Request - Portable Harddrive 250GB

Trotter

Hi All,

Can anyone tell me if they've spotted any good deals on a portable harddrive, at least 200GB.

Rumour has it Lidl should have one soon but can anyone confirm that?

Cheers!

Hunter S

Id try skibum he usualy has a few lying around:D

MagnumForce

I bought a 250Gb SATA internal drive and an external case to put it in, €121 for the drive, €50 for the case both from www.komplett.ie not bad i'd say, USB not Firewire though.
Good Luck

wideangle

I have one of the targa box 250 gig external hard drives.I bought it in lidl october 2004 for 200 euro,it was a bargin then and the price has dropped since.Ive had absolutly no problems with it what so ever and use it every day with out fail.I went to a branch outside the city as they would'nt sell out as fast and I came away happy.:)

Trotter

wideangle wrote:

I have one of the targa box 250 gig external hard drives.I bought it in lidl october 2004 for 200 euro,it was a bargin then and the price has dropped since.Ive had absolutly no problems with it what so ever and use it every day with out fail.I went to a branch outside the city as they would'nt sell out as fast and I came away happy.:)

Any idea if they'll be coming back into Lidl?

scribs

I also have teh Targa 250 Gb hard drive - great little thing. Got tired waiting for Lidl to bring them backa again so bought a 320 Gb Wetern Digital of www.pixmania.com

Chek out http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/150866/art/western-digital/essential-320-gb-usb-2-0.html

Takeshi_Kovacs

got a targa 250 as well, great yoke altogether...
you should check out your local aldi/lidl store, as one of them had a 250 hd on offere few weeks back..
sometimes they don't sell out, and there might be one left if you ask in store...

Trotter

No joy on Lidl or Aldi for the 250gb Targa or anything similar. The biggie in PC World would have been good but I didnt get there in time.

If anyone spots one around, Id be grateful if you'd give me the nod!

michaelpwilson

This drive is available from Pixmania. It's a LaCie 250 Gb external HDD (USB 2.0, 7200 RPM, 2 Mb cache), and is about €145 including delivery. Some people have reported problems with it, but I bought one and it seems fine so far - but then again, I don't have it switched on 24/7. The actual drive inside the case is usually supplied by Maxtor or Seagate; mine was a Seagate. I would advise you that the USB cable that comes with it is _extremely_ short, however.

Hope this helps

Michael

DingChavez

well, I got a 320GB HDD off komplett and an external case with firewire off ebay. Together it cost me about €180. You could try that.

Trotter

michaelpwilson wrote:

This drive is available from Pixmania. It's a LaCie 250 Gb external HDD (USB 2.0, 7200 RPM, 2 Mb cache), and is about €145 including delivery. Some people have reported problems with it, but I bought one and it seems fine so far - but then again, I don't have it switched on 24/7. The actual drive inside the case is usually supplied by Maxtor or Seagate; mine was a Seagate. I would advise you that the USB cable that comes with it is _extremely_ short, however.

Hope this helps
Michael

Cheers Lads, I'll check those out alright. I might give Lidl a ring too and see if they have any plans!

Stephen

You probably won't be able to find a phone number for them in the phone book, they're a bit funny like that.

Jammer

250gb freecom disk for €129.99 in PC World

Missed out on a 320GB Toshiba for €159.99 just after XMAS!

Trotter

Jammer wrote:

250gb freecom disk for €129.99 in PC World

Missed out on a 320GB Toshiba for €159.99 just after XMAS!

External?? If so.. Im on my way!

gaui3d0pnbz86o

back in stock in most pc worlds now the tosh 320 gb for 160, can conform liffey valley had about 25 on friday

Jammer

Joselyn Dirty Tapir wrote:

back in stock in most pc worlds now the tosh 320 gb for 160, can conform liffey valley had about 25 on friday

that was *supposed* to be a 2 day deal (26,27th dec)

€129.99 for 250GB isnt bad anyhow.

johnnyboy4711

went in for tosh 320gb day after 2-day sale no go,so found a bar code for freecom 250gb external(didnt see any on display)guy went in back,and snapped it up!!!
USB 2.0,pretty quick had to take a lot of info off pc and on to it!

opus

scribs wrote:

I also have teh Targa 250 Gb hard drive - great little thing. Got tired waiting for Lidl to bring them backa again so bought a 320 Gb Wetern Digital of www.pixmania.com

Chek out http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/150866/art/western-digital/essential-320-gb-usb-2-0.html

Looks like a good deal, think I'll go for one of those.

branners69

I bought a 300gb from this crowd before xmas, it set me back around the €180 but is has firewire which I wanted aswell as USB 2 of course!!

I am well chuffed with mine and it was delivered within 3 days..

The site was recommended on boards before which is how I came upon it!!

Bacchus

Lot of deals out there. So confused as to which to go for myself. What do ye think of this one... http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=313108&cks=PRL

Looks nice and neat. No external power source needed either which is great. Works out as 60c per gig. Would I be better off holding out for the next lidl deal. What I'm looking for is a neat little extern harddrive, upwards of 200Gb that doesn't need an external power source.

Alun

Bacchus wrote:

Lot of deals out there. So confused as to which to go for myself. What do ye think of this one... http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=313108&cks=PRL

Looks nice and neat. No external power source needed either which is great.

Not according to Maxtor's website ...

Works out as 60c per gig. Would I be better off holding out for the next lidl deal. What I'm looking for is a neat little extern harddrive, upwards of 200Gb that doesn't need an external power source.

Not sure whether such a beast exists ... problem is that a USB port will provide 5V only at 500mA max. That rules out the use of 3.5" drives as they all require 12V as well as consuming much more power than that, so you're pretty much restricted to 2.5" laptop drives which max out at 100GB at the moment. Also your USB port may not actually be able to deliver the full whack of power needed, although some enclosures allow you to attach a second USB cable to a second USB port on your PC just to supply the extra power needed.

Bacchus

Damnit. Why doesn't Komplett mention that it comes with a power adaptor then. From the mini review it sounds like ran off the USB. Hmmm, really wanted it to be portable so I didn't have to plug in in to anything..... Waiting to get broadband in which will probably take 2-3 weeks. How fast are the capacities on the USB powered externs increasing. If I waited a month do you think there would be harddrives in the 150-200Gb region?

Alun

I don't know why komplett don't give that information. Anyway, always check the spec on anything you see on any online site with the manufacturer's website first ... you know it makes sense

As for capacities ... who knows? I see that Hitachi now have 120GB 2.5" drives, so it might not be too long now. You can always buy a separate drive and enclosure (you may not necessarily easily be able to take apart a ready-assembled external drive) now to tide you over and replace the drive separately later on when (if) capacities increase to the level you need.

Bacchus

Had a look around at the 2.5" drives. They're a tad bit expensive for me. Think I'll just bite the bullet and get a 3.5" drive. What should I be looking for when comparing models. Obviously size and weight are issues. But some specs give "Interface Transfer Rate" and "Max Sustained Transfer Rate". Which should I go by when comparing?
At the moment I'm looking at these two...

http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/40863/art/lacie/hard-drive-design-by-fa-p.html
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=313108&cks=PRL

The Lacie one looks pretty sweet and is slightly smaller than the Maxtor.

Thanks for your quick response btw.

demosuzki

Bacchus wrote:

...No external power source needed either....

bacchus
are you sure about this ?
i thought, asa rule of thumb, that anythign over 40gb would need an external power source

/ds

Alun

The interface transfer rate for USB 2.0 Hi-speed is always going to be 480Mbit/s, so that's not really important. The sustained data rate is the important one in theory, although very often, significant differences in benchmark speeds like this actually translate into miniscule differences in real-world application performance.

I have a Western Digital 160GB external USB 2.0 drive I bought a year ago, and if anything it "feels" faster than my ultra-fast internal drives somehow (and certainly quiter!)

elvis2002

Alun is right with the 480Mbit/s which is 60 megaBYTES per second (MB/s) but you'll never get over 35MB/s for sustained read and write. The average speed could in fact be as low as 15MB/s.

Wertz

Buffalo external 250mb usb2.0 HDD works out at €146 delivered from Amazon...got one in my basket at the minute; waiting to combine postage with some other stuff.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007R6CGC/ref=pd_luc_mri/026-1723996-0709207?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

blobert

Wertz wrote:

Buffalo external 250mb usb2.0 HDD works out at €146 delivered from Amazon...got one in my basket at the minute; waiting to combine postage with some other stuff.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007R6CGC/ref=pd_luc_mri/026-1723996-0709207?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

That looks like a great deal, thanks.

Tar.Aldarion

Oh cool, nice one wertz
It'll either be that or one off ebay for me.
Random search, http://cgi.ebay.com/EXTERNAL-250GB-USB-2-0-SLIM-MOBILE-HARD-DRIVE-7200-8MB_W0QQitemZ8747621738QQcategoryZ116258QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Smithers

do all the ones quouted have internal fans for cooling and whats teh standard warranty with tham lads? cant seem to find it, looking for external also, is it possible to get one of these with a network connection as well as usb 2?

joc_06

what is a case you'd all recommend for a 3.5" drive. i only need usb2
i noticed on komplett that a lot of cases have poor design as a comment.
anyone actually own and recommend a case?
must be quiet without compromising on cooling...