portable hard drive

i use the WD ones a lot, USB powered is a key feature to look for.
 
If it's for home use then buy anything. Bus powered tends to fail slightly more often than mains powered. Some brands are better than others but at the budget end this changes so often you may as well buy a random brand.

For use "in the field", industry standard is pretty much LaCie Rugged. Buy them wherever they are cheap and decide yourself which interfaces you want to pay for.

LaCie Rikiki are also worth a look. Not as robust as a Rugged but they are TINY. I often put one in a couple of freezer bags and then zip it in a pocket.
 
I have just bought a Samsung M3 External Hard Drive 1tb. It works with USB 2.0 and 3.0
With delivery it cost me £61.00. Not actually used it yet but the people who have give it excellent reviews.
It is USB powered.
 
I have a WD 1 TB and a Novatech 1TB both mains powered. USB only powered can place a strain, so make sure your system is up to it. Depends how essential when on the move.
 
crofter said:
I've got one of these, very good, I'll probably get another for video.
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/data-storage/hard-drives/portable-external-hard-drives/wd-my-passport-portable-hard-drive-500-gb-black-14732336-pdt.html
Click to expand...

Bought one of these from pcworld earlier this year. Came with a free sandisk 16gb USB too which was a bonus.

Drive is usb3 and came around America with me as a back up earlier this year. Worked well, although I did need to format it to FAT32 before I left which can be a pain to do to drives of that capacity. For general windows use this will be great though.

It's worked well and is such a neat size without feeling flimsy. Well made.
 
ACW said:
Bought one of these from pcworld earlier this year. Came with a free sandisk 16gb USB too which was a bonus.

Drive is usb3 and came around America with me as a back up earlier this year. Worked well, although I did need to format it to FAT32 before I left which can be a pain to do to drives of that capacity. For general windows use this will be great though.

It's worked well and is such a neat size without feeling flimsy. Well made.
Click to expand...


Why FAT 32?

.
 
Rather than start a new thread, could I ask which makes are reliable & recommended for a desktop hardrive? Priced around £100-£130

I presently have an oldish iomega, but want a 2TB, mains powered, easy plug & play/use.
Doesn't have to be stylish, tiny or all-singing , dancing, flasing lights etc, just robust & reliable.

Thanks guys.
 
G drive

My portable drive as a pro sound mixer
 
petersmart said:
Why FAT 32?

.
Click to expand...

It originally comes as NTFS but that renders it useless for ps3 and Xbox, and requires software to be used with macs.

Fat32 made life a bit easier and allowed me to use it on all operating systems.

I know fat32 removes the option of being able to store individual files over 4gb, but for my purposes that was irrelevant.

It's just a shame larger capacity drives take a bit of coaxing to be persuaded into being fat32. Not able to format it fat32 using windows or cmd.
 
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ACW said:
It originally comes as NTFS but that renders it useless for ps3 and Xbox, and requires software to be used with macs.
Click to expand...

I've got the same drive. No software needed to use it with a mac - just needed to be reformatted. Perfect for transferring/backing up Aperture libraries.
 
Not able to format it fat32 using windows or cmd.
Click to expand...
If using windows xp onwards you can format to Fat32 using the diskpart command.
 
redsnappa said:
If using windows xp onwards you can format to Fat32 using the diskpart command.
Click to expand...

Even 500gb and up? Thought the most you could do through basic windows commands was a tenth of that?
 
Even 500gb and up? Thought the most you could do through basic windows commands was a tenth of that
Click to expand...
Yep, Biggest I've formatted using xp diskpart is 750GB, If you're not sure about command line you can use disk manager to format your external hard disk drive.

If the drive is being use as a backup drive the file sizes can easily exceed 4GB and any file that is larger than 4GB will be split, e.g. a 6GB file will become 2 separate files, a 4GB file and a 2GB file.

Only use Fat32 if there is a specific need.
 
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