About External Hard Disk

Lok1990 · Post by **Lok1990** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 10:57 am

My computer's space is very tiny that I could hardly make any amvs, therefore I have started working so i could buy an external hard disk. before buying the external hard disk, i need to make sure the external hard disk i buy will work with my computer. I'm pretty worry about it since last time my friend came with his new hard disk player and my computer seemed cannot detect it and the light of the hard disk player was blinking. I'm afraid that the same thing happens to my external hard disk, which i have worked for one month to pay for.

My comp info:
MS Windows XP(service pack 1)
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 1500MHz
512MB SD RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 256
USB 1.0

Is it because of the poor USB 1.0 that made my computer cannot detect the hard disk player, and does the USB 1.0 affect the external USB hard disk?

~Lok1990~

Kariudo · Post by **Kariudo** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 12:28 pm

your computer should work with almost any external hard drive, though the usb 1.1 (or 1.0) is going to slow down your transfer speeds (most usb devices now use usb2.0 . A usb2.0 device will work in a usb1.1 port)

if you're having trouble detecting the external HD, you may have to install service pack 2

Lok1990 · Post by **Lok1990** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 10:38 pm

Kariudo wrote:your computer should work with almost any external hard drive, though the usb 1.1 (or 1.0) is going to slow down your transfer speeds (most usb devices now use usb2.0 . A usb2.0 device will work in a usb1.1 port)

if you're having trouble detecting the external HD, you may have to install service pack 2

K understood. Thanks for reply

hmm another question, if I edit video directly from the external HD, will it lag like hell(especially with my USB 1.0 port)

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:25 pm

USB 1.0 has transfer speeds of 187 kB/s for low-speed and 1.5MB/s for full speed compared with USB 2.0's 60 MB/s transfer speed and a SATA HDD's 150MB/s or 300MB/s data rate.

You're looking at transfer speeds of 100 to 200 times slower than with an internal SATA Hard Drive.

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:53 am

When you tried your friend's external drive, did that drive have its own power supply? I've had older PCs where the USB port did not supply enough power to run even a small laptop drive. Situations like that require that the external case have its own power cord in addition to the USB cable.

If you have a desktop (not laptop) with a spare PCI slot, one of these would help:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815106007.

There are similar products for laptops, like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815124011

Lok1990 · Post by **Lok1990** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 10:27 am

BasharOfTheAges wrote:USB 1.0 has transfer speeds of 187 kB/s for low-speed and 1.5MB/s for full speed compared with USB 2.0's 60 MB/s transfer speed and a SATA HDD's 150MB/s or 300MB/s data rate.

You're looking at transfer speeds of 100 to 200 times slower than with an internal SATA Hard Drive.

I made up my mind now, I will get an internal Hard Drive instead. Thanks for advices.

TaranT wrote: When you tried your friend's external drive, did that drive have its own power supply? I've had older PCs where the USB port did not supply enough power to run even a small laptop drive. Situations like that require that the external case have its own power cord in addition to the USB cable.

If you have a desktop (not laptop) with a spare PCI slot, one of these would help:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc
t.aspx?Item=N82E16815106007.

There are similar products for laptops, like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6815124011

I think it is the power supply problem XD

Since I decided to replace my old HD with the new HD as the PRIMARY drive, then how should I move the files to the new HD without using the 3rd HD?

Can it work like this?
- Since I have 2 partitions in my old HD, I will format the first partition(where the system files keep) and keep my files in 2nd partitions
- Plug out the old HD and plug in the new one to install window
- the old HD as external and move all my files to the new HD

and yea, i dont feel like want to use the 40 GB as primary.

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Tue Mar 04, 2008 2:42 pm

If you have an empty drive bay inside the case, why not use it and have both drives available? That way you don't have to spend any time (or risk data loss) on the old one. And you don't need to buy an external drive case.

Two options: (1) leave the old drive as it is and install the new drive as a slave or as the master on the secondary, or (2) make the new drive the primary master, install Windows on it, and locate the old drive as the slave.

Instructions for this operation:
http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/adding-a-secon ... ur-pc/2988
http://askbobrankin.com/add_a_second_hard_drive.html
http://www.infohq.com/Computer/adding-s ... review.htm
http://www.cyberwalker.com/article/76

Lok1990 · Post by **Lok1990** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:46 am

Thanks for the help. I know what should do now.