Portable hard drive question

[ozimax]

I'm looking at purchasing a portable HDD to back up my huge iBook 30gb hdd. ( ) I saw one a few weeks ago that the owner claimed cost around $200, it was actually a laptop drive inside some sort of casing. It ran with USB 2.

If anyone knows the name of a similar product they might like to enlighten me.

(And don't worry, all my photos are backed up on CDs, and soon to be DVD's.)

Thanks,

Max

[spartikus]

Sounds a lot like a Lacie external hard drive. My friend has a 250GB and 160GB running off firewire 800 for his photos and they've never failed him. An 80GB USB 2.0 "Porsche" version (the older version!) of this product sets you back about $200 from the cheapest places. Go <a href="http://staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=lacie+80gb+usb">here</a> for a list of vendors with the cheapest prices.

[Mal]

Ozimax, there is a place just down the road from me, a little bit further down the road for you! Called USB technologies. They have some really great cheap gear. http://www.usbtech.com.au/product.php?p ... EIDE35-160
Well worth a look.

[birddog114]

Ozimax, there is a place just down the road from me, a little bit further down the road for you! Called USB technologies. They have some really great cheap gear. http://www.usbtech.com.au/product.php?p ... EIDE35-160
Well worth a look.

Mal,
You can buy one of the following, called Western Media Center with 250Gb drive and built in card reader, external USB 2.0 + firewire for $330.00

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/librar ... 001091.pdf

[MATT]

There are lots of different types around.

You can go the regular PC hard drive option that requires an external powerpackand connects via USB,
or

A 2.5in model that takes a laptop harddrive and connects USB but does not require a external power supply.

Its a trade off cause the cases are roughly the same in price but the, PC hard drive is cheaper but needs a supply or just a laptop drive.




MATT

[Mal]

Ozimax, there is a place just down the road from me, a little bit further down the road for you! Called USB technologies. They have some really great cheap gear. http://www.usbtech.com.au/product.php?p ... EIDE35-160
Well worth a look.

Mal,
You can buy one of the following, called Western Media Center with 250Gb drive and built in card reader, external USB 2.0 + firewire for $330.00

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/librar ... 001091.pdf

I remember seeing this in another thread Birddog. Is it one you are selling?
For me it is hard to go past USB Technology as they are literally next door to our office. However the Western Media Center is very tempting...

[birddog114]

Ozimax, there is a place just down the road from me, a little bit further down the road for you! Called USB technologies. They have some really great cheap gear. http://www.usbtech.com.au/product.php?p ... EIDE35-160
Well worth a look.

Mal,
You can buy one of the following, called Western Media Center with 250Gb drive and built in card reader, external USB 2.0 + firewire for $330.00

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/librar ... 001091.pdf

I remember seeing this in another thread Birddog. Is it one you are selling?
For me it is hard to go past USB Technology as they are literally next door to our office. However the Western Media Center is very tempting...

Mal,
It was sold at the mini meet for the price $305.00 as special item at the mini meet of that day, you can get it in difference capacity though.

[Mal]

I think I'll keep saving for the new lens..... I have plenty of storage space at work...

[birddog114]

I think I'll keep saving for the new lens..... I have plenty of storage space at work...

What lens? 200-400Vr or 500mm/f4?

[Mal]

Steady .......
I still have to work out my tax! BTW I have never got it done before Novemeber yet!!!

[Onyx]

Western Digital's Passport range are 2.5" (laptop) hard drives inside an aluminium case with USB connectors. I'm sure there are similar products with other brandnames, but you can just as easily buy a generic 2.5" USB2 case ($10-20) from most computer parts stores and fill it with a brand and capacity laptop hard drive of your choice. Just keep in mind the absolute largest 2.5" hard drive available these days is 120Gb, which is a long way short of 3.5" desktop hard drives - of which the external drives that require AC power are based on.

I have one that's generic enough not to have a brand, just 'Mobile HDD' written on the casing, and I filled it with an IBM 8K50 TravelStar hard disk inside.

[Geoff]

Ozimax, there is a place just down the road from me, a little bit further down the road for you! Called USB technologies. They have some really great cheap gear. http://www.usbtech.com.au/product.php?p ... EIDE35-160
Well worth a look.

Mal,
You can buy one of the following, called Western Media Center with 250Gb drive and built in card reader, external USB 2.0 + firewire for $330.00

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/librar ... 001091.pdf

I remember seeing this in another thread Birddog. Is it one you are selling?
For me it is hard to go past USB Technology as they are literally next door to our office. However the Western Media Center is very tempting...

Mal,
It was sold at the mini meet for the price $305.00 as special item at the mini meet of that day, you can get it in difference capacity though.

Mal - I was the lucky purchaser of the western digital media center for the above price..it's brilliant, and vewy vewy quiet .

[Onyx]

Pics comparing sizes:





The big box is almost the same as Media Center ones Birddog has for sale. The smaller one is typical of most 2.5" external cases.

[ozimax]

Thanks all, any of these ideas will work I think, I only have 30gb to back up, my winpc is softwareless at present until I get on the phone to MS and get things sorted out, but even then I don't have much to back up.

Max

[Oneputt]

I have the 250gb LacieK Porsche 3. Cost around $320 from memory and is I believe excellent value.

[ozimax]

 BTW, thanks for the HDD pix Onyx!

Max

[informer]

I know I'm late to the game, but as an avid user of external HD storages, I would opt for the 3.5 boxes rather than the 2.5. The 2.5s are much more convenient as you don't need a powerbox to run them, but they run slower and don't hold as much data as their 3.5 counterparts.

I know you could easily buy ready-made external HD boxes with 40gb or so, but I prefer to buy them separately. That means, getting the biggest and fastest HD available and stick it in the box. When I need more space, I could swap the HD to the computer or another box and buy another HD.

Like what a lot of people say, go for the biggest or fastest one you can afford. I've never regretted doing that when I upgraded my 4200rpm 40GB HD to a 7200rpm 60gb HD on my notebook. It made a significant difference if you care a lot about saving time.

[tasadam]

Sitting around me here in the cramped but efficient clutter of my computer room (which used to be my wardrobe), I have a 250Gb IDE drive in a cradle which is not what I call portable as it needs power.
I also have a 40Gb laptop hard disk in a portable casing which gets its power from the USB port so it usually lives in my laptop bag. It has a cable with a double USB connection so you can use 2 USB ports for power if needed, but it's always worked fine on 1 for me.
It doesn't seem slow to me.

Another acquisition is an X's Drive Pro VP300 which is a 9 in 1 card reader with a 40Gb laptop hard disk in it. Also it plays MP3's. Great for trips where the laptop will be too heavy and the CF cards will be too full.
I might be wanting to sell this. I went in halves with my brother in law. He just returned from Thailand and India. Very useful.
http://www.xs-drive.com/xsdrivepro/

[moggy]

I've got one of these without the mp3 player and found it useful to back up my cards while on holiday. It's small enough to throw in the suitcase and not take up too much room.

[ozimax]

Well, went down to Harveys last Friday, we made a several portable HD contraptions, including Fujitsu HDDs, and voila, none of them worked. We tried new drivers, switching jumpers, cables etc etc, all to no avail. I think the whole cost of a 2.5" enclosure with 60MB HDD ran to about $160, but seeing we couldn't get it to work with either mac osx or WIN XP, I didn't end up buying it.

One of the aforementioned mp3/portable contraptions would do the job, but as always, cost is everything for me at present.

I'll certainly be taking my laptop to the wedding this Saturday and backing up files during any break in proceedings.

Max

[robboh]

Well, went down to Harveys last Friday, we made a several portable HD contraptions, including Fujitsu HDDs, and voila, none of them worked. We tried new drivers, switching jumpers, cables etc etc, all to no avail.

Max,

The drives need to be pre-partitioned and formatted. You cannot do this via the USB connection. I had the same problem when I built up a portable HDD. I ended up having to put the drive on one of my IDE busses and formatting it there before I could access it in the external USB case.

HTH
Rob

[Onyx]

Yeah, as Robboh mentioned - you will need to format the drives before they will be recognised by winblows (ie. Under control panel, admin tools, computer management, disk management).

Harvey Norman salesperson will be as useful to you here as the proverbial ashtray on a motorcycle.

[gstark]

The drives need to be pre-partitioned and formatted. You cannot do this via the USB connection.

Somebody better tell the two I built earlier this year about this. They're both happily working away, none the wiser to the fact that they were formatted via the USB connection.

[ozimax]

Apple has just released the ipod nano, expensive as anything at $359 for 4gb, but the thing is microscopic and will fit anywhere you have a pocket.

http://www.apple.com.au/ipodnano/

4gb is more than enough for one of my overseas trips as backup. Evidently you cannot backup from CF card direct to the ipod but you can from laptop to ipod.

14 hrs power supply without recharging. Any comments or suggestions or warnings from anyone here?


Thanks,

Max

[redline]

lol, the next model will be the size of a tictac and you can swallow it and the nanomachines will send music into your ear drums.

[ozimax]

Subcutaeous implant will do the trick, plus a D3x with wifi inbuilt to store images on the person....

Max

[DaveB]

Apple has just released the ipod nano, expensive as anything at $359 for 4gb, but the thing is microscopic and will fit anywhere you have a pocket.

http://www.apple.com.au/ipodnano/

4gb is more than enough for one of my overseas trips as backup. Evidently you cannot backup from CF card direct to the ipod but you can from laptop to ipod.

14 hrs power supply without recharging. Any comments or suggestions or warnings from anyone here?

You're kidding, right? Why not just use two 2GB CF cards then? Are you not going to have 4GB free on your laptop? One copy on the cards, one on the disk.
After all, this thing is just a 4GB flash module with an MP3 player attached...

As you say, you can't transfer directly from CF card to iPod nano - so what would be the advantage?

[ozimax]

You're kidding, right? Why not just use two 2GB CF cards then? Are you not going to have 4GB free on your laptop? One copy on the cards, one on the disk.
After all, this thing is just a 4GB flash module with an MP3 player attached...

As you say, you can't transfer directly from CF card to iPod nano - so what would be the advantage?

Can't play music on a CF card!

[DionM]

Can't play music on a CF card!

Buy an MP3 player that takes CF Cards!

[Geoff]

Ozimax, there is a place just down the road from me, a little bit further down the road for you! Called USB technologies. They have some really great cheap gear. http://www.usbtech.com.au/product.php?p ... EIDE35-160
Well worth a look.

Mal,
You can buy one of the following, called Western Media Center with 250Gb drive and built in card reader, external USB 2.0 + firewire for $330.00

http://www.westerndigital.com/en/librar ... 001091.pdf

I have one similar to this...I can say nothing bad about it. I also got it from birdy! GREAT

[Glen]

Max, 4gb is half the size of a full size CF card! Too small. Have a look at this comparison, not quite what you want, but keep a watch out for one second hand, handier than just a drive.

http://fhoude34.free.fr/PortableHD.htm

[ozimax]

Glen,

What do you think is the most reliable form of backup? I know nothing is bombproof or futureproof, but in my PC experience HDD's are notoriously unreliable at times, or at least can be eg they can go belly up at anytime.

Having said that, all my files are backed up on CDs, the good ones at least twice. I'm not sure how long CDs are supposed to last for. I suppose it's the old story of how long is a piece of string - how long is a reasonable life expectancy for digital media?

Thanks for the previous link, there's a heap of products to look at there in the CF backup thingamijigs.

Max

[Glen]

Max, no idea which is most reliable. I know Birddy recommended TDK Armourplate as the DVD of choice, plus have seen others advertised as long life. I think two or more backups is the most reliable, I see these units as boxes just to get the images home to more secure methods

[huynhie]

Does anyone know how much the TDK Armourplate cost per 50 DVD spindle?

[birddog114]

Does anyone know how much the TDK Armourplate cost per 50 DVD spindle?

You should come, pick 1 off and try first before asking, laidback you're.

[huynhie]

Does anyone know how much the TDK Armourplate cost per 50 DVD spindle?

You should come, pick 1 off and try first before asking, laidback you're.

Cool I'll do that next week.

[Heath Bennett]

for me this is the easiest and fastest way for dependable backup (see pic). When traveling, I use an ipod as well as dvds. Always with 2 or more copies of each file.

2x2 200GB raided icecubes $250 each



This photo was taken with a webcam. It is just dripping with detail. It has a 2.8 lens on it. Cheapest 2.8 ever, but as you can see, you get plenty of bang for your buck

[kipper]

Ouch that cost what....$1000? What interface is it USB?
If so did you use up all your USB ports just to have it plugged in

I'm looking at some form of backup at the moment. I have about 30-50gb so far of unsorted and untrimmed photos (quite a few duds). At the moment they're scattered on my hdd and dvds. So I really want to pull them back unto a portable HDD (or raided HDDs) and have some really important ones backed upto DVD as a secondary (or is it third? if you include the raid mirroring) backup

[Heath Bennett]

YEP ouch indeed. But just too important to ignore.

All firewire (daisychain, meaning only one port used at the com), all 200GB/8mb

[kipper]

It's true it can't be ignored but it's a costly exercise. At this stage I think I could probably get away with 2x200gb and expand later.

[avkomp]

I have gone a bit nuts with backup here (mainly because I can though)

I have my digital pix on one of my servers with a raid 5 array. That one gets backed up to tape also and goes offsite.

the data also gets replicated to another server also running raid 5.

Then I have a backup server which backs up key data from the others as well as disk images from the workstations.

I have dvd backups of my images also.

Finally I have my images on my epson p-2000.

A bit of overkill I know, but you can never have too many backups.
Besides, I am not paranoid, its just that everyone is out to get me!!

Steve.

[kipper]

http://frequency.com.au/sales/hard_drives/lacie_drives/

Some nice shit there

I'm probably going to go a 2x200GB setup for the time being. Heath do you set it up to do RAID1 (or some other combo that does mirroring) or do you just manually duplicate it across both drives?

[Jonesy]

Does anyone know how much the TDK Armourplate cost per 50 DVD spindle?

RRP from TDK is $49.95 thats for the DVD-R 1-16x. Cheaper for cost obviously

[ozimax]

This post has been very informative to me personally, I think I am going to go with a small HDD, most probably Lacie brand, 40 gb will do me fine with firewire.

Having read all the comments about backup etc, I must be a bit strange. I purge my photo files ruthlessly eg I now only keep about 10-15% of the photos I take and delete most of them. Maybe I shouldn't? The pile of files keeps growing interminably!

Max

[kipper]

ozimax, I want to do a purge of all my oof shots. They do nothing for me and there is nothing arty or abstract about them so they deserve to be filed to /dev/null.

[Heath Bennett]

http://frequency.com.au/sales/hard_drives/lacie_drives/

Some nice shit there

I'm probably going to go a 2x200GB setup for the time being. Heath do you set it up to do RAID1 (or some other combo that does mirroring) or do you just manually duplicate it across both drives?

I bought a copy of softRAID for OSX Tiger. Even though the OS can do it, it isn't as reliable or as easy to use. The OS program doesn't have all those nice safety features and re-assuring user interface graphics either

[MHD]

so they deserve to be filed to /dev/null.

One of us, one of us

[Callie]

Max,

I recently purchased a Wolverine, it is a portable hardrive that you can download photos directly from your camera without a computer. Mine is 40G, it cost about$189 without shipping, I purchased it from B&H. I believe they also have 20G and 80G versions. So far I like mine, I'm not much of a gearhead so I can't quote specs. Oh yeah you canuse it like any other external hardrive. Good luck

[birddog114]

Max,

I recently purchased a Wolverine, it is a portable hardrive that you can download photos directly from your camera without a computer. Mine is 40G, it cost about$189 without shipping, I purchased it from B&H. I believe they also have 20G and 80G versions. So far I like mine, I'm not much of a gearhead so I can't quote specs. Oh yeah you canuse it like any other external hardrive. Good luck

That's the OTG external drive, as I mentioned earlier in this thread and it's around AU$135.00 with 40Gb drive.
But ozmax is looking for something he can play MP3, watching movie/ video/ download and view photo which he took from his camera etc... the OTG won't serve him with these purposes.

[ozimax]

That's the OTG external drive, as I mentioned earlier in this thread and it's around AU$135.00 with 40Gb drive.
But ozmax is looking for something he can play MP3, watching movie/ video/ download and view photo which he took from his camera etc... the OTG won't serve him with these purposes.

Don't forget to also make coffee Birdie!!

Max