Any recommendations on external HD for TZ

I jus got my tz191 which is by FAR the most beautiful computer mobile or not that I have ever seen or used.

Anyways, I am looking to buy a portable HD to carry along with it when I am traveling and wondered what some of the more reliable, better performing HD's are out there. Obviously it must be compact and easily transportable with something as small as the TZ. Any recommendations are greatly appreciated, thx :]

 

these arent bad

http://www.buffalotech.com/products...on/ministation-turbousb-portable-hard-drives/

 

go with the western digital passports

 

I have a 250 GB WD Passport that I use with my TZ. Its design fits in well with it.

I only wish it was not as shiny as it is, which is just a personal preference. Glare and fingerprints drive me nuts!

 

Nanaki would hate this one (very shiny) but been using Coolermaster gear for ages and very happy with the build and performance. They have a version which uses usb + esata for future connections and no performance bottleneck. You could add an e-sata expresscard to the TZ if your not using it for anything else. Holds a sata 2.5" in an all aluminium chassis and they give you a nice pouch. Have 4 of the 350 3.5" caddies and the build and performance is great. Add any sata drive up to 500gb. Only takes 2 minutes to put together.

Coolermaster x-craft 250

http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?act=detail&id=33

 

Heys, do you guys ever happened to see a 2.5 HDD with external case where it has 2 USB connector? I have 60GB external (I think its Segate or WD inside) and this annoyingly requires 2 USB cable every time regardless of whichever computers I use. If I only stick one main USB cable, the HDD loads up but it continously clicks and windows will detect a problem with USB storage device.
However, my friends one is Samsung 2.5 HDD which does not require any additional USB. So now I realized to be 'careful' when I buy 2.5 HDD next time.!!
So... my question is that, how do I determine which brand/model uses 'lower' power that only requires one USB connector?

BTW: Juris, I love Coolermaster X craft series!.
Although I don't havee the 2.5inch model, I have three 3.5 cases, both SATA and IDE version.
and I must say that they are one of the best external cases I've ever used!

 

Recommendations:
-Firewire over USB, because of lower cpu utilization.
-I've heard about a lot of problems with Lacie external drives.

 

I'd go for a Seagate Freeagent Go (160GB)



http://www.seagate.com/freeagent/

About those Cooler Master X-Craft enclosures yea they're pretty nice, BUT its a hassle if you constantly replace internal drives (and you need external power also).

Those Seagate Go's or Western Digital Passports are very small, and just plug and play via USB (no external storage required).

 

seagate or maxtor. i stay away from western digital. i've had way too many western digital drives fail on me in the past. right now i have a 2.5" toshiba 200gb sata drive mounted in an external enclosure to carry around with me.

 

can you recommend a good firewire drive besides the Lacie?
Also, I don't believe the firewire port on the TZ (it's the smaller port, not the big one) would be sufficient to power the HD would it? I would need a power supply with it from what I understand.
If I was to get USB, would one USB port be sufficient to power the drive or would I need to get one of those Y cables and use both USB ports?

 

ya as much good stuff I've heard about the WD passport, i've had so many probs with WD drives in the past it kinda scares me....

 

Hi Synthesia. Bit confused here. The X-craft 250 drive I was recommending is a usb host powered external drive, it does not require a power adapter. The 350 is the desktop enclosure which takes 3.5" drives and I was using that as a statement of the quality of coolermaster caddies in general.

You seem to knock the coolermaster saying its a hassle to replace the drives and then you recommend 2 other drives which dont even give you the option. I prefer to have the option to change my drive without voiding my warranty and to select the drive that meets my requirements.

 

I know that my WD states that there is the option of using a Y USB connector (a cable to connect it to two USB ports), if you are using a notebook which limits it's USB port power.

I probably would have purchased the Seagate Freeagent Go, if they had a higher capacity drive. If I brought this external HDD a month or two ago, then I diffidently would have gone Seagate, because they have a 5-year warranty, whereas WD used to only have a 1-year (now a 3-year) warranty.

 

Ah my bad, I didn't know about the Cooler Master 250 drive yet. About the drive replacing its only interesting if you have several internal drives I find, but even then its a bit of a hassle changing them (from my experience). If you just need one drive then I'd go for just a plain and simple ready-to-go external one.

Another nice thing about those Seagates is their 5-year warranty

Maybe the threadstarter could say how much capacity he is looking for, if not more than 250GB then I'd certainly recommend a non-externally powered drive

 

Well having to use up both USB ports to run the drive is a problem for me, which is why I want to know whether my TZ will be able to run the drive using only one USB port.

 

My 250 GB WD Passport runs from the one port.

 

my 80 gb external hd is a laptop hd attached to a connector/box thingy. It links to the pc via one USB port. Very fast, very light.

 

I've seen several reviews stating that real life performance of Firewire drives is superior to USB drives.

 

FireWire, uses a "Peer-to-Peer" architecture in which the peripherals are intelligent and can negotiate bus conflicts to determine which device can best control a data transfer


Hi-Speed USB 2.0 uses a "Master-Slave" architecture in which the computer handles all arbitration functions and dictates data flow to, from and between the attached peripherals (adding additional system overhead and resulting in slower data flow control)

Read and write tests to the same IDE hard drive connected using FireWire and then Hi-Speed USB 2.0 show:

Read Test:
5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 33% faster than USB 2.0
160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 70% faster than USB 2.0

Write Test:
5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 16% faster than USB 2.0
160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 48% faster than USB 2.0

 

I second the FreeAgent. I have one and I love its tiny size and miniscule weight.

 

The TZ can power the FreeAgent drive using just one of its Y-cables (the thick one). And it comes in a 160GB/5400rpm model, which handles the Japanese TZ nicely. You can get the 120GB model for the U.S. TZs.

 

Yep The only downside would be no Firewire. Its really a pity so few manufacturers use USB2.0 instead of Firewire. The desktop drives from Seagate have Firewire (but then you'd need a power adapter...).

Anyways, I'd always recommend Seagate over most other manufacturers, never had a Seagate let me down and if it does I hear you can still easily replace it within a 5-year time period after your purchase

 

Ya, such a shame that firewire would need a power adaptor....that's pretty much a deal breaker right there :/

They need to create a new Y cable with a firewire end and a USB end so u can get the data off the firewire port, but power the drive through the USB port