USB Hard Drive -advice please

[wemorgan]

Hi,

I urgently need to buy a USB hard drive, the very small kind that are powered by the USB cable.

The physical dimensions of the case need to be as small and light as possible and data transfer speeds are very important as I will regularly be transferring 50-100 GB of data.

I've done a search in Ebuyer but the choice is vast and apart from knowing some brand names I don't know the good from the bad.

I've read this review on PcPro:
Iomega Professional External Hard Drive | External hard drives | Reviews | PC Pro

but I don't fully understand what eSATA is. I don't think my Dell Precision M90 has it either.

Any advice is very much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[ShinyF1]

Much smaller scale than you, but I have an older model USB 80GB Iomega HD, bought from John Lewis about 3 years ago. It's the size of a Nintendo DS but much thinner, and access speeds are perfectly quick.

So far no reliability problems....

 

[wemorgan]

Thanks.

I ended up buying this for £47

Buffalo 320GB Portable Hard Drive TurboUSB - Ministation Turbo - Ebuyer

from my limited search most of these devices were of a similar size and transfer speeds, so I just bought a name I knew that offered good value per GB of space.

 

[Gollom]

Thanks.

I ended up buying this for £47

Buffalo 320GB Portable Hard Drive TurboUSB - Ministation Turbo - Ebuyer

from my limited search most of these devices were of a similar size and transfer speeds, so I just bought a name I knew that offered good value per GB of space.

It's not clear if this takes power from USB or if a seperate power supply is needed. When it arrives could you let us know please?

Thanks

 

[wemorgan]

It's not clear if this takes power from USB or if a seperate power supply is needed. When it arrives could you let us know please?

Thanks

I know what you mean, it is rather ambiguous. I'll be rather miffed if it comes with a chunky power transformer.

I'll let you know......fingers crossed.

 

[wemorgan]

It's not clear if this takes power from USB or if a seperate power supply is needed. When it arrives could you let us know please?

The USB drive came with 2 USB wires. One for the data transfer and the other connects to the 11V power input. So it's still a very small portable HD with no chuncky power transformer.

edit: I've just tried it at home ande the single USB for data transfer also powers it. So I guess the 11V USB feed is for powering the HD separately when you want to use the other USb for data transfer to another none powered device??? (time to read the manual I think)

 

[wemorgan]

If anyone is interested in the performance, I've just done a transfer of 76.5 GB of data (~20000 files) in 85 minutes.

The manual claims 480 Mbps (max). Am I right in thinking that's equivalent to ~200 GB/hr. Which compares to my value of 54 GB/hr?

 

[Sp!ke]

1Gb per minute is a respectable speed for a USB disk.

You have to factor in the fact that the data you were copying may have been fragmented on the source disk hence slowing the transfer rate a bit.

Eitherway, it doesnt sound bad.

 

[Dryce]

I
The manual claims 480 Mbps (max). Am I right in thinking that's equivalent to ~200 GB/hr. Which compares to my value of 54 GB/hr?

The 480 is a maximum transfer speed on between the computer and the box.

Whether the box can actually sustain delivering or accepting data at that rate is another matter. Which basically makes the 480 number mythical.

The actual *file* transfer speeds you experience will depend on:

1) The performance of the disk in the box

2) The performance of the controller in the box

3) The file system used and the layout of data on the disk

4) The size(s) of the files(s) you are transferring (small / large)

5) Your computer and where / how it is handling its end of the transfer