USB Hard Drive Recommendations?

Argon asks: "I need a external drive to transfer bulk data between home and office. I already use a CD-RW for backup, so this drive is going to be used -only- for shuttling data. After investigating various solutions (Zip, Orb, CD-RW etc), I finally decided that a USB hard drive seems to be the best solution all around. I found two good solutions (and believe me this information is hard to find), one by Fantom Drives, and the other by Lacie. However, there is very little information on the web about these drives - reliability, using on Linux etc. For example I can't even figure out if the Fantom drives come with an internal power supply. The Lacie drives seem very nice, they come with a built in power supply and look rugged. (Can't USB devices take power from the system instead of a separate power supply?). Does any slashdotter have experience with these drives - comparisons, recommendations?"

Comments

I have a USB Hard drive.

[Kris_J]

I bought a USB-2-IDE adapter box from (I think) Nasa Technology, put a removable IDE drive tray in it and mounted a 20Gig drive in the tray. Works well, but needs drivers, Windows 98 and above only. Performance isn't too great -- it's slow and it slows down the system when you're accessing it. However, you can hot-swap, just switch the box off and swap the drive no need to reboot.

I recommend finding a way to get a Firewire drive running with your system. If I could find a Firewire 10/100 ethernet adapter I'd switch to Firewire, but I only have one PCMCIA slot in my Ultralight.

Buy SCSI, 10x speed, 10x+ storage, save money ...

[BitMan]

Okay dude, I know this sounds weird but SCSI would not only be faster, but probably cheaper. Most SCSI drives (of even two generations back) can do easily 10MBps+ (80Mbps+), whereas even USB's fastest speed, we're talking only 1.5MBps (12Mbps). And don't even think of those IDE to parallel kits, 2MBps (16Mbps) max (most don't get get 1MBps/8Mbps). Plus SCSI support under Linux is easy (and even loadable on the fly!).

Cards, case and cabling should run you under $100 for two systems. The a good sized, but older model, SCSI drive should only be another $30-100 for a decent size (2-23GB) and speed (5400-7200rpm, 512-2048KB buffer). The breakdown:

• Cards ($20/each) -- (2) SCSI cards at about $20 a piece thanx to the TekRam-315U (UltraSCSI, no-BIOS). You can find them at your favorite PriceWatch advertising reseller. You'll need more if you have more than a few systems to swap between. Of course this becomes cost prohibitive if its more than 5 systems, so consider that. But for just 2-4 systems, it's great (and, again, fast)!
• Case ($20) -- You can usually find them at various on-line resellers for $20 or so. Here's a great 2-bay w/40W PS for $19, and that's new. If you want smaller, there are various resellers with single bay SCSI enclosures too. Cyberguys has a 3.5" for $50, although you might find cheaper if you look a bit. The case should come with internal cabling (I've never seen one without).
• External Cabling ($10) -- Cabling is also an addition, but fairly cheap anymore. Assuming you set the drive jumper for termination, you only need the cable. You can get the SCSI-2 HD50M to Centronics 50M for $9 for cases with Centronics connectors, or SCSI-2 HD50M to HD50M for $10 for cases with SCSI-2 HD connectors -- both at Cyberguys. If you really want to not terminate the drive itself, but on the case, HD50M active terminators are $11 and Centronics passive terminators are $5
• Hard Disk ($30+) -- Depending on what model you get, older SCSI hard drives can be had for $30-100. If you want massive or fast, $200-300 will get you give a bit of each. Some resellers that carry new, unused, used and refurbished hard drives:
  • Computer Geeks Outlet -- good personal experiences
  • Hi-Tech Cafe -- don't deal with their web site (sux, lose orders), call them instead
  • Com puter Surplus Outlet -- good dealings with them several times

Drives that are 50-pin narrow (Fast, Ultra, Ultra2, etc...) and will work in the case without modification. Some with be 68-pin wide or 80-pin SCA (FastWide, UltraWide, Ultra2Wide/Ultra80, Ultra160). In the case of the two later, Cyberguys sells converters to 50-pin narrow for nearly all of these connectors. The only caveat you'll have is termination, either terminate on the drive itself (i.e. don't use an external terminator) or tell the drive to use 8-bit SCSI (instead of 16-bit in 68/80-pin) as any external terminator for 50-pin will only terminate the lower 8-bits (some drives will autosense the connection as narrow and will autoterminate anyway -- see the drive docs).

Again, the only reason not to go with this config is if you are going to be sharing with more than just a few systems. You're going to be lugging around a drive anyway, why not forget worrying about carrying the media as well and have 50x the storage (compared to Zip -- much more manageable).

If you absolutely need removable and have the money to burn look at SCSI Jaz instead (2GB capacity, ~5MBps/40Mbps performance). But don't go optical, e.g. 5.2/9.4GB DVD-RAM, it's slow (9x CD, 1x DVD = 1.35MBps/10.5Mbps).

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

USB power

[cperciva]

While power can be supplied via the USB cable, it is limited to 100mA (low-power devices) or 500mA (high-power devices). Thus, the maximum power delivered is 2.5W -- far less than the 10-25 W which a typical hard drive uses.

How I'd transfer lots of data

[Mignon]

I have an old (486DX2-66) laptop with a relatively new, several gig hard drive. I've got an ethernet card for it and a hub at home, so it would be ideal for transferring lots of data. No termination or power-down issues. If you poke around ebay, I'll bet you could find a similar laptop for around $200. The drive would cost you more than that. You can probably get a PCMCIA ethernet adapter for around $40 or so. Another advantage is that you then have a laptop. One disadvantage compared to just a drive would be the size.