Hamokhamok Posted September 3, 2008 Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 I'm contemplating buying a bigger external drive. Wondering what suggestions are out there by way of manufacturer> What should I avoid and what should I have no problems with. For example I see Iomega are selling a 1TB external drives for â?¬249.00. Welcome comments and thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlton68 Posted September 3, 2008 Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 Some of the 1TB external drives actually contain two 500GB drives. Bigger, more heat, possibly louder. If your computer does have eSATA or Firewire you might get an external drive that has USB and eSATA or Firewire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hamokhamok Posted September 3, 2008 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 Some of the 1TB external drives actually contain two 500GB drives. Bigger, more heat, possibly louder. If your computer does have eSATA or Firewire you might get an external drive that has USB and eSATA or Firewire. Thanks Carlton. I've got Firewire, which I think may be slower than USB. I don't have eSATA. Maybe two 500's would be better. Make wise perhaps doesn't really matter too much unless people have had a bad experience with certain models or makes. The Iomega one looks big, perhaps two 500's. Will have a look at it and decide. There are so many makes and models on sale its difficult to decide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elef Posted September 3, 2008 Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 Now I'm outside my competence (as programmer), but I thought Firewire was Apples product for take over after SCSI and faster than USB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchapstick Posted September 3, 2008 Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 Hard drives are a commodity, pure and simple. No appreciable difference between vendors. Connection type selection will largely be driven by what your computer has. USB is usually fine for most people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALHOLK Posted September 3, 2008 Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 The original USB 1.0 was significantly slower than firewire. That is why USB 2.0 was developed. The technical specs suggest that they of very similar capaity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elef Posted September 3, 2008 Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 Tnx Alholk, I stay away from hardware except my own computers. My newest pc (1 year) is the first with firewire connection but never used as I don't have anything to connect with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlton68 Posted September 3, 2008 Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 As others said, USB is available with every computer, so the external drive must have it. Other interfaces are optional in case one can make use of it. I never used Firewire for external drives but it should be much faster than USB. What I use is eSATA. Some boards do have it, otherwise many desktops with internal SATA can use eSATA via slot bracket. eSATA is as fast as an internal SATA drive. Data transfer can be 4 times as fast than with USB 2.0. As I transfer several GBs at a time this does make a difference. Make sure the internal interface of the case is SATA and not IDE. In case you ever decide to change the drive or put it in a desktop computer. There's the possibility to buy a drive and a case and put it together yourself. Make sure the drive will support 1TB drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALHOLK Posted September 3, 2008 Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 I never used Firewire for external drives but it should be much faster than USB. I don't see why. I implemented a USB 2.0 driver for the Linux kernel when USB 2.0 was new to Linux and as I recall the maximum speed was 480 Mbytes/sec. This is very close to the Firewire specs. Of course to obtain this kind speed you must not share the USB with other devices and most likely should be connected to the root hub. regards ALHOLK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted September 3, 2008 Report Share Posted September 3, 2008 regarding SCSI, it is still used a lot for raid enclosures which are populated with SATA disks, but this is seldom necessary for home office. HD vendors like Seagate and Western Digital have two grades of disks, "consumer" and "server" or "enterprise". If you are running a data center where data loss equals job loss, you get server grade. They have a higher MTBF rating, and my experience has been that they don't fail as much as the consumer. But for home, I just buy USB enclosures and SATA drives separately. I always buy two and keep them synced. (I am one paranoid individual.) I hear of a lot of stories where the USB enclosure dies and takes the disk with it. USB-2 with Sata disks should be fast enough. What brand of enclosure? I buy a different brand every time, in part because models come and go. But I look for one that is a good bet to have proper cooling. See if it has a fan. Make sure it is rated for the size hard disk you buy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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