Page 1 of Mobile harddrive recommendations please!

I need to buy a mobile bus powered HD and wanted feedback from anyone here with any particular model/brands that they use and recommend.

I`ve seen the Freecom Classic Mobile HD 120GB which is about £100 and this model looks good.

Anyone here use a mobile drive?

Any help is appreciated, cheers!

Anil
___________________________________________________
Anil Khedun
DVD Reviewer
The UK`s BIGGEST Online DVD Magazine!

Hi Anil

the large asda-wallmart nearby my work are selling the iomega drive (160GB i think)
for a measly £90.....though it was only £69.99 a few weeks ago.

if you have a spare hdd lying around, you can get a USB powered caddy from
ebuyer for less than £30.....guy at work has slapped a 120GB maxtor in it with
no problems at all. it can be powered straight from USB or via a DC type "brick"
adaptor.

Ste.

........is that gasoline i smell?

This item was edited on Friday, 12th May 2006, 15:04

Hi Ste,

Thanks for your reply. I`m so used to buying stuff off the shelf I`d forgotten about making my own drive! ;-) But then I don`t have any spare HDs lying around so I`d still need to get one and an enclosure.

Might I be better off with an off the shelf in this scenario?

Anil
___________________________________________________
Anil Khedun
DVD Reviewer
The UK`s BIGGEST Online DVD Magazine!

Anil,

look at the Novatech site for external drives. Thay had a 300GB one for £99

Anil

the 300GB drive Billyflash has referenced seems good value.

as i mentioned, you could knock one together relatively easily yourself.

hdd caddy :- here
160GB hdd:- here

hth

Ste.

........is that gasoline i smell?

Cheers for your help guys, I really appreciate it!

I`ll check these out this weekend!

:D

Anil
___________________________________________________
Anil Khedun
DVD Reviewer
The UK`s BIGGEST Online DVD Magazine!

I don`t think that a 3.5" HDD can be powered from the USB port (bound to be proved wrong) The Ebuyer enclosure mentioned is definately powered from the mains.

I use a s/hand 2" drive from a laptop in the smaller case (loads on ebay) these are powered from the USB port, so only one cable required.

You will need USB2 as the transfer speed on USB is abysmal

Quote:
I don`t think that a 3.5" HDD can be powered from the USB port (bound to be proved wrong) The Ebuyer enclosure mentioned is definately powered from the mains
i`ve seen this unit working connected to a laptop by only a USB cable.

yes, it does have the facility to connect to the mains too.

Ste.

........is that gasoline i smell?

I haven`t seen the USB powered 3.5" caddy before. All the one`s I`d looked at previously used an external brick psu, whereas nearly all the laptop drive caddies used the USB for power, (some have had 2 USB connections, the second one to help "share" the power) which makes them nice and easy to cart around when your needs are for something nice and compact (physically small), but with a better storage capacity than a memory stick.

The other thing to look for in a caddy would be some form of active cooling (a fan) if it`s likely to be running for sometime as overheating (so I`ve read) is not good for the drive.

LB2

USB powered caddies do exist for 3.5 inch drives but I do not recommend them. The reason why many 2.5 caddies are USB powered is that the laptop drives use less power.

An external drive is very unlikely to overheat if a fan is not used. It is not a requirement to use a fan to cool down hard drives although the use of the fan does prolong the life of the drives.