP.

Some persons think that there are "better/best" drives, you should probably wait for some inputs from them.

Louis

I've gots me one of them new-fangled laptops. Lets me hop on that information superhighway to see what's all the fuss with them interweb tubes. Thinkin' 'bout one of those smaller hard drives, the kind that is self-contained that come built in its own enclosure; and I was planning on using one of the laptop's usb ports to power the new HD. Are you sayin' that's not what I should do?

Because this is laptop there is a definite advantage in have an external enclosure with its own power supply, it will not be drawing from the battery on the laptop. If the external drive was drawing from the laptop battery is would decrease the amount of time the charge would last on the laptop.

It is true that all manufacturers will have the occasional failure, but I still like Seagate, they have the best warranty as well as a very good product.

You can check out what Newegg has to offer here.

hi,,, i also find that external hdd's with there own on off switch (rocker switch) are a lot better than having it turn on every time you switch your pc on, and then its sitting there getting hot unless you get under the desk and turn the power pack off.