External Hard Drive help!

Capajoma

Hey, anyone know what the largest size (1tb, 2tb, etc.) portable or external hard drive I can get without a power adapter, thanks!

cookie1977

about 1tb i think

Torqay

1.5 TB is largest 2.5" HDD at the moment, may require a special enclosure, as they are higher than the regular formfactor.

armitage_skanks

2TB is the largest 2.5" drive, WD have a 2TB MyPassport.

It just launched so there won't be anything larger for approx 18 months.

Capajoma

Sorry for my lac of knowledge on this subject but why does it have to be 2.5, is it possible to get a 3.5 without a power adapter?

yoyo

Capajoma wrote: »

Sorry for my lac of knowledge on this subject but why does it have to be 2.5, is it possible to get a 3.5 without a power adapter?

2.5" is traditionally a laptop hard disk (although many desktop oriented SSDs are 2.5" lately), 2.5" drives require less power, so they can be powered via USB. Desktop 3.5" drives have larger capacity as they are physically larger by quite a difference, so need a power outlet source (USB doesn't provide much power, its why a phone charges much quicker in the wall than through USB).
A picture speaks a thousand words :pac: :


Nick

armitage_skanks

Capajoma wrote: »

Sorry for my lac of knowledge on this subject but why does it have to be 2.5, is it possible to get a 3.5 without a power adapter?

No.

Torqay

You won't get the 12V required for 3.5" SATA drives from a USB port.

PogMoThoin

Torqay wrote: »

You won't get the 12V required for 3.5" SATA drives from a USB port.

It's not the voltage, USB can only supply 500mA

Torqay

PogMoThoin wrote: »

It's not the voltage, USB can only supply 500mA

It is the voltage, 500mA are sufficient... quick check with a WD Green Caviar 1.5 TB

Power Requirements, 12V DC, Read/Write 296 mA, Idle 243 mA

You'll only get 5 V on a USB port.

PogMoThoin

The B in USB is BUS, it's a power rail, therefore that's 500mA maximum shared between all USB devices and cannot be guaranteed. It's the reason why all mechanical USB drives struggle compared to powered ones.

Torqay

PogMoThoin wrote: »

The B in USB is BUS, it's a power rail, therefore that's 500mA maximum shared between all USB devices and cannot be guaranteed. It's the reason why all mechanical USB drives struggle compared to powered ones.

True all that, but a 7k2 RPM 2.5" HDD is easily using 500mA or more in read/write mode, which is more than many slower 3.5 HDDs so the problem is not necessarily the power consumption but the required voltage.

yoyo

Enough of the arguing please folks. Keep on topic

PogMoThoin

Torqay wrote: »

True all that, but a 7k2 RPM 2.5" HDD is easily using 500mA or more in read/write mode, which is more than many slower 3.5 HDDs so the problem is not necessarily the power consumption but the required voltage.

We'll just agree that all non powered mechanical drives are crap

@OP, Buy a powered one, they are better. Get an enclosure and a large 3.5inch Sata as separates if you need to.

mikom

Anyone got any recommendations or links for a fair priced and reliable 1 or 2tb external drive while we are on the subject.

Pixmania has this one here.....WESTERN DIGITAL WD Elements Desktop External Hard Drive - 2 TB 119 Inc. VAT
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/4906663/art/western-digital/wd-elements-desktop-exter.html

Can't see a better one out there.

Torqay

mikom wrote: »

Pixmania has this one here.....WESTERN DIGITAL WD Elements Desktop External Hard Drive - 2 TB 119 Inc. VAT
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/4906663/art/western-digital/wd-elements-desktop-exter.html

Can't see a better one out there.

komplett offers the same model for €119.95 but including delivery, while Pix charge a tenner for the delivery, so you'de be saving €9.04 with komplett.

mikom

Torqay wrote: »

komplett offers the same model for €119.95 but including delivery, while Pix charge a tenner for the delivery, so you'de be saving €9.04 with komplett.

Fair play.
A tenner saved is a tenner earned.

Torqay

mikom wrote: »

Fair play.
A tenner saved is a tenner earned.

Pix do have a few 2 TB USB 3.0 drives for a tenner more though, while komplett seems to be short of those.

This Verbatim for example, €129.

Capajoma

Cheers for the help guys!

cookie1977

Here's a good priced 1TB drive on Komplett no extra power source needed

€109.95

http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/Site/Catalog/ItemDetail.aspx?ItemNo=20055484&utm_source=Komplett_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=12-04-23&s2m_channel=102&s2m_type=3

danjo-xx

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