External USB HardDrive 80+ GB

[quote name='AzN_BaLLeR']Personally I've had a horrible experience with newegg... Their products do not work sometimes.. However they do offer a refund and blah blah blah. But that takes time...

I use www.plpc.com

27$ enclosure kit... Very nice.. Im using it right now.. =)

http://www.plpc.com/product_details.asp?dept_id=214&pf_id=CO02CTR0057

55$ 80 gig Hd...

http://www.plpc.com/product_details.asp?dept_id=211&pf_id=CO02HDD0403[/quote]

how does that work? I want to get a external hd as well. Do you take the 80 gig hd and put it inside the enclosure kit or something?
 
[quote name='bignick']www.newegg.com is hands down the best all around place to buy pc parts.[/quote]agree'd

baller can you give details on what items you had problems with and what was wrong with them? also how newegg customer service handled the situation.

thanks ^^
 
[quote name='tenzor'][quote name='AzN_BaLLeR']Personally I've had a horrible experience with newegg... Their products do not work sometimes.. However they do offer a refund and blah blah blah. But that takes time...

I use www.plpc.com

27$ enclosure kit... Very nice.. Im using it right now.. =)

http://www.plpc.com/product_details.asp?dept_id=214&pf_id=CO02CTR0057

55$ 80 gig Hd...

http://www.plpc.com/product_details.asp?dept_id=211&pf_id=CO02HDD0403[/quote]

how does that work? I want to get a external hd as well. Do you take the 80 gig hd and put it inside the enclosure kit or something?[/quote]

Not too difficult to do (applies to Windoze only; I know nothing of Linux :cry: ) :

1 put HD in enclosure carefully of course
2 attach to computer (via USB or Firewire connection)
3 allow computer to recognize new device
4 install drivers (if any)
5 format to desired file system (FAT32, NFTS, etc.)
6 go out and play
7 when format is done, use HD
8 when done using HD, remove following proper procedure (in manual)
9 rinse & repeat
 
9 out of 10 PsyClerks recommend Partition Magic for your formating/partitioning needs. The other 1 out of the 10 is just being contrary.

Partition Magic will let you format that big ol drive in about 10 seconds.
 
[quote name='jaykrue'][quote name='tenzor'][quote name='AzN_BaLLeR']Personally I've had a horrible experience with newegg... Their products do not work sometimes.. However they do offer a refund and blah blah blah. But that takes time...

I use www.plpc.com

27$ enclosure kit... Very nice.. Im using it right now.. =)

http://www.plpc.com/product_details.asp?dept_id=214&pf_id=CO02CTR0057

55$ 80 gig Hd...

http://www.plpc.com/product_details.asp?dept_id=211&pf_id=CO02HDD0403[/quote]

how does that work? I want to get a external hd as well. Do you take the 80 gig hd and put it inside the enclosure kit or something?[/quote]

Not too difficult to do (applies to Windoze only; I know nothing of Linux :cry: ) :

1 put HD in enclosure carefully of course
2 attach to computer (via USB or Firewire connection)
3 allow computer to recognize new device
4 install drivers (if any)
5 format to desired file system (FAT32, NFTS, etc.)
6 go out and play
7 when format is done, use HD
8 when done using HD, remove following proper procedure (in manual)
9 rinse & repeat[/quote]

Good instructions.. But when I did it... I reccomend installing the drivers before plugging the USB device in.. If I had known that it would have saved me some of time.

My experience with newegg was maybe a year ago before I found plpc. I ordered a hard drive 120 gigs.. But when it got to me I had gotten an 80 gig. So I call them up and tell them. They did not believe my side of the story, after multiple times of complaining and calling then they finally took my word for it and had sent me a return label.

Then they tell me it had to be throughly tested for like 2 weeks. Which is obsurd because it took me about 1 week to get them to believe my part of the story. So I decided to take a refund.. That took almost 2 months to recieve my credit back, I even had to rush them a few times asking where is my credit.

Then I just bought a damn harddrive from the Blackfriday sale of 2003 at BB for a mere 50$. Now I use plpc... I hear that newegg has changed, but I have always like plpc, they also speak chinese! =) And they are located in CA so shipments to me take only one day for UPS.
 
[quote name='PsyClerk']9 out of 10 PsyClerks recommend Partition Magic for your formating/partitioning needs. The other 1 out of the 10 is just being contrary.

Partition Magic will let you format that big ol drive in about 10 seconds.[/quote]

There are others? Something must be done.


On a brand new drive I strongly recommend against using tools like Partition Magic for a quick format. This is fine for a known good drive but for a new unit that may need to be returned you want a fully verified formatting rather than trusting to the factory QA. It only takes a few minutes but could save a lot of misery later.
 
[quote name='shadow9689']Was checking Circuit City out today...

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/West.../sem/rpsm/oid/99810/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

Any good?[/quote]

you can almost certainly do much better than that if you keep an eye out for promotions and sales. For a unit using a 3.5" drive and requiring external power I wouldn't expect to pay more than a dollar a gigabyte until getting up into the highest capcities.

Try this list of choices
http://www2.shopping.com/xPP-Hard_Drives---interfaces__search__usb
 
I'd bought a LaCie 80 gig drive from Amazon it had a nice solid case but some how the USD connector broke so I ended up looking for a new enclosure, stripped the drive out of the old and slapped it into the new and it works like nothing happened.

Also I just kept is as Fat32 I never bothered to reformat it when I got it. Also there wasnt a need to install drivers with WinXP... although to use it with the Mac at work I did.
 
[quote name='epobirs']On a brand new drive I strongly recommend against using tools like Partition Magic for a quick format. This is fine for a known good drive but for a new unit that may need to be returned you want a fully verified formatting rather than trusting to the factory QA. It only takes a few minutes but could save a lot of misery later.[/quote]

If you have a problem, you can always do the usual formatting.

And if you're installing WinXP to a new drive, it won't matter, as XP will format it again anyways. Maybe my software is out of date, but I can never make an NTFS partition that XP will install to without wanting to do it's own formatting.
 
[quote name='PsyClerk'][quote name='epobirs']On a brand new drive I strongly recommend against using tools like Partition Magic for a quick format. This is fine for a known good drive but for a new unit that may need to be returned you want a fully verified formatting rather than trusting to the factory QA. It only takes a few minutes but could save a lot of misery later.[/quote]

If you have a problem, you can always do the usual formatting.

And if you're installing WinXP to a new drive, it won't matter, as XP will format it again anyways. Maybe my software is out of date, but I can never make an NTFS partition that XP will install to without wanting to do it's own formatting.[/quote]

why wait to have a problem? It just takes a few minutes that can be spent on playing games or something else. It's not as though you must sit there staring at it the whole time to gain the assurance.

Why would you be installing XP to an external drive, as is the case in this topic. a lot of stupid utilities didn't recognize the newer version of NTFS introduced with Win2K and cause all sorts of problem that were wrongly blamed on Microsoft. Thus they no longer leave the integrity of boot volumes to chance when it came to XP.

A word of warning. Do not create FAT32 partitions larger than 32 GB. There are many bad things that can happen. Microsoft knows this is a problem and acknowledges it on their site but for unfathomable reasons has not placed a limit in the operating systems to disallow the creation of such oversized partitions.
 
plpc.com or newegg.com
Any last suggestions?

One other question, for the external USB hard drive...
If I got two computers on a network, can I share the USB hard drive on the network so both comps can access them?
 
Uh, Firewire and USB are pretty much your only options. Unless you want a HD for a desktop and you decide to leave the HD outside the case.

Firewire is much faster than USB 2.0, but unless you're going to be constantly transferring files and such, USB 2.0 should be good enough...
 
Meh, guess I'll stick with USB.
Also, I got 3 computers.
Can I put the hard drive on shared so that all 3 computers can access the hard drive?
 
i bought my netdisk 80gb external hd for about a dollar a gig from fry's. they sell a different name brand now, but i'm sure it's about the same. i see them on sale about every 2 weeks so check them out if you have one nearby. good luck! :)
 
[quote name='shadow9689']Meh, guess I'll stick with USB.
Also, I got 3 computers.
Can I put the hard drive on shared so that all 3 computers can access the hard drive?[/quote]

No, it has to be connected to only one system at any time. If you look around you'll find some slightly more expensive drives that support network connections as well as USB. Linksys makes a device that places up to two existing USB drives on the network. This easily allows a drive to be pulled out for transporting files to another site without messing with the network setuup once it's all in place.

http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=35&scid=43&prid=640
 
Does anybody here know an easy way to hook up an external hard drive to a network so 3 computers can access them? Is it even possible?
If I were to connect it to one computer, would it be possible at all to share it, just like sharing the internal hard drive?
 
[quote name='shadow9689']Does anybody here use a USB external hard drive on a network?
Is it possible at all?[/quote]

I don't currently, but if you external HD was plugged into computer "A", and hooked up to a network with computers "B" and "C", then as long as the HD was set up as shared, they would have access to it.

Sorry for the run on sentence.
 
[quote name='AzN_BaLLeR']Personally I've had a horrible experience with newegg... Their products do not work sometimes.. However they do offer a refund and blah blah blah. But that takes time...

I use www.plpc.com

27$ enclosure kit... Very nice.. Im using it right now.. =)

http://www.plpc.com/product_details.asp?dept_id=214&pf_id=CO02CTR0057

55$ 80 gig Hd...

http://www.plpc.com/product_details.asp?dept_id=211&pf_id=CO02HDD0403[/quote]

Damn I need a bigger drive for my laptop, this is damn cheap for 80 gig. Sweet! :D
 
[quote name='AzN_BaLLeR']Personally I've had a horrible experience with newegg... Their products do not work sometimes.. However they do offer a refund and blah blah blah. But that takes time...

I use www.plpc.com

27$ enclosure kit... Very nice.. Im using it right now.. =)

http://www.plpc.com/product_details.asp?dept_id=214&pf_id=CO02CTR0057

55$ 80 gig Hd...

http://www.plpc.com/product_details.asp?dept_id=211&pf_id=CO02HDD0403[/quote]

Damn I need a bigger drive for my laptop, this is damn cheap for 80 gig. Sweet! :D
 
office max on black friday will have a 200 gig for 49.95, grab an enclosure for that and have a nice big storage space
 
Hoooly crap!
...When is Black Friday? :p
200 gigs is nice.
And if it can be shared on a server, (My comps are running on a network), then 200 gigs shared.
Woo hoo! :p
 
it's internal since Western Digital doesn't make external drives AFAIK but ya, this is the best deal i've seen so far for black friday. I'm picking up 3 (2 for myself and 1 for my friend since he's out of the country)
 
[quote name='shadow9689']Hoooly crap!
...When is Black Friday? :p
200 gigs is nice.
And if it can be shared on a server, (My comps are running on a network), then 200 gigs shared.
Woo hoo! :p[/quote]

black friday is the day after thanksgiving, so this year, its the 26th. also, the sales are only during the early morning, from about 6am til noon.
 
I love "black friday". The feel of the rush of everyone shopping in the morning is...i dunno...make me antsy.

I'll be at Office Max for that hard drive....thanks for the heads up. I might even buy 2...
 
So, I can pick up that 200 gig internal hard drive at Office Max, buy an enclosure for it (so it's not physically in my computer), and then share it on my network?

...I wonder what to do with 200 gigs :p
And how the hell can anybody waste more than 1000 gigs?

EDIT: 6 am to noon?
Crap...I'll probably still make it though, just gotta get out early :p
 
[quote name='jaykrue']it's internal since Western Digital doesn't make external drives AFAIK but ya, this is the best deal i've seen so far for black friday. I'm picking up 3 (2 for myself and 1 for my friend since he's out of the country)[/quote]

just fyi, they do make externals (I bought an 80 gig external for 60 bucks on sale). But yeah, I too saw the 200 gig on the Black Friday list. Woohoo!
 
[quote name='shadow9689']Black Friday list?

Also, can I put the internal into an enclosure and just leave it outside the computer, but still hook it up?[/quote]


Black friday sales = BF2004.net

The enclosure IS outside the comp...think of it an external mem card reader, but for a hard-drive
 
[quote name='shadow9689']...I wonder what to do with 200 gigs :p
And how the hell can anybody waste more than 1000 gigs?[/quote]

Trust me, it's VERY possible to waste a 1Terabyte in a matter of months. Thank goodness I have a DVD burner to move stuff off quickly

[quote name='Zmonkey']just fyi, they do make externals (I bought an 80 gig external for 60 bucks on sale). But yeah, I too saw the 200 gig on the Black Friday list. Woohoo![/quote]

Really? How would you say it performs? Good? Bad?

[quote name='shadow9689']Also, can I put the internal into an enclosure and just leave it outside the computer, but still hook it up?[/quote]

That's the nature of an enclosure. It's almost like a cartridge system (like a SNES) where you swap the 'cartridge' (i.e. the hard drive) in and out w/ each game but instead of games, you swap out hard drives
 
Will the external hard drive have overheating problem if I leave it on too long like 4 hours? Should I get an external fan to blow on it to reduce the heat?
 
Is the Western Digital 200GB Hard-Drive ATA133, ATA100, or SATA150? And how many MB of cache does it have? 7200 RPM?

And will Office Max open at 6 am on Black Friday?

Why are some products only cost $0 in the black friday website? Are they really free?
 
With the internal hard drive set up in an enclosure OUTSIDE the computer, would I need a cooling system or something?

Also, any good recommendations for a enclosure that can be a "external memory reader"?


Terrabyte, you guys are nuts :p
It boggles me XD
 
[quote name='yogi99']And will Office Max open at 6 am on Black Friday?

Why are some products only cost $0 in the black friday website? Are they really free?[/quote]

Yes

and $0 means either FAR (Free after rebate) or after instant rebates (instant coupon type deal). So some will really be walk in, walk out. Weird, huh?
 
If I walk in to Office Max at 6 am will I still find the Western Digital Hard drive? Or should I wait outside Office Max from 1 am or something?
 
Don't know about the office max by you, but I got to mine about 15 minutes before they openned, there were only about 20 people, and I got 2 of everything I wanted (brought my mom along, cuz many deals were limit 1 per person).
 
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