External Harddrive noob help.

Hi guys, i am totally new to external harddrives. Recently i have been running into some memory issues.. and have found that i will need to purchase an external hard drive. I switch back and forth, osx to windows so the enclosure i am getting will have firewire/usb port.

I dont know if this is possible.. but because of the high prices i do not want to purchase a notebook hd.. is there any way to use this as an external harddrive?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148144

and i will look at an enclosure later. I am not looking for prebuild hd's.

Please help, thanks alot!

 

You'll need to buy a 3.5" external enclosure. And THAT will have to be plugged into the wall.

The advantage of using laptop hard drives and external laptop HDD enclosures is they DON'T need to be plugged into the wall.

 

You most certainly can use a 3.5 inch hard drive--you'll need an enclosure with either USB/Firewire connection to connect.
Unlike a 2.5 inch drive, a 3.5 inch will need an external power supply-a wall socket of some sort.

 

awww, nevermind then.. I dont think i will want to plug it into the wall, thanks for the reply though. Any recomendations on a good notebook hd?

 

Should i get a Sata or an Ata external drive. 7200 or 5400. I wouldnt mind spending a little more if it performs better. I will be switching it between my notebook(dv2000t) and the Mac.

 

You can also get a standard 3.5" external HD instead of putting a standard HD into an enclosure. I got a 160 GB 7200 RPM for $90 about six months ago. I'm sure you could do better than that though. Downside is they do need to be powered as opposed to the notebook HDs as previously mentioned.

I would recommend SATA over ATA.

 

Has anyone tried using an external drive for osx and windows? I think i will probablly get a 5400rpm, i wont need the 7200.. or any extra heat. Now it comes down to sata or ata... Serial ata notebook drives are harder to find.


any recomendations? I am looking for 40 60 or 80gb

 

Sorry Chris, but I have to shoot you down on this one. The limiting factor here is the USB bus; there will be ZERO performance difference between ATA and SATA. Actually, there will be a near zero performance difference between 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM too.

Bottom line is: get whichever comes out cheapest.

 

No problem. I only recommended SATA because it's the newer technology and I've read about some of the limitations that ATA has.

But if I got what I did for $90, you should be able to find something cheap without much trouble.

 

You could check my mini-review of a 2.5" SATA enclosure here.

Naturally npaladin is correct to assert that USB speeds eliminate performance differences between (P)ATA and SATA drives once in such an enclosure. However, you may also want to consider potential other uses for the drive, as I did. That is - my notebook has an SATA drive, so I bought a matching enclosure and drive. In case of the internal drive failing, I could swap the devices and still have a working notebook.

Cost per GB in 2.5" is way above 3.5" - for my purposes an 80GB drive is plenty of storage, paying the same for a 200GB drive which needs mains power would be a step backward. YMMV.

Kingsley

 

ty for all the reply fellas. I think i will be going for a 60 gb, i just need to save some of my work at school. So 60 will be plenty. I will probablly go for an ata drive 5400 rpm. Thanks for all the help. Now i just need to find an enclosure with a firewire port.

 

Firewire won't work so well. Firewire ports built into a laptop use the 4 pin connector, which is the unpowered version. Which means you'll need to plug into the wall (or at the least a USB port) to power the hard drive.