[NTLUG:Discuss] External Hard Drive Recommendation

[severian@pobox.com]

Howdy,
   It looks kind of expensive for what it is.  Just go to ebay and search 
for USB 2.0 cases. They should be about 25 or 30 dollars delivered.  There 
are a bunch of little cases designed for laptop drives.  If the drive is 
500 milliwatts or less, then you don't need extra power.
   For Jeff Demel, I'd say buy a 10 to 20 gig drive and you will have the 
space you say you need and the power consuption should be low enough that 
the USB port can supply it.  Or be cheap and look at 
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2728239281&category=38118 
It is a 4 gig drive that will be $25 delivered.  About $55 for drive and 
USB 2.0 case gets you a pretty good solution.  Disclaimer.  I don't know 
anything about that drive seller.  It is just the first cheap 9.5 mm laptop 
drive I turned up in the right capacity range.

   If you are dealing with laptop USB ports, then they can't usually power 
any hard drive.  And the rule of thumb I have seen is that laptop drive 
under 30 gig are usually under half a watt.  Also note that you need to use 
9.5 mm drives for most of these cases.  I am not sure what the half watt 
refers to.  It must e sustained usage, because every drive I looked up had 
a startup current higher than that and all the drives I have tried is the 
little pocket USB 2 cases have worked fine.
Good luck,
Ralph

In response to the welcome remarks of Jeff Demel at 12:54 PM 5/6/03 -0500:
>Anybody ever try out one of these Pocketec drives?
>
>http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/drives/5ad4/
>
>Seems a bit slow at: Access Time: 12ms; Transfer Rate: up to 16 MB/s.
>However, they don't require a power supply and are small.