External hard drives

[ali_farhan1984]

Hi, i'm interested in buying an external hard drive and just asking for any recommendations.  I've seen one on Ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/250GB-Maxtor-Daimondmax10-External-Hard-Drive_W0QQitemZ170006267307QQihZ007QQcategoryZ16178QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

thanks.

[scuzzy]

I would be wary about buying Maxtor. A better option is to build your own external hard drive. It is very easy to do, and you'll spend less.

Simply pick out an enclosure that is to your liking, then add a separately purchased hard drive. Good picks for a hard drive are Seagate (5 yr warranty) and Western Digital (3 yr warranty).

[ali_farhan1984]

are these good enclosures to buy:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB2-0-3-5-HDD-hard-disk-case-with-built-in-fan_W0QQitemZ290005447195QQihZ019QQcategoryZ96894QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

or

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/3-5in-USB-2-0-HDD-Hard-Disk-Case-enclosure-CHEAP_W0QQitemZ220007904957QQihZ012QQcategoryZ96894QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[scuzzy]

I am not familiar with either.

Take a look through here: NewEgg Enclosures

Check out different possibilities and read the opinions of others. My favorite is Adaptec, but there are plenty of other really good choices.

[Buffalo2102]

My favourite enclosures are from Icybox - Google for  them.  They are usually aluminium and so are light but solid, good-looking and most have passive cooling (quiet and small).  They come with a wide range of connectivity (SATA, EIDE, USB, Firewire) and are pretty reasonably priced too.  They consistently have good independent reviews too.


Buff

[ali_farhan1984]

thanks for the advice.  i've decided to buy this enclosure:

http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=6794&category_id=350&manufacturer_id=0


and buy this hard drive:

http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=3297&category_id=111&manufacturer_id=0

[Allie-Baba]

They look like good choices.  Good luck and let us know how things work out.

THNX
BRAD

[ali_farhan1984]

i've set it all up - but it took an hour to transfer about 4BG of music.  i called the technical support and they've told me that its transferring slowly because i've got the original windows XP and haven't upgraded the service packs.  the technician advised me to download free USB test software and see whether i'm able to transfer using USB 2.0.

does anybody know where i can get this type of software?

[Buffalo2102]

It does sound like you are only transferring at USB 1.1 speeds (12Mb/s).  If you are using Windows XP you will not be able to transfer at USB 2. speeds unless you have service pack 1 installed.

Take a look at the link below and follow the advice for checking whether you have USB 2.0 hardware.  If you have, download and install service pack 1 and you should then be running USB 2.0.  There are also some links to test software on there (under question 6).

http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm

Hope this helps

Buff