I have several brands in use, including Maxtor, Western Digital, Lacie,
IOmega, IO Gear, Seagate, some CompUSA HDD Enclosures with a mix of brand
name HDD units, and AcomData. I concur with those that suggest getting a
unit with an internal fan, although the ones I have with no internal fan are
designed to radiate heat through their enclosure. That seems to work well.
I still avoid AcomData, simply because of the bitchy warranty support grief
I got when I sent in a unit near the end of its 12 month warranty. I could
have accepted the manufacturer's frustration in having a unit returned so
late into the warranty period, but I could have done without the hand
written note I got when the repaired unit came back to me ("Don't expect us
to do this again" kind of note. Okay, don't expect me to purchase any more
of your units!). Otherwise the AcomData units run well.
Re: the Firewire vs USB speeds, USB v-2.0 runs at 480mps, Firewire runs at
450mps. But, there is a much faster FireWire spec coming out. But I do not
know the expected deployment date. The USB and Firewire rates are burst
rates for HDD units. The sustained rate is lower, but more than adequate.
I know that last night I blew an 85 minute VHS movie onto a Maxtor 300Gb USB
HDD without a problem, with NTFS compression turned on no less. I used a
2900AMD based PC, which could have easily overrun a HDD if there were
performance issues due to the interface. It was a perfect build, > 4Gb
flawlessly. No, this was not a piracy conversion!
I also use these USB units primarily as backup targets, as opposed to
storing anything for production purposes. But when I have used them as
primary target units for data (like the VHS-MPEG conversion last night) I
have never been disappointed.
All but one of my USB HDD units have been IDE drives. The other week I
actually picked up a CompUSA SATA-USB enclosure to see how that would work
out (and for a Server image file recovery project). I saw no performance
problems with the SATA-USB setup. But I still like the IDE-USB
configuration more ($).
Ciao!
Gil
> -----Original Message-----
> From: profoxtech-bounces (at) leafe .DOT com
> [mailto:profoxtech-bounces@leafe.com]On Behalf Of MB Software Solutions
> Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 10:23 AM
> To: profoxtech (at) leafe .DOT com
> Subject: [NF] External hard drives
>
>
> The ProFox archives show Whil's and Gil's (no rhyme intended <g>) recent
> post about a Lacie 250 HD.
>
> Wondered if others experienced good things with other kinds, or perhaps
> better yet--which ones to completely avoid at all costs!??
>
> I downloaded some digital video today and when extracted it basically
> ate up the rest of the space on my hard drive, so I thought "now's the
> time to get that external HD and move things off the main drive."
>
> I'm looking for something that is reliable yet super simple in terms of
> just plugging it in and seeing the drive in Explorer. <g> Advice anyone?
>
> tia,
> --Michael
>
> --
> Michael J. Babcock, MCP
> MB Software Solutions, LLC
> http://mbsoftwaresolutions.com
> http://fabmate.com
> "Work smarter, not harder, with MBSS custom software solutions!"
>
>
>
>
[excessive quoting removed by server]
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