USB drives

[SherEPunjab]

anyone used one of these things?

in theory, its awesome, so is it plug and play, and do all i have to do is plug it in, and it will detect it (like digital camera 'drives')?

 

[sillymofo]

I know there's USA, but USB? what's next, USC?

Wait, USC is already there.....

 

[OulOat]

Yes, it's plug and play

 

[SherEPunjab]

how is the transfer speed, and are there any driver cd's, or does windows xp machines have no problem[installing drive]...?

thanx

 

[IcemanJer]

no external driver needed for WinXP. Transfer speed is the transfer speed of USB (or USB 2.0 if the drive supports it).

 

[SherEPunjab]

sounds awesome. i transfer a lot of data between my work computer and house computer, when i like to do work at home. instead of having to burn cd's all the time, i think this would be great.

 

[sillymofo]

Ok.. all jokes aside, you DO need to use the "Safely remove hardware" icon for anything < than winXP, cuz it could fux0r up your active desktop, and you'll have to reboot, and loss of data and such. It's a good practice anyway.

 

[SherEPunjab]

any reccomendations on brand, size?

i'm thinking 1gb is good because that should accomodate ANY file size. movie and game files are generally made to be fit on one cd, which is at about 700 mb. So, I imagine that if I buy anything less than 1gb, I would come across situations when I would need to split very large files into two and make two trips.

 

[SherEPunjab]

bump

 

[sillymofo]

I don't know about prices, but I have some Kingston drives, thrown them around quit a bit, and still ticking. I don't think you can go wrong with memory any more... or can you?... hehehe.

 

[NokiaDude]

1GB is expensive as f!ck!!

 

[SherEPunjab]

Originally posted by: NokiaDude
1GB is expensive as f!ck!!

i know. thats the problem. maybe i should get those full size external hd's. then i can get like 80gb for 120 bucks. but they're HUGE...

 

[phonemonkey]

If you've got a bit more money, you can try to pick up a 40-60GB laptop HD and put it into a USB 2.0 enclosure (they run about $20-40).

 

[Shockwave]

Originally posted by: jester79
If you've got a bit more money, you can try to pick up a 40-60GB laptop HD and put it into a USB 2.0 enclosure (they run about $20-40).

Links to the merchendise to do this project? Sounds like fun.

 

[The Stigenator]

i have a 64mb one i bought for 29.99 .. its a kingston (i got a 10 dollar rebate).. i have used it quite a bit.

Its lightning fast on USB2.0 on USB1.1 it works half decent..

It is plug n play in w2k and xp and in linux and mac os 9 and osx. In 98 you got install drivers. Not sure of in WinMe.

 

[ski2slow]

I got a 256mb Sandisk Cruzer through work. It works great for keeping a copy of presentation in case the notebook dies. My collegues use theirs to backup important data when travelling abroad.

 

[cpals]

My friend bought one of those to transfer files between his home and school. Unfortunately, when we looked at our school computers none of them have front usb plugs so he had to pull out the computers everytime he wanted to use them, which sucked. Plus most of ours are still Win98 in the classrooms so he had to install drivers on whatever machine he used.

 

[SaigonK]

I have an 80GB Maxtor USB drive on top of my PC right now.
It is pretty cool, but I dont transfer enough around to worry about using it at all.


It really depends on how much data you think you will want to move form one PC to another at remote places...if you want it for storage/backup, I sugest you go and buy a regualr IDE drive for $100, these externals arent cheap by any means.

 

[KGB1]

Im planning on purchasing just an external Firewire/USB2.0 case and place in a 30GB HDD in it by myself. Most cases are arounf $40-50. I wont have compatability issues had if I bough just Maxtor or WD drives.

 

[dxkj]

Welcome to last year! Glad you finally picked up on these handy devices.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Shockwave

Originally posted by: jester79
If you've got a bit more money, you can try to pick up a 40-60GB laptop HD and put it into a USB 2.0 enclosure (they run about $20-40).

Links to the merchendise to do this project? Sounds like fun.

Bytecc ME-320U 5.25"/3.5" USB 2.0 External Enclosure

I have one of the above enclosures, that's not where I got it. I got it at a local Computer shop.

I don't bother to close the case and I can swap out Hard Drives.

This is one of the best kept secrets out there. This basically replaces the old ZIP drive technology.

You can even boot up with these external drives, you can have a PC without a hard drive actually inside the machine.

If you have Win98se it is hard to find the driver so I put a link on my website.

If you have WinXP you don't need anything as XP recognizes the External Mass Media as you plug and unplug the cable.

 

[iamme]

i have a 256MB one that i always use for school and work.

 

[zimu]

depends whether you're talking about thumb drives or drives in enclosures.

i have a 160GB external enclosure, transfer speed according to sisoft sandra's benchmarking is a little faster than the thumb drive, even though its physical rather than flash storage. usb2.0 interface, i can typical transfer files at 25 mb/second sustained. definitely reccommend it, its also plug and play.

thumb drives are also cool, but pricey imo. i bought my enclosure for $30 and the drive for $70, so for $100 i have 160gb versus a 256mb thumbdrive you'll get for no less than 50. good for portability if you really need that.

 

[Bekker]

You can find some very good, mp3 players that can also be used as hard drives. Recently hot deals had one on one from Dell that was about 2.5 " square by about .75 inch think, as I recall, that had a 4 gig micro drive. That's small enough to be very portable, but it has great capacity.

 

[SherEPunjab]

Originally posted by: jester79
If you've got a bit more money, you can try to pick up a 40-60GB laptop HD and put it into a USB 2.0 enclosure (they run about $20-40).

this and bekkers are nice ideas. so we can use an mp3 player? i've never used one, as i burn cdrs for music.