Looking at some portable storage

[Pernig]

Hi all,

I am looking for an external hard drive or similar solution and thought I would ask you lot for your experiences. My requirements are:

Minimum of 1TB
Reasonable price, but don't mind paying a bit more for extra features or a host card, too
As resilient as you would expect a hard drive to be

The last requirement is that I want a faster alternative to USB on there, but I do want USB as well, as I will be using it to plug into other people's computers sometimes.

What is the hot thing to have on these drives nowadays? My PC has sockets for eSata and Firewire, but no USB 3.0 although I could add a host card as i have some spare PCI Express slots. Like I said, I don't mind paying more if it's going to be faster and future proof.

Or should I just go for Gigabit Ethernet? That could maybe make it more versatile, watching videos streamed from it to my PC and phone perhaps. Although then it would probably be a pain in the arse unplugging it.

Thanks in advance.
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H100 Breaking for spares

[Luke_Retrofly]

why dont you just what everyone else does and go to www.ebuyer.com and click on the first thing you see.

Storage is dirt cheap these days, no need to fuck about just buy some dataz.
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Flounced - Long overdue
Fuck you bitch I'm in the top 10 list I can do the what the fuck I want!

[Pernig]

[Neorion]

Then you have 2 easy options

Firewire or your Esata

Both are quick Esata I think can be quicker.

Buy a caddy
Buy a drive

Simples
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VFR FI 2000- Shiney Red Thing
"some things man was never meant to know, for everything else there's Google"

[Pernig]

[Neorion]

to be honest if you are only going to use this drive for a backup then I would say USB 2.0 would do you fine, you should get between 10 and 20MBs on that 344gb wont take long anyway.

I would think you will pay a premium to buy the 3.0 card and drive as well.

Esata is pretty much as quick as an internal drive if you get a desk caddy some of those are hot swappable as well.

Your other option is to just pop a drive into your Pc and backup that way.

you didnt say what you will be doing with the drive so I assume its backup only.

is the size you quote above used space on the drive? Are you looking to backup your complete system? If so then you should be looking at a ghosting tool to backup.
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VFR FI 2000- Shiney Red Thing
"some things man was never meant to know, for everything else there's Google"

[Pernig]

It's going to be used for backup and general storage. I will only be using it to backup files to start with but I will want to backup entire partitions' images in the future. Right now the 344GB I specified is files only.

Like I said, portability is a must, or I would be buying a drive on its own.

After pricing some stuff up I think you are right, USB 3.0 is at a bit of a premium, although just being able to use 1 cable (as I will sometimes be lugging the drive about and connecting it to computers that almost certainly will only have USB 2.0) appeals to me.

I know you said 20MB/s will be enough but I do want the speed as I can't be bothered to buy another enclosure when I decide I want to do heavier work. Also my internal drives average 150 read and 140 write so I will notice the difference!

Thanks for pointing me in the write direction. I think it is a toss up between the USB 3.0 for futureproofing/easiness/tart-factor or dual eSata and USB 2.0 for a bit more cheapness.
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H100 Breaking for spares

[Neorion]

A bit different that what you asked for but

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SATA-Dock-Station-Caddy-eSATA/dp/B0036SMM22

then have a caddy for being portable.

Esata is 3GBs but that will be a burst speed I think Usb 3.0 is 5Gbs not sure what that drops too.

anyway enjoy
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VFR FI 2000- Shiney Red Thing
"some things man was never meant to know, for everything else there's Google"

[Pernig]

Thanks again, Neorion. Those desk caddies do actually look pretty handy.

In the end I decided to go for a 1TB Spinpoint hard drive at £39, a 3.5" USB 3.0 enclosure for £22 and a host card to unlock the full speed which was a further £18.

It came to quite a bit, but including delivery was still cheaper than a 1TB USB 3.0 external hard drive on its own, which I'd still have to buy a host card for to get the full speed. Also most of the external drives I could find weren't in stock. I guess this technology is still a bit new.
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H100 Breaking for spares

[Pernig]

Well. I just spent £86 on this lot and now my motherboard has fucking broke. Yay!
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H100 Breaking for spares

[Colin Edwards]

I like G Drives . You pay more for them but they have all the connections you could ever need... Well worth the extra pennies and build well..

https://g-technology.com/products/g-drive.cfm

CE