[wellylug] debian.paradise.net.nz more choice?

[Ewen McNeill]

In message <1063156985.2399.6.camel at Gir>, Jamie Dobbs writes:
>The group currently has a reasonably healthy amount of cash that I
>propose we use a portion of to buy an external USB case for the 30Gb
>drive so that it can be plugged into any users PC for them to get
>distro's off (most modern kernels handle USB drives with no issues).

I'd strongly suggest you get a dual USB 2.0 _and_ firewire case if you
want to do this.  Transfers over either USB 2.0 or Firewire are plenty
quick (both are faster than the transfer speed of a single hard drive).
Transfers over USB 1.0/1.1 (12Mbps = around 1.2MBps) are rather slow,
especially for large files (and we're talking whole CD images here
I gather).

There are a bunch of machines with only USB 1.0/1.1 built in, some of
which have firewire for other reasons (eg, my laptop came like that;
and some sound, video out, etc, cards also come with firewire ports).

There are various USB 2.0 and firewire (ie, supporting both) enclosures
for around the $150-$170 mark at Ascent, etc, which is only a little
more expensive than single-protocol enclosures.

Aside from that suggestion, it sounds like a good idea to me.

Ewen