AnimeSuki Forums

Sandman21 · 2006-03-01, 06:25

I'm planning to get me an external HDD. My laptop is almost full of anime and manga. I need to store them somwhere else. What do you guys recommend?

grey_moon · 2006-03-01, 08:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandman21

I'm planning to get me an external HDD. My laptop is almost full of anime and manga. I need to store them somwhere else. What do you guys recommend?

If you want the most cost effective USB2 type then i would have to recommend the

"LaCie 300728EK 250GB 7200rpm External USB 2.0 Hard Drive Design by F.A Porsche"

I've got two of these puppies, one left on (VMware server files) and the other gets turned on when I need it (anime archive). My sis also has one for her Mac and she has no complaints about it at all.

It needs external power, not too sure about bus powered hdds.

I would recommend against the Maxtor range as they are just too expensive and get too hot.

Also if you have been considering the NetGear NetStorage then be warned, they need a client installed on the PC and use some proprietary protocol that is currently only supported in Windows. I have also heard it clashes with virtual drives such as Alcohol and Daemon Tools.

Sandman21 · 2006-03-01, 10:03

Hmm...can't seem to find the model 300728EK on Amazon. But LaCie seems like a good line. External power isn't too much of a hassle for me, although bus powered would be nice. Now could someone tell me why mobile HDs seem to be more expensive? Any one else got a other recommendations.

microlith · 2006-03-01, 10:25

If you want truly good speed, get a Firewire 400 card and a Firewire based disk. I've hit easily 40MB/s transfer from my internal disk to my external drives. Also, a properly designed external Firewire disk can be chained with other Firewire disks, letting you use one port for an entire stack of drives.

If you want a small drive for portability, pick up a 9.5mm laptop hard drive and an external USB enclosure. I've got one with a 40GB drive in it and it's handy for carrying stuff around when I go to work.

Most small laptop sized drives can run off the power of the USB port, but any 3.5" drives will require external power (they're just way too big.)

I've got a 120GB I-O Data drive I picked up in Japan in early 2004. Uses a Samsung internally and has run flawlessly since. December 2005 I picked up a 160GB:

http://www.acomdata.com/hdp/harddrives-HDXXXFE5-72.html

The 120GB is chained off the 160, which plugs into the port in the back of my PC.

Kurz · 2006-03-01, 11:38

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...=LaCie&Ntk=all

Here is a link...

BTW Amazon.com is not an electronics website dont treat it as such.

Newegg.com is one of the better electronics website and i give them alot of praise for how they do business. However if you want to see if you can find it cheaper. www.pricegrabber.com has comparisons on products with several other websites.

Sandman21 · 2006-03-01, 11:58

Thanks for the recommendations guys. I'm not much of a hardware guy. I don't know my stuff. I'm just a freshman ComSci. So I might not know a lot of things about hardware. I'm thinking of getting a capacity of 200GB+ for optimal use on my anime archiving and other stuff. And maybe later on I'll get myself what microlith recommends with the 9.5 mm drive for portability. Now I know what a USB is. But what is FireWire. I can't seem to understand it. I'm guessing it's something you hook up to the PC card slot(?). And what does microlith mean by "properly" designed FireWire disk. If I can chain them together, than great. Just means that if I buy more drives in the future I can just connect them together. I'm guessing you can't do that with a USB interface(?). What I want is 200GB+ somewhere in the $200 price range. That would be nice.

Kurz · 2006-03-01, 16:03

You dont need firewire harddrive for archiving. A usb Harddrive will be fine.

Firewire is used when you want to do video editing from a External harddrive. In other words when you need the performance of a firewire connect then get it.

But if you are just archiving there is no need.

Xellos-_^ · 2006-03-01, 17:33

What you might want to do is buy the HD and the External Drive case seperately. I bought a External cast off ebay for $40 (including shipping), I saw the same case in compusa for $69.99. Only difference the brand name stamp on it. If you buy the parts seperately you might save yourself $50-$60 then buying the case+drive together.

Ledgem · 2006-03-03, 21:21

I'd go with Xellos' recommendation myself. If you buy the HD yourself you gain full control over the size and manufacturer; then just stick it in an enclosure. If you shop around, and especially if you find some rebates, you'll end up saving quite a bit than if you just bought some company's external drive.

Externals cost more because there's more to them. Regular HD kits include the HD, a connector cable, and screws. The external drives include the drive already installed into an external enclosure, and if the enclosure is particularly fancy (such as being self-powered) then that's more money right there.

Firewire just has faster overall transfer speeds than USB 2.0. I use firewire-based LaCie 300 GB drives in my workplace; we capture video from tape and digitize it. For regular purposes, USB will be fine for you. Firewire isn't standard on most PCs, but USB is.

If you want a $200 drive, a bad deal will involve you paying over $100 for the drive itself. Here's a sample comparison: Western Digital 320 GB for $114.. Note that this is an OEM - it won't come with a manual, cables, or screws, but if you're just going to mount it in an enclosure, you won't need those anyway. OEMs are cheaper than retail kits, but if you really don't know what you're doing, you'll feel better with a retail kit. (FYI, the manuals can be found on the manufacturers' sites most of the time anyway - you'd only need to refer to them for the jumper settings.)

Since you're new to hardware, I'll also let you know: read reviews about heat, and if sound is important to you, about how loud or quiet the drive is, too. Currently it seems that the most highly recommended manufacturer is Seagate, but it used to be Western Digital (I have two WD's, but the next drive I buy will probably be a Seagate). Maxtor ranks at the bottom of the list in terms of overall reliability.

The higher you go in drive size, the worse the cost per gigabyte becomes, too. 500-GB drives are available, but they cost over $300. Keep in mind also that the advertised drive storage size is an example of the manufacturers using the 1000-based numbering system. That is, they claim that 1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte, etc. Windows uses 1024-based numbering. So if you buy a 200 GB drive, you'll really be getting ~186 GB of space (that's what my 200 came to, anyway, but you can calculate it out). Just don't be surprised by that.

AnimeOni · 2006-03-05, 23:10

I have both a WD and Seagate 300 GB USB2 drives. WD is quieter and Seagate is cheaper. This is the first Seagate I purchased in over 5 years (due to frequent failures). Looks like Seagate fixed a lot of manufactoring issues.

Cost-wise: seagate is cheaper.
Size-wise: WD is smaller.

Ledgem · 2006-03-06, 02:19

The WD is really quieter? Seagate these days claims to be the #1 quietest now. I don't know how true it is, though... maybe it's only on certain drives.

AnimeOni · 2006-03-07, 00:39

My Seagate makes the loudest sound when it's operating. I think the indicators are fan noise these days.

BTW, Buy.com is having a Lacie 250GB drive on sale. check it out.

AOforever1 · 2006-03-07, 10:25

*looks around*
I have a IO Gear Enclosure with a 250 sitting inside and it works just fine.
I also have a generic Lantech 2.5" hdd enclosure that is USB powered. Works nicely.

Ledgem · 2006-03-07, 21:37

I'm not a fan of IO Gear. Just for the record, I have an IO Gear PCI USB/Firewire expansion card. Back in the dark ages, the iPod only could connect through firewire (or at least, I didn't have the USB cable), so I bought that card to give my system firewire support. Gaining three USB 2.0 slots was a nice bonus, considering that my motherboard only had two 1.0 slots. Well, the iPod was very skittish with that card, frequently dismounting and having read errors and all sorts of garbage. Even with the USB 2.0, which was better, the iPod still had issues. The drivers were the latest.

But I'd sooner chalk that up to the iPod being garbage than the fault of the card itself, if it weren't for the fact that one of my three ports died. Yes, it still powers and detects when things are plugged into it, but data seemingly can't be transmitted through it. The card's only ~2 years old.

It's one product and very different from HDs, sure, but it's enough to make me think twice.

microlith · 2006-03-08, 21:35

It's more than likely the card.

I've got 3 year old Cardbus 3-port firewire card I used in my laptop from Adaptec. The card itself worked without problems, but any attempt to use my external disk while the ipod was attached would cause problems and windows would disconnect the disk.

On my new PC, however, both the iPod and two external disks co-exist without fuss, even doing disk-disk transfers over firewire without problems.

Can't speak for USB transfers, 3G supports it but I've never used it.

Ledgem · 2006-03-09, 20:53

Just to follow up, on the Apple forums I believe that other people complained about performance and cards from the same company, so it was the card. The iPod worked perfectly fine on the USB 1.0 ports, and it works even better on my new motherboard's USB 2.0 ports. I just use the card for my printer and a bluetooth USB add-in now.

Sandman21 · 2006-03-11, 01:55

Hmm...now I really have a lot of questions to ask. But maybe this isn't the perfect place to do so. Any good forums for this kind of talk? And, unlike some of you, I don't live in the States, I'm from the Philippines. And I don't have that many options with stuff. I'm trying to find a company that ships overseas.

I think I'll go with your advice. Buying a HD alone seems cheaper than buying a retail kit. I'm not exactly computer illeterate (ComSci student

) although hardware isn't my forte.

Potatochobit · 2006-03-11, 05:00

does your laptop have fire wire port? i really dont suggest you use a USB cable. it really will be slower to move stuff. moving a 40GB file of movies took about 20+ mins with firewire, so thats gona be awhile with USB. have you thought about burning them on DVD? 1 DVD holds about 4.4 GB of movies.

Sandman21 · 2006-03-11, 08:14

Nope, no FireWire in my notebook. But USB isn't that bad. I'm not planning of moving 40G any ways. I just burn them on CDs. But I think I'll start using DVDs. Any difference?

AnimeOni · 2006-03-12, 01:02

Check this forums and you will see this discussion about a year ago.
You might also check out expert-exchange to see detailed technical information regarding various items.

Since you are out of the country, there are companies which operates on the international scale like amazon or any companies associated with Ingram Micro (CDW, Insight, etc). There are many compaines in Taiwan that work out of the phillipines.
BTW, USB2 is faster than firewire.

2006-03-01, 06:25	Link #1
Sandman21 Inevitable demise. Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Philippines	Which External HDD should I get? I'm planning to get me an external HDD. My laptop is almost full of anime and manga. I need to store them somwhere else. What do you guys recommend?

2006-03-01, 11:58	Link #6
Sandman21 Inevitable demise. Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Philippines	Thanks for the recommendations guys. I'm not much of a hardware guy. I don't know my stuff. I'm just a freshman ComSci. So I might not know a lot of things about hardware. I'm thinking of getting a capacity of 200GB+ for optimal use on my anime archiving and other stuff. And maybe later on I'll get myself what microlith recommends with the 9.5 mm drive for portability. Now I know what a USB is. But what is FireWire. I can't seem to understand it. I'm guessing it's something you hook up to the PC card slot(?). And what does microlith mean by "properly" designed FireWire disk. If I can chain them together, than great. Just means that if I buy more drives in the future I can just connect them together. I'm guessing you can't do that with a USB interface(?). What I want is 200GB+ somewhere in the $200 price range. That would be nice. Last edited by Sandman21; 2006-03-01 at 12:13.

2006-03-01, 16:03	Link #7
Kurz Gao~ a sound for the ages Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: I live in a relm of swirling of thought and emotion, Ever lost in the relm of infinite possiblities. Age: 37	You dont need firewire harddrive for archiving. A usb Harddrive will be fine. Firewire is used when you want to do video editing from a External harddrive. In other words when you need the performance of a firewire connect then get it. But if you are just archiving there is no need. Last edited by Kurz; 2006-03-01 at 16:15.

2006-03-01, 17:33	Link #8
Xellos-_^ Not Enough Sleep Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: R'lyeh Age: 48	What you might want to do is buy the HD and the External Drive case seperately. I bought a External cast off ebay for $40 (including shipping), I saw the same case in compusa for $69.99. Only difference the brand name stamp on it. If you buy the parts seperately you might save yourself $50-$60 then buying the case+drive together. __________________

2006-03-03, 21:21	Link #9
Ledgem Love Yourself Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Northeast USA Age: 38	I'd go with Xellos' recommendation myself. If you buy the HD yourself you gain full control over the size and manufacturer; then just stick it in an enclosure. If you shop around, and especially if you find some rebates, you'll end up saving quite a bit than if you just bought some company's external drive. Externals cost more because there's more to them. Regular HD kits include the HD, a connector cable, and screws. The external drives include the drive already installed into an external enclosure, and if the enclosure is particularly fancy (such as being self-powered) then that's more money right there. Firewire just has faster overall transfer speeds than USB 2.0. I use firewire-based LaCie 300 GB drives in my workplace; we capture video from tape and digitize it. For regular purposes, USB will be fine for you. Firewire isn't standard on most PCs, but USB is. If you want a $200 drive, a bad deal will involve you paying over $100 for the drive itself. Here's a sample comparison: Western Digital 320 GB for $114.. Note that this is an OEM - it won't come with a manual, cables, or screws, but if you're just going to mount it in an enclosure, you won't need those anyway. OEMs are cheaper than retail kits, but if you really don't know what you're doing, you'll feel better with a retail kit. (FYI, the manuals can be found on the manufacturers' sites most of the time anyway - you'd only need to refer to them for the jumper settings.) Since you're new to hardware, I'll also let you know: read reviews about heat, and if sound is important to you, about how loud or quiet the drive is, too. Currently it seems that the most highly recommended manufacturer is Seagate, but it used to be Western Digital (I have two WD's, but the next drive I buy will probably be a Seagate). Maxtor ranks at the bottom of the list in terms of overall reliability. The higher you go in drive size, the worse the cost per gigabyte becomes, too. 500-GB drives are available, but they cost over $300. Keep in mind also that the advertised drive storage size is an example of the manufacturers using the 1000-based numbering system. That is, they claim that 1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte, etc. Windows uses 1024-based numbering. So if you buy a 200 GB drive, you'll really be getting ~186 GB of space (that's what my 200 came to, anyway, but you can calculate it out). Just don't be surprised by that. __________________

2006-03-01, 10:03	Link #3
Sandman21 Inevitable demise. Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Philippines	Hmm...can't seem to find the model 300728EK on Amazon. But LaCie seems like a good line. External power isn't too much of a hassle for me, although bus powered would be nice. Now could someone tell me why mobile HDs seem to be more expensive? Any one else got a other recommendations.

2006-03-01, 10:25	Link #4
microlith Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Folsom, CA Age: 41	If you want truly good speed, get a Firewire 400 card and a Firewire based disk. I've hit easily 40MB/s transfer from my internal disk to my external drives. Also, a properly designed external Firewire disk can be chained with other Firewire disks, letting you use one port for an entire stack of drives. If you want a small drive for portability, pick up a 9.5mm laptop hard drive and an external USB enclosure. I've got one with a 40GB drive in it and it's handy for carrying stuff around when I go to work. Most small laptop sized drives can run off the power of the USB port, but any 3.5" drives will require external power (they're just way too big.) I've got a 120GB I-O Data drive I picked up in Japan in early 2004. Uses a Samsung internally and has run flawlessly since. December 2005 I picked up a 160GB: http://www.acomdata.com/hdp/harddrives-HDXXXFE5-72.html The 120GB is chained off the 160, which plugs into the port in the back of my PC.

2006-03-01, 11:38	Link #5
Kurz Gao~ a sound for the ages Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: I live in a relm of swirling of thought and emotion, Ever lost in the relm of infinite possiblities. Age: 37	http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...=LaCie&Ntk=all Here is a link... BTW Amazon.com is not an electronics website dont treat it as such. Newegg.com is one of the better electronics website and i give them alot of praise for how they do business. However if you want to see if you can find it cheaper. www.pricegrabber.com has comparisons on products with several other websites.

2006-03-05, 23:10	Link #10
AnimeOni Raid-the-mods Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Sol System	I have both a WD and Seagate 300 GB USB2 drives. WD is quieter and Seagate is cheaper. This is the first Seagate I purchased in over 5 years (due to frequent failures). Looks like Seagate fixed a lot of manufactoring issues. Cost-wise: seagate is cheaper. Size-wise: WD is smaller.

2006-03-06, 02:19	Link #11
Ledgem Love Yourself Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Northeast USA Age: 38	The WD is really quieter? Seagate these days claims to be the #1 quietest now. I don't know how true it is, though... maybe it's only on certain drives. __________________

2006-03-07, 00:39	Link #12
AnimeOni Raid-the-mods Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Sol System	My Seagate makes the loudest sound when it's operating. I think the indicators are fan noise these days. BTW, Buy.com is having a Lacie 250GB drive on sale. check it out.

2006-03-07, 10:25	Link #13
AOforever1 Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: USA Age: 36	looks around I have a IO Gear Enclosure with a 250 sitting inside and it works just fine. I also have a generic Lantech 2.5" hdd enclosure that is USB powered. Works nicely.

2006-03-07, 21:37	Link #14
Ledgem Love Yourself Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Northeast USA Age: 38	I'm not a fan of IO Gear. Just for the record, I have an IO Gear PCI USB/Firewire expansion card. Back in the dark ages, the iPod only could connect through firewire (or at least, I didn't have the USB cable), so I bought that card to give my system firewire support. Gaining three USB 2.0 slots was a nice bonus, considering that my motherboard only had two 1.0 slots. Well, the iPod was very skittish with that card, frequently dismounting and having read errors and all sorts of garbage. Even with the USB 2.0, which was better, the iPod still had issues. The drivers were the latest. But I'd sooner chalk that up to the iPod being garbage than the fault of the card itself, if it weren't for the fact that one of my three ports died. Yes, it still powers and detects when things are plugged into it, but data seemingly can't be transmitted through it. The card's only ~2 years old. It's one product and very different from HDs, sure, but it's enough to make me think twice. __________________

2006-03-08, 21:35	Link #15
microlith Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Folsom, CA Age: 41	It's more than likely the card. I've got 3 year old Cardbus 3-port firewire card I used in my laptop from Adaptec. The card itself worked without problems, but any attempt to use my external disk while the ipod was attached would cause problems and windows would disconnect the disk. On my new PC, however, both the iPod and two external disks co-exist without fuss, even doing disk-disk transfers over firewire without problems. Can't speak for USB transfers, 3G supports it but I've never used it.

2006-03-09, 20:53	Link #16
Ledgem Love Yourself Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Northeast USA Age: 38	Just to follow up, on the Apple forums I believe that other people complained about performance and cards from the same company, so it was the card. The iPod worked perfectly fine on the USB 1.0 ports, and it works even better on my new motherboard's USB 2.0 ports. I just use the card for my printer and a bluetooth USB add-in now. __________________

2006-03-11, 01:55	Link #17
Sandman21 Inevitable demise. Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Philippines	Hmm...now I really have a lot of questions to ask. But maybe this isn't the perfect place to do so. Any good forums for this kind of talk? And, unlike some of you, I don't live in the States, I'm from the Philippines. And I don't have that many options with stuff. I'm trying to find a company that ships overseas. I think I'll go with your advice. Buying a HD alone seems cheaper than buying a retail kit. I'm not exactly computer illeterate (ComSci student ) although hardware isn't my forte.

2006-03-11, 05:00	Link #18
Potatochobit Certified Organic Join Date: Dec 2005	does your laptop have fire wire port? i really dont suggest you use a USB cable. it really will be slower to move stuff. moving a 40GB file of movies took about 20+ mins with firewire, so thats gona be awhile with USB. have you thought about burning them on DVD? 1 DVD holds about 4.4 GB of movies.

2006-03-11, 08:14	Link #19
Sandman21 Inevitable demise. Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Philippines	Nope, no FireWire in my notebook. But USB isn't that bad. I'm not planning of moving 40G any ways. I just burn them on CDs. But I think I'll start using DVDs. Any difference?

2006-03-12, 01:02	Link #20
AnimeOni Raid-the-mods Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Sol System	Check this forums and you will see this discussion about a year ago. You might also check out expert-exchange to see detailed technical information regarding various items. Since you are out of the country, there are companies which operates on the international scale like amazon or any companies associated with Ingram Micro (CDW, Insight, etc). There are many compaines in Taiwan that work out of the phillipines. BTW, USB2 is faster than firewire.