looking for an external hard drive - usb powered

[okron1k]

i'm currently in the market for an external hard drive. i like the idea of having it be usb powered so i have less wires running around in my truck.. but significant performance boosts can easily change my mind. capacity wise the bigger the better. but basically my main use of it is to store all my media so i can bring it around with me to any of my other computers or a friends house.

basically i have a vast library of mp3's as well as videos. but videos i am hoping to do a lot more. basically any band i like.. i will have their full discography. and for videos i want full seasons and full series (up to date) for tv shows as well as a lot of movies as well. so i always have them at my fingertips. which, being a truck driver and not always having access to internet and also sometimes getting stuck waiting in places comes in handy for entertaining myself and my girlfriend.

i also format my computers often and being able to have an updated folder full of all the apps i use is also good.

currently on my mac mini i have an 80gb hard drive that manages to do the job but i am always deleting and what not and also doesn't have the vast amounts of video. on my home pc i have a 750gb and a 400gb in my computer.

anyways.. like i said, i would love a usb powered drive.. but the only one i could think of was the WD passport and i couldn't really find any reviews from sites like anandtech. a google search for "wd passport 250gb review" turns up customer reviews.. which is not what i'm looking for. i am looking for transfer performance and connectivity options. usb 2.0, esata, and firewire 800 all in one would be excellent.. but something like that i don't believe i can get in a bus powered unit. which i guess would be ok.

another route i could go is buying an external enclosure and putting a 1tb drive in it. maybe something like the antec mx-1Antec.com - Veris. although this route will require it's own power supply.. that wont really bother me as i only prefer to have something usb powered, just for more portability.

or maybe i could get a smaller usb powered unit and an enclosure with 1tb.

i do know i want something quiet tho. i bought a 1tb mybook in the summer and ended up returning it shortly after because it was just too loud and the power on and off button took forever especially when turning it off.. as well as not being able to get it to work on my windows computer due to it being the wrong filesystem. yes i could have formatted and what not i suppose but that was just a small factor in my decision to return it.

any suggestions?

-kr0n

p.s. i realize most of my posts regarding needing opinions on purchasing things are fairly long but i try to get as much info and background and what i will be using it for into the post to really help narrow things down. for me money is no object. i just like to do things right the first time. for example i wont by a 27" cheap tv just for now until i can afford a big high def screen. ill go for the big and be done with it. it's just more money concious in the end of it because im not wasting money on things just to get by. i dunno that's the way i see it anyways..

[Parker]

Originally Posted by okron1k

another route i could go is buying an external enclosure and putting a 1tb drive in it. maybe something like the antec mx-1Antec.com - Veris. although this route will require it's own power supply.. that wont really bother me as i only prefer to have something usb powered, just for more portability.

My dad has this enclosure with his 750GB back up drive in it.
He loves it, it's very easy to use and it has that little fan in there to cool it down with is very effective yet quiet.

I'm thinking about picking one up myself.... one of these days.

[screwballl]

One thing you may want to look into is one that has both a USB and eSATA plug so when you are transferring movies and such, you can use the eSATA as much as possible at home.
You will see that you will be waiting hours for a single larger movie to transfer from or to the drive using USB.

[okron1k]

yeah i've done the usb backup of an entire drive before... it wasn't pretty. and that is something i am trying to avoid. i figure large back ups from my pc or somewhere else i could use the esata.. while just watching movies over usb in my truck or transferring files as i download them.

[polobunny]

If you want something USB powered you will have to stick with 2.5inch laptop drives. Not only do they cost more, but they're somewhat less durable and they come in much smaller size than 3.5inch hard drives. They're also more expensive. They're also slower than 3.inch hard drives. :P
That's the price you have to pay for portability.

Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio WD3200BEVT 320GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - OEM
320GB 2.5inch HDD, biggest size available, $179.99.
or
Newegg.com - TOSHIBA MK2546GSX 250GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - OEM
250GB 2.5inch HDD, $129.99.

+ one of thse
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

[drew and not u]

I bought a WD Passport 120GB right after christmas. I love it. It's quick, convenient, light, and performs well. The only issues I've had are certain USB cables (especially USB extension cables) don't seem to provide enough power to the drive and it isn't properly recognized by windows. However, I've never had a problem using the cord that came with the drive. All in all I'd happily recommend this drive. Supposedly the backup software that comes on the drive is pretty decent, but I had no use for it and deleted it.

Also note that it comes preformatted as FAT32, which is fine with me, but some people might reformat it NTFS.

[MantaBase]

I use a SimpleTech 160 GB PS all the time now. It's a USB drive. I reformatted it to FAT32 from NTFS so it Mac compatible. It's basically a WD scorpion drive (lap top drive) in a housing.

I use it as a tranfer drive between Mac and PC's a few times a week and have no complaints. Fits in my pocket - in fact, I think I did a review.....


yep - SimpleTech SimpleDrivePS 160 GB portable HDD

NOt sure its what you want.

PS: I reformatted on a Mac and it's fine with windows machines.

[screwballl]

right, that is the key right there, if you use anything other than windows like a Mac or Linux, it is suggested to use FAT, otherwise if you ONLY use windows then it is strongly suggested to use NTFS. Although Linux can also see NTFS partitions fine, it is typically easier to do whats needed in linux when using FAT without needing a few extra tools to deal with NTFS.

[MantaBase]

Originally Posted by screwballl

right, that is the key right there, if you use anything other than windows like a Mac or Linux, it is suggested to use FAT, otherwise if you ONLY use windows then it is strongly suggested to use NTFS. Although Linux can also see NTFS partitions fine, it is typically easier to do whats needed in linux when using FAT without needing a few extra tools to deal with NTFS.

Exactly

And a Mac will read NTFS, but they never bothered with the tools to write to it safely.

NTFS is better than FAT for a HD. But FAT is cross platform with OSX (unix) and Linux based systems.

[screwballl]

that is one thing that has really surprised me, that OSX has not stepped up and put in native support for reading and writing to NTFS formatted drives. Linux does have it but you do need some extra tools to make sure it is done properly.