I?m a new member with a small dilemma. (Go easy on me, as I?m not very tech savvy. 
)
My son asked me for an external hard drive for his upcoming birthday. A friend, who is a member here, suggested that I go the route of an external enclosure with an internal HD. I braved BF and got him the Maxtor 80 GB 7200 RPM 8 MG Cache @ Staples, but now I?m having a dilemma as to which external enclosure to buy.
His PC specs: Dell Inspiron 2650 Intel P4 1.8 GHz, 30 GB HD, not yet a year old and running Win XP Pro SP1. I searched here and read about USB and Firewire. I?d like to take the recommendation given to one poster to get an enclosure that supports both, as he?ll use the drive for his college work and for videos, gaming, etc. After talking with Dell technical support, I?m told that the 2 USB ports are version 1.1. I also know that I can purchase a PCMCIA card to upgrade to a 2.0 port. However, I don?t want to spend a fortune on this. I don?t know anything about the manufacturers of the enclosures out there. I have seen offers online and have checked a links here, but I?m still unsure.
Now here is where I?ll show my lack of knowledge ? how does an enclosure which supports both work? Would he plug only into the 2.0 USB upgrade and have access to Firewire, or does he have to plug it in to different ports depending on what he wants to do? (IE 2.0 port for general work and perhaps another one for Firewire things) Also, someone mentioned something about a ?brick.? What is this, and do we need it? What about the access speed of this setup? How ?fragile? will this be? He?ll take care of it, but he does live in a frat house. :/ Lastly, what about the cooling factor?
Your help to save me from insanity is greatly appreciated!
)My son asked me for an external hard drive for his upcoming birthday. A friend, who is a member here, suggested that I go the route of an external enclosure with an internal HD. I braved BF and got him the Maxtor 80 GB 7200 RPM 8 MG Cache @ Staples, but now I?m having a dilemma as to which external enclosure to buy.
His PC specs: Dell Inspiron 2650 Intel P4 1.8 GHz, 30 GB HD, not yet a year old and running Win XP Pro SP1. I searched here and read about USB and Firewire. I?d like to take the recommendation given to one poster to get an enclosure that supports both, as he?ll use the drive for his college work and for videos, gaming, etc. After talking with Dell technical support, I?m told that the 2 USB ports are version 1.1. I also know that I can purchase a PCMCIA card to upgrade to a 2.0 port. However, I don?t want to spend a fortune on this. I don?t know anything about the manufacturers of the enclosures out there. I have seen offers online and have checked a links here, but I?m still unsure.
Now here is where I?ll show my lack of knowledge ? how does an enclosure which supports both work? Would he plug only into the 2.0 USB upgrade and have access to Firewire, or does he have to plug it in to different ports depending on what he wants to do? (IE 2.0 port for general work and perhaps another one for Firewire things) Also, someone mentioned something about a ?brick.? What is this, and do we need it? What about the access speed of this setup? How ?fragile? will this be? He?ll take care of it, but he does live in a frat house. :/ Lastly, what about the cooling factor?
Your help to save me from insanity is greatly appreciated!
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