Portable External Drive

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Pooky

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I need an external hard drive that is small (2.5") and runs off USB power, preferably only using 1 USB port if this is possible.

I am going to be using it to store my music on it to play off my macbook.

Any suggestions on what to go for would be great.

Thanks!
 
Any of the 2.5" drives that you buy in a USB enclosure these days only need one USB port for power.

Personally, I would shy away from Seagate's 2.5" drives. The Western Digital 2.5" drive/enclosure combinations are nice, the weak point often being the joint where the USB cable connector meets the PCB inside, I've seen a few come loose. I would go with a Samsung series of portable drives. Cheap and reliable.
 
There seem to be Samsung G series external drives on special at places at the moment. Are they good?
 
Esquire has a bunch - search 2.5 Manhattan.
Bought the USB/Esata one a while back & had no problems with it.
 
Okay looks like the Samsung would be the best to go for.

Where would the best place to get it from be?
 
As much as I hate to say it, Pc Zone in Pinetown best bet. They have usb3 ones as well. Think last time I saw 500gb was like R699 for usb3. R100-150 less for usb2.
 
Most places are selling the Samsung G2 640GB for R649. But I'm sure you can find it cheaper. I don't know much about suppliers, I'm sure someone will advise on somewhere to buy from.
 
Give Matrix Warehouse in Springfield a buzz, got a 2.5" 500GB internal Samsung from them last week.

I would actually buy a internal 2.5" drive and then a separate enclosure (You can get one to match your mac :p )

This way you won't have warranty issues if you ever need to remove the HDD from the enclosure and most importantly a lot of these new 2.5" external drives comes with the usb controller on the drives logic board so if it goes tits up you cant connect it directly to a SATA port without hacking & soldering.

You might also wanna look for an encluser that supports both SATA & USB connections if your Mac has a eSATA port, alternatively firewire. USB sucks donkey balls for transferring large amounts of data.
 
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The Samsungs are awesome and definitely only require 1 x USB.

If you can get the S2 version then it comes with a nice little pleather pouch. It's less blingy too. Although I'm sure Pooks won't mind the bling. :)
 
PC Zone have the 640GB Samsung for R599.00 I'm starting to think the internal HDD and enclosure would be a good option to go for.

What internal 2.5" would be best to go for 500GB or above?
 
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Pooky said:
PC Zone have the 640GB Samsung for R599.00 I'm starting to think the internal HDD and enclosure would be a good option to go for.

What internal 2.5" would be best to go for 500GB or above?
Click to expand...

I think you will find a lot of separate enclosures using 2 x USB ports. Unless forumites can state specifically ones that use 1 x USB.

Just get the Samsung, for realz. Sometimes they actually work out cheaper than buying separate.
 
I had a seagate freeagent go 320gb. The controller part died last week :( Fortunately opened the drive and put it directly in my pc and it was fine. Tested the controller on a different drive and borked so definitely the controller.

Not much really difference between an integrated one or seperate enclosure+drive except the enclosure on the integrated ones isn't really designed to be reused.
 
Pooky said:
PC Zone have the 640GB Samsung for R599.00 I'm starting to think the internal HDD and enclosure would be a good option to go for.

What internal 2.5" would be best to go for 500GB or above?
Click to expand...

Samsung!



PostmanPot said:
Just get the Samsung, for realz.
Click to expand...

+1

Pooky, go get a 2.5" Internal from Matrix Warehouse, just give them a call first and ask Neil if they have stock.
 
rorz0r said:
Not much really difference between an integrated one or seperate enclosure+drive except the enclosure on the integrated ones isn't really designed to be reused.
Click to expand...

And if you open a integrated before the warranty has expired you lose the warranty. Secondly a lot of the newer ones don't have a separate usb controller inside the housing, the usb controller actually resides on the drives logic board so if it goes south you can't connect your drive directly to your sata ports.

This is an example of a drive with a integrated usb controller/port. You don't want!
Samsung-250-Gigabyte-1.8-Hard-Drives-2.jpg

Samsung-1.8-Spinpoint_N3U1.jpg
 
PostmanPot said:
I meant the Samsung HDD + Samsung enclosure, pre-assembled. :D
Click to expand...

I know but I'm disagreeing with you just in case the drive has a integrated usb controller/port which you do NOT want!
If he can confirm that it has a native SATA interface on the drive the go for it.

See above post :D
 
ponder said:
I know but I'm disagreeing with you just in case the drive has a integrated usb controller/port which you do NOT want!
If he can confirm that it has a native SATA interface on the drive the go for it.

See above post :D
Click to expand...

Agreed.

But which external 2.5" cases only require 1 x USB? That's the question. :)
 
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