[wellylug] External USB drive

[Jethro Carr]

On Wed, 2007-10-03 at 19:56 +1300, Cliff Pratt wrote:
> jumbophut wrote:
> > Hi all
> > 
> > I'm looking to buy an external USB drive for my Linux box.
> > 
> > Requirements:
> > 
> > 1. USB 2.0
> > 2. Bus-powered (no external AC/DC adaptor)
> > 3. Works with Linux usb-ehci and usb-storage drivers.
> > 
> > Nice to have, but certainly not essential:
> > 4. Firewire connection
> > 
> > Does anybody have experience with/recommendations for drives meeting
> > these requirements?  Will pretty much any drive be compatible, or are
> > some Windows-only? (I have been to the vendor sites and they mostly
> > say Windows / Mac compatible, but don't tend to say anything about
> > Linux).
> > 
> Point 2. I'd advise against a bus-powered one even if you do have to lug 
> a power brick around. I've seen and heard of too many problems with 
> bus-powered pretty much anything to really trust my data to a bus 
> powered device. If it's a laptop you are connecting to, why stress an 
> already underpowered power system?

Any decent laptop will deliver the required amount of power over USB.
I've used 2.5" external drives with a number of laptops without any
problems.

The only time you will run into problems with bus powered drives, is if
you connect multiple devices to a single port (eg: using a non-powered
hub) which is pretty obvious. :-)


-- 
Jethro Carr

www.jethrocarr.com
www.jethrocarr.com/index.php?cms=blog

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