Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!

Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!

Register Log in
  • Congratulations wOOdy-Soft on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!

NEED HELP ON WHAT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE I SHOULD GET for my laptop!!

Status
Not open for further replies.
tomcruise3230

tomcruise3230

Technical User
May 3, 2005
57
US
Deal members:

I need your help on figuring out what external hard drive i should get for my toshiba satellite 1400-s151 (more info on toshiba.com/support for this laptop) laptop. what i am looking for is an external hard drive (don't matter if its portable or desktop) which has at least 80 Gb, usb 1.1 feature, don't want a fireware because my laptop doesn't support it or usb 2.0 (althought i might get a usb 2.0 card to use usb 2.0), and small enought that it will fit in a normal brief case (don't want that is same size as a a dvd player or xbox ). therefore dear members, please let me know which one are the best in your opinion in details if thats possible, and your experience with it.
thank you very much!!!
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
try or both of these sites sell Hd caseand you can put any size drive in you want. And you come out cheaper than a pre made setup. I have a metal gear case that I use for testing Hd's and cd drives. I just leave the top off for this. Hope this helps you out.

Wayne

Life is a big Roleplaying adventure.

Wayne
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
To sleepsalot: i actually don't want an hd case, what i want is an external hard drive with at least 80 gb so plesae can you tell me which one are then best one in your opinion thank you very much
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The way I told about is the only way I have used. With the case and hard drive you can make it up any way you want. Other than that I can't say.
Wayne

Life is a big Roleplaying adventure.

Wayne
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
okay can you tell me will the hard drive case will fit in a brief case (a normal briefcase that bussiness man carry)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Personally I think the hard drive case idea is a good idea too. I have an external case that houses a standard 2.5" IDE laptop HD that I picked up for around $25. It is very compact, not much bigger than the HD itself. It fits in my pocket so I am sure something like that will easily fit in your briefcase. Best part is you can make the HD capacity any size you want since it uses standard 2.5" drives. I have a 40GB 5400rpm drive in mine, but you can easily find 80GB or higher. Total cost is cheaper usually and if the HD dies you can just replace it with a new drive.

3.5" IDE drives are much cheaper than 2.5" drives, but they are much bigger and heavier too. Again the cases I've seen are not much bigger than the drive itself.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
tomcruise3230
First of all in my opinion it would be very advantagous for you to have USB2 for your external Hard drive connection.
The reason is simple:

USB 1.1 can handle up to 12 MBit/s, i.e. theoretically 1.5 MB/s. In real life, however, you can only achieve around 1 MB/s. This makes it fast enough for small peripherals like keyboards, but not for storage devices.

USB 2.0 was developed to provide more flexibility for USB, especially for applications such as mass storage. All PC systems available today support USB 2.0, which increases bandwidth from 12 Mbit/s all the way to 480 MBit/s, or 60 MB/s.
40 times quicker!
External hard drives that are run on USB1.1 are extremely slow.

To get you started on your buying quest read this review.


Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
okay thanks for all the information however i just need some more information: how much it will take to transfer a 150 mb video file (avi, mpeg) from usb 1.1 to the external hard drive
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
okay i understand now why i should get the usb 2.0 clearly (much faster!!) and an external hard drive case and a hard drive to put it in! however, can you just tell me which one is the best hard drive case and hard drive i should get under 130 dollars! anything will help! thank you very much
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
to papaparazi: sorry to say but the link you gave me has the product out of stock. therefore, can you tell me another reliable external hard drive thank you very lmuch
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
okay thanks for the new link i think i will get that however, i heard that you can get an external hd enclosure and put a internal hd IDE togther which is more cheaper and better (since u can get another hd and put another one in the enclosure when u r done with the first one). but i just want to know will it work with a laptop?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
tomcruise3230
Choosing a standard 3.5inch enclosure and IDE hard drive can work out slightly cheaper, thats up to you.

Be sure you choose both the same size (3.5inch is standard and drives are cheaper, 2.5 is laptop hard drive size, they are smaller but the hard drives cost more and the device is a bit slower)

USB2 external hard drives (enclosures) will work just fine
on laptops running W2K and XP but make sure you have service packs installed.

98SE and ME but you may require drivers loading (they should come with the enclosure)

See these.

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
sorry to say again but the link u gave me just sends me to the main page. therefore, can you send a correct link this time or tell me where i can find it on the site
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
tomcruise3230
Hard drives (left column) and then Hard drive Enclosures.

[surprise]

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
okay i understand fully know about the requirements and what should iget for the most outof money. so i don't need any more help so thanks for all the help everyone i really appreciate it (if u still have some suggestion what enclosure and hd i should get feel free to send more links since i won't be buying them till this monday that is coming up! so please do if u want to!)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
can some one tell me please is this an internal hd IDe (that u put in an externla enclosure to hook it up to a laptop) because i am not sure:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST380011A 80GB 7200 RPM 2M Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM (

Also, can you tell me will it support usb 2.0 or usb 1.1 or that is up to what enclosure u get.

And just one more thing, does it include cables, software because i can't seem tofind that information (i am just a newbie )

please let me know asap as i this is the one i am sure i iwll be getting so its pretty much my last question! so please let me know! thank you very much
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
tomcruise3230
Perfect! Seagate Barracuda's are quiet, cool and reliable, just what you need to be fitting in an external hard drive enclosure.
The enclosure you choose will determine USB speed but nearly all are USB2 nowadays with some being USB2 and Firewire.
These enclosures all come complete with cable, power adapter and software.
Note* you will only reuire the software for older operating systems ie: W98 etc
Fully updated W2K and XP machines will not require any additional software loading to work with these devices.
So order the drive and enclosure (both 3.5inch units) fit the drive into the enclosure making sure it is set as master.
As with all new hard drives it will require partitioning and formatting before use.
Use Disk management tools in XP
You may find it easier to connect the new hard drive as slave to you existing drive before fitting it in the enclosure, use disk managment tools to prepare the drive for use, once formatted install into enclosure.

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

pmonett
  • Locked
  • Question
Need to change OS on HP laptop 1
Replies
10
Views
1K
Rick998
Rick998
pmonett
  • Question
Katana 17 B12VFK-228XFR - big mistake (what is startup.nsh ?) 1
Replies
3
Views
444
pmonett
pmonett
123Sarang
  • Locked
  • Question
Laptop heating issues
Replies
13
Views
3K
techrepairtech93
techrepairtech93
Bryan - Gendev
  • Locked
  • Question
Mouse not active after return for sleep WIN11
Replies
4
Views
961
xwb
xwb
Sebastian42
  • Locked
  • Question
What would prevent optical scanners from operating ?
Replies
10
Views
991
Sebastian42
Sebastian42

Part and Inventory Search

Sponsor

Back
Top