Hi,

I'm looking to buy an external hard drive due to the fact that my laptops hardrive is only 10GB.
The laptop itself isn't of a high spec (Windows XP Home, 833mhz, DVD drive etc) and so is only fitted with a USB 1.1 (is that correct?) socket.

I've just bought a 5 megapixel camera and so will definitely need more memory. I also download movies off our uni network and so I'd like to get as big a drive as possible.

Can anybody recommend a good external hard drive?

I've seen an IOMEGA 120GB FireWire hard drive here: http://www.datecsys.co.uk/Product.asp?pid=36907 will this work on my computer?
If so, can I get it anywhere cheaper?

Thanks!

Andy.

 

Nope, unless you have a firewall port/card. Also known as 1394.

 

Andy,

One of the lads in my office has a PCMCIA Firewire card which he (after getting a new laptop) doesn't need anymore. Maybe he could do you a deal on it. He did the same thing as you want with a Lacie external 120Gb Firewire drive.

I'd stay clear of USB as it'll be a big bottleneck.

Coincidentally his name is Andy too. If you're interested drop me some mail and I'll ask him how much he wants for it.

Stefan

 

andy, you can use either firewire or USB2 external HDD. you will need to get a pc card for the firewire/USB2 interface. depending the amount of data you gonna transfer, USB1.1 is still very usable and is available on just about all modern PCs.

for external HDD, have a look at maxtor, lacie and seagate. else you can get an external HDD enclosure and fit your own HDD. have a look at www.pc500.net for HDD enclosure.

 

Thanks for your help guys!

Stefan - if you could send me an e-mail stating how much he wants for the card I'd be grateful!

My address is: andym172@[no spam]yahoo.com

Andy.

[Edited by andym172 - 9/28/2002 9:13:29 PM]

 

You could always try the flipdisk, which plugs into your PC Card slot (or USB or parallel or whatever).

mb

 

or you could get a 20gb MP3 player that also acts as a USB hard drive.

Music to your ears I hear you say.........


I'll get my coat

 

Good suggestion (I've considered the Apple iPod) but it doesn't provide enough space - for approx the same price you can get 6 times as much memory.

Any other suggestions?

Andy.

 

Any chance you can upgrade the internal hard disk ? That would the obvious route.

Cheers

Ian

 

AndyM - my replacement 60Gb HDD for my laptop should arrive this morning, meaning I'll have a 30Gb drive going spare. If you're interested....

It's a 2.5" 9.5mm ('super slim') drive. Not sure what the going rate would be, but I'm sure we could work something out?

 

Ian - upgrading the internal hard drive would be a messy affair and not really worth it.

Thanks for the suggestion though!

Mark - check your mail!

Andy.

 

Andy,

I've spoken to the other Andy here. His card was £100 out of PC World, so he reckons £40 ono.

You can e-mail him direct at abaxter@rdf-consulting.co.uk or just mail me if your interested.

Stefan

 

I almost bought a Toshiba 2Gb Type-II pcmcia card for $109 last week - it was such good value! Worth looking at?