[wellylug] External USB drive

[Cliff Pratt]

Jethro Carr wrote:
> 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.
> 
Well, I've had all sorts of problems wih external hard drives and CD/DVD 
burners.

Cheers,

Cliff