External Harddrive USB 3 (No power adapter needed)

Hal Emmerich

Got one in Aldi yesterday (Sunday). 640GB. There behind the tills, you have to ask for them.

€65. Good price.

Similar but smaller one on amazon is near same price.

antocann

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

Got one in Aldi yesterday (Sunday). 640GB. There behind the tills, you have to ask for them.

€65. Good price.

Similar but smaller one on amazon is near same price.

good find but to be honest not a great price , can get 1-1.5 tb for same

godtabh

antocann wrote: »

good find but to be honest not a great price , can get 1-1.5 tb for same

they wont be usb 3

wardie101

antocann wrote: »

good find but to be honest not a great price , can get 1-1.5 tb for same

Its portable so it is a decent price...you cant get a 1.5tb portable drive for anything like that price

ShatterProof

can i plus a usb 3 drive into a good old fashioned usb 2 pc ?


and 2 seconds of googling says yes ....

godtabh

do you get the same benefits as usb 3 or do you need a usb 3 port as well?

paikea

godtabh wrote: »

do you get the same benefits as usb 3 or do you need a usb 3 port as well?

To avail of the high speed you will need a USB3 port.

I have not read about USB3 in while now but when it was released there was a lot of mentions to the fact that even if you get an USB3 external HD attached to an USB3 port that you would not get really great speeds with it... Not sure if manufacturers have improved their external HDs to handle the speeds better now, but I would definitely check it first before buying one.

whore

getting usb 3 on an external has limited point as the slowest part of the transfer process would be the hard drive itself and not the usb 3 connection so you would see a very very limited increase in speed, not worth spending the cash on tbh, you'd need an SSD in order to take advantage of the extra speed offered by usb 3.

T-Bird

whore wrote: »

getting usb 3 on an external has limited point as the slowest part of the transfer process would be the hard drive itself and not the usb 3 connection so you would see a very very limited increase in speed, not worth spending the cash on tbh, you'd need an SSD in order to take advantage of the extra speed offered by usb 3.

I noticed quite a big difference in the transfer speeds and the prices of the drives are comparable or even cheaper than some USB 2 drives. You need a USB 3 card, I got one for 12 euro from a store in the UK on ebay.

wingnut

They were also selling usb 3 express cards so you can add usb 3 to your laptop. €25

ch750536

whore wrote: »

getting usb 3 on an external has limited point as the slowest part of the transfer process would be the hard drive itself and not the usb 3 connection so you would see a very very limited increase in speed, not worth spending the cash on tbh, you'd need an SSD in order to take advantage of the extra speed offered by usb 3.

You might have an ssd tomorrow.

johnwd

I picked up a usb3 enabled portable drive a few months back and got a USB card for my 5yo PC at the same time - PC has a regular 1TB internal hard drive. The difference is very noticable - 2 times the speed of USB 2.0, if not more. Portable drives all the way for me - much more convenient as they take their power over USB.

Cameraman

whore wrote: »

getting usb 3 on an external has limited point as the slowest part of the transfer process would be the hard drive itself and not the usb 3 connection so you would see a very very limited increase in speed, not worth spending the cash on tbh, you'd need an SSD in order to take advantage of the extra speed offered by usb 3.

I find it hard to believe that this is correct - why would anyone ever use eSATA then ?

See http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/02/05/esata-is-faster-than-usb-3-0-at-least-right-now/ for one benchmark comparison.

ch750536

USB3 on a machine designed for USB will outperform esata by a long way. USB 3 through expresscard will make them both the same as the card is the limiting factor.

Still the case that the next PC you buy will most likely have USB3, so will be faster.

whore

Cameraman wrote: »

See http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/02/05/esata-is-faster-than-usb-3-0-at-least-right-now/ for one benchmark comparison.

If you look at that review if says that a 5400rpm drive plugged in internally has about the same write speed as a 7200rpm drive plugged in externally through USB3, which makes absolutely no sense.

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1307000#entry31482634

Point proven

I never said it wouldn't go faster, actually i said it WOULD go faster, just not by much, nothing like the jump you see there with the SSD, my point was the hard drive is a bottleneck in the transfer if you use usb3 or esata and esata is cheaper, why spend more on something that has very little or no benefits?

BostonB

More things are going to have USB3 than will have eSata.