What is the best USB powered external harddrive? Need something around 40 GB or so that is lightweight and farily rugged (I don't plan on dropping it, but accidents do happen).
I've used the 100GB version of the Seagate portable drive and would recommend it. However, the WD 80GB is only $20 more than the Seagate 40GB and worth it for double the storage space.
Those are nice pocket drives, but you can put one together for a lot less if you buy a laptop drive 40/80GB and a pocket enclosure and put them together.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to put them together. If you not that 'mechanical' you can always go retail.
Beware! In many situations USB powered drives won't work as there is just not enough power (current) available from the USB ports. Many of these drives will have power cords that can obtain power from more than one source (2xUSB or USB and PS/2) and sometimes even that won't work. You can pick the most power efficient drive you can find (which will usually be the same as the slowest) and still not have it work.
. So be sure your external enclosure (or preassembled kit) comes with a wall-wart as well. You could also rig a battery pack (4xNiMH or NiCAD C or D cells in series = 4.8V nominal) to be sure you can run it in locations where there is no AC power available as long as it has a power jack in the external case - or you'd have to rig a power jack as well.
Unlike Zepper I've never had a problem with my 2.5" laptop drive I threw in an external enclosure that cost $12 at compusa. The newegg drive linked above looks similar. Maybe zepper is talking about full size 3.5" drives?
It's not the drive, it't the USB ports. They have limited power and if there are any other devices using, there may not be enough. You may be able to unplug all other USB peripherals to get enough. I just like to be sure I'll have enough power when I go to backup or transfer important data.
It's not an issue for me, when I use my drive with my laptop it's my only USB device.
If you think Zepper's power problem will be an issue there is allways the bufalo external drive with power booster. Basicaly it stores a little charge to keep the hard drive going if there are any sags in the USB power, or for when the drive spins up requiring more power:
I have about 6 external 2.5" cases with laptop drives in them - some USB2, some Firewire - some both. ALL require use of a 5 VDC external power module with my laptop. That is because all of my USB ports are occupied. Most good cases come with 5 VDC modules. Be flexible.
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