Acomdata 40 gb external USB 2.0 hard drive and Adaptec USB 2.0 card for 129.00 w/MIR @ Compusa (HD can be changed)

[chrisjor]

This week Compusa has the Acomdata 40 gb 5400 rpm USB 2.0 external HD for 139.00 with a 10.00 rebate. LINK

If you purchase the drive you get the Adaptec USB2Connect card for free after 69.00 in rebates (yeah, I know thats alot) LINK.

The combo has a link here.

This does not seem to be the greatest deal ever, but I had just purchased an ADS Technologies external USB 2.0 enclosure at Microcenter for 99.00. LINK I wanted to put a 100 gb 7200 rpm drive in this enclosure. I did, and it worked pretty darn good!!! This enclosure can also hold DVD/CDRW or other 5.25 drives.

I purchased the Acomdata drive @ Compusa and when I opened it, it was the same enclosure as the above mentioned ADS enclosure. I stripped it open (voiding the warranty) and swapped my 100 gig drive into the new case and it works perfectly!!! A few notes.....I switched the short ATA 33 IDE cable that came with it for an ATA 66/100 cable I had. I did notice a difference. I could not find USB 2.0 drivers for WinXP so I used Win2k drivers and they seem to work. Finally, the case is modified in the Acomdata kit for Hard Drive use exclusively. A cdrw would still fit, but they removed the sound output and cable from the enclosure. The front Bezel would have to be removed.

Finally, I now have the 40 gb HD that I removed from the kit, I will install this in one of my older rigs. It is Samsung SV4002h LINK here. 5400 rpm ata 100.

I would reccomend using enclosure for Hard Drive only unless you can find front Bezel.

So, you get a USB 2.0 enclosure, 40 gig Samsung HD, and 4 port Adaptec USB card for 129.00 plus tons of tax, after rebates.

Not the greatest deal, but it was still interesting.

 

[breity]

hey - looks like you may have an extra enclosure now. are you using both of them? if not, i'd be interested in buying one of them from you. been looking for an enclosure so i can bring my 60gig HD abroad with me to use with a laptop. i also have an old 4x cdrw lying around and i wanted to be able to swap them in the enclosure. lemme know if you'd be interested in selling one of them - e-mail or PM.

 

[whistleclient]

the cool thing about the acomdata enclosure is that the power cube is inside the enclosure -- no wall to lug around.

 

[Mltsao]

Is this really cheap for an external 40gig?

 

[pete777]

combo is sold out

 

[chrisjor]

breity,

I returned the enclosure to Microcenter and got my 99.00 dollars back. Overstock. com has this enclosure for 79.00. There is a link for 20 off 60 order for first time buyers. Link is at ableshoppers. com. I had a friend order this for me so I can mount external cdrw. This is a good price for a USB 2.0 enclosure.



Mltsao,

I do not think this is a flaming hot deal on its own. But when you add the adaptec card I think that this gets very close. The closest I have seen is 179.00 for a 20 gig external USB 2.0.

 

[breity]

chrisjor - that is a really good price with the $20 off. i think i will order it. cheapest i've seen for usb 2.0 is about $70+shipping. i've been trying on ebay to get this same enclosure, but i think this is the best way. probly will end up being cheapest and easiest. didn't know overstock had em. thanks!!

EDIT: just ordered at overstock. total is $63.90 with the coupon and shipping. great deal. by the way, i couldn't find the coupon at ableshoppers - there's was expired. but it is easily found here at techbargains.

 

[chrisjor]

I did not know they had them either, I was determined to find best deal. My friend let me know that he got shipping notice today (UPS ground is darn slow) it is coming from Salt Lake City, UT!! Please God, get it out of town before the Olympics start!!!!!! Will keep you posted. Ableshoppers did not work? Sorry!

 

[psxjunky]

chrisjor: I personally think this is a HOT DEAL !!! (may be because I was just looking for an enclosure like this for quite sometime now). I just bought this from CompUSA today and was just going to post the deal here ... glad I did a search first

Does anyone know where I can find a replacement FRONT bezel for this enclosure that has opening for a CD-RW drive ? I would like to switch between an HDD and CDRW using this enclosure but the current bezel is closed and meant only for hard drives.

Any info would be very useful !

 

[breity]

yeah, i really think this is a great deal. i would go for the whole thing (40gb HD, enclosure, card) if i had the money to put down. enclosure is all i really needed right now, so it'll do. but this is definitely a great find.

 

[breity]

quick question for anyone using these external cases - do you have to reformat and repartition the hard drive before using it as a usb external? i wanna keep some of the stuff on my drive now, plus i want to keep it partitioned as it is. is this possible? will xp recognize it as it is now, or do i have to reformat? thanks.

 

[psxjunky]

<< quick question for anyone using these external cases - do you have to reformat and repartition the hard drive before using it as a usb external? i wanna keep some of the stuff on my drive now, plus i want to keep it partitioned as it is. is this possible? will xp recognize it as it is now, or do i have to reformat? thanks. >>



Yes, you do need to create one or more partition(s) in the new Hard Drive and format them before you can use them. You don't need to do anything to your existing hard drive ... so all your existing data will remain as it is. The USB drive will simply show up as yet another drive and you can choose what drive letter you want to assign to it.

The instructions that come in the box clearly and nicely explains the whole procedure for Win98/ME and 2K. A word of caution - if you want to format the new partitions as FAT32, the biggest partition size is 32GB. I tried to format the whole 40GB as a single FAT32 partition and formatted ... and after 20 minutes of formatting Windows gave me an error message that the volume is too big ::disgust: ... as if they couldn't have warned me before I started the format !

Anyway, the drive is working REALLY well for me and the speed is awesome. Is there a way I can benchmark the speed and know EXACTLY what data transfer rate I am getting ?

Also, folks - I am still looking for a replacement front bezel that'll allow me to put a CD drive in this ... so if anyone knows where I might get one, I'd sure appreciate the info !

 

[breity]

it's actually the data on the drive that i am going to make external that i want to keep on there. see i have an 18gb that came with the comp and a 60gb in my desktop now. i want to use the 60gb as an external to use with a laptop that i am taking travelling. right now it is partitioned into 3 discs (10gb, 10gb and 40gb). so basically, if i want to use the 60gb as the external one, i will have to reformat the whole thing and partition it so that there is no disc over 32gb, right? i guess i'll have to keep some data on the 18gb drive and the rest i'll put on cds, and then transfer the stuff i want to store on the external one back on afterwards. (it's all my mp3s and videos and stuff). anyways, thanks for the info. now once i get the enclosure all i need is a usb 2.0 card and i'll be good to go. any good deals on those?

 

[ashneel]

No, you don't need to format the HD.

If yo wanted the external thingy should have jumped on the Sony I.link deal much better deal u even got a cdrw drive then later you could have sold the Cdrw drive.

OK today I put my 60gb maxtor drive from my old celeron on my pentium 4 it worked like a charm took me 3 min to copy and 800mb image.

Didn't have to do anything windows detected it no problems expect my maxtor 60gb's are hell loud I don't like that.

By the way i want and got a Maxtor firewire card from staples and used the 10off this might the only bad part because u have to get a firwire card.

Other then that I would give the I.link is great thing.


Pretty good from my view.

 

[ashneel]

please excuse my english i don't understand english that well yet.

i have been in caves up untill now.

 

[psxjunky]

Oh I see now what you are saying !

If your drive is already formatted, I don't *think* that you'll need to partition/format it again ! In fact I am pretty sure this will accept any standard IDE drive ... it doesn't need to be partitioned and formatted just to work with the USB interface. So all you need to do is just plug in your existing drive and install the drivers.

Also, you do know that this will work fine with older USB 1.0 or 1.1 ports, right ? You just won't get the 480Mbps speed unless you have a USB 2.0 card. If you hook it upto a USB 1.1 port, you'll get around 12Mbps speed ... which should be fine if you use it primarily for backing up data.

 

[RU482]

OK - another question...this is my delema...I will be backing up data from a Windows2000 laptop (probably NTFS format, not sure) and using the data on a windows98se laptop via a USB2.0 PCMCIA card.

Q. Do I need to have 2 partitions for both Win 98(FAT32) and Win2K (NTFS)???, or will a win 98 system be able to recognize an NTFS drive??

I have both win 98se and win2K CD-roms available

 

[EliteForces]

if i buy just the hd and i dont have 2.0 card how slow is the drive? i just use this hd as backup.

 

[Shippy]

<< will a win 98 system be able to recognize an NTFS drive?? >>


No. Just make the portable drive FAT32. Then both OS's will recognize the data.

 

[RU482]

thanks!!

 

[chrisjor]

EliteForces,

I have been using the drive on Win2k, 733 PIII system with USB 1.1. I transferred around 26 gigs of MP3, video and other files. It was extremely slow. It took several hours. This was the same on 2 of my other rigs also. I am not sure if this was due to the Operating Sytem (drivers), type of files, or fluke in my systems. It seemed worse than it really was due to the fact I was moving so much data. It was really an acceptable rate when I was using it to move small chunks of data or just working off of it. Just be ready to show some patience when transferring around gigs of data!!!

I will say that it is definitely worth the money to upgrade to 2.0. After I finally got the drivers properly installed, this puppy flies!!

Ashneel,

I agree that the Sony firewire you speak of is an excellent deal. The day after I saw that thread posted I went to 4 different Staples in Cincinnati looking for one. There were none. That deal is a "unique" situation which very few people were able too participate. This deal is readily available at Compusa. Congratulations on your excellent find!!

 

[breity]

psxjunky and ashneel - thanks. so sounds like i won't have to reformat and repartition after all. i do want to do stuff like watch videos from the external drive and use it for a burner, so i guess upgrading to usb 2.0 will be well worth the 60 bucks or so for the card. and hey, maybe i'll throw my dvd drive in there once-in-a-while to bring on trips.

 

[chrisjor]

If you/we look hard enough, we should be able to get USB 2.0 cards for ~25.00. I believe I saw one with 2 external ports for around this price. Will look later. The Adaptec card has 3 external and 1 internal port, but you obviously pay a premium (69.99). Microcenter had tons of returned, mark down USB 2.0 cards in store, I'm betting that's because of driver/installation issues!!!

Breity,

I did respond with a reply to your question, evidently I goofed and it did not post, sorry. I put a 100 gig 7200 rpm drive in my enclosure. It was formatted with Fat32. I have been able to move it between WinXP Pro, Win2k, and WinME with very little problems. I believe it mounted with no problems in Win2k and XP, but in WinME I had to go in and designate a drive letter to access the drive data. Be aware of one issue though......the cable that came in the Compusa kit was an ATA 33 cable. I do not know what is in the Andara enclosure that is at Overstock. Mine is scheduled for delivery tomorrow, 2/1. I will let you know. Change the cable with ATA66/100 cable. These should have a blue connector on one end and come with newer harddrives. You know that alreeady, I'm sure!!!

 

[Devistater]

This sounds like a sweet deal, I think its worth a trip down to CUSA to check it out, thx

 

[breity]

<< If you/we look hard enough, we should be able to get USB 2.0 cards for ~25.00. I believe I saw one with 2 external ports for around this price. Will look later. The Adaptec card has 3 external and 1 internal port, but you obviously pay a premium (69.99). Microcenter had tons of returned, mark down USB 2.0 cards in store, I'm betting that's because of driver/installation issues!!! >>


thanks for all the info. i think i'll leave the drive as is and try it with those 3 partitions. i will probly have xp or win2000 on the laptop. gotta upgrade from 98. i know i have seen usb 2.0 cards for around those prices, except i am going to need a pcmcia card for the laptop, and that's what i was refering to with the $60 or so, cause that's the best price i have been able to find so far. it is annoying how much more expensive stuff for a laptop is. i don't usually use one, but i'm going travelling, so i will need one. lemme know if you come across any decent prices for the laptop cards, tho.


<< Be aware of one issue though......the cable that came in the Compusa kit was an ATA 33 cable. I do not know what is in the Andara enclosure that is at Overstock. Mine is scheduled for delivery tomorrow, 2/1. I will let you know. Change the cable with ATA66/100 cable. These should have a blue connector on one end and come with newer harddrives. You know that alreeady, I'm sure!!! >>


definitely, i'll look out for the type of cable they include. i should have an extra ata66/100 around somewhere from when i put that new harddrive in a while back. anyways, thanks again!!