[wellylug] External USB drive

Cliff Pratt enkidu at cliffp.com
Wed Oct 3 21:56:48 NZDT 2007


Phillip Hutchings wrote:
> On 3/10/2007, at 19:56, 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?
> 
> What makes you think a laptop's power system is underpowered? If it's  
> capable of running the system and charging the battery simultaneously  
> it must have more power than is needed to run the system alone.
> 
> I wouldn't go for a bus powered system solely because they're  
> restricted to 2.5" drives, 3.5" ones are much cheaper per GB.
> 
Partial writes, corrupt files, complete filesystems disappearing. All 
these problems went away when the (optional) power supply was plugged 
in. Other USB devices not working or being flakey until they were 
plugged into a powered hub. I've never known a powered device acting 
flakey. Printers or USB ADSL modems (yuk!) all seem to work OK.

Cheers,

Cliff




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