[brainout]

smax013, on 14 November 2012 - 05:49 AM, said:

brainout, on 13 November 2012 - 10:36 PM, said:

Right, you did say that, and it's a good idea. It's just that I switch between machines often, so carrying a small external drive from machine to machine, works for my needs right now. But the RAID thingy would be vital, if I ever decide to network and turn one of the computers into a server or make it Remote Desktop. That I might do, if I can convince one of my colleagues who doesn't even want to SPELL 'computer', to buy a Surface Pro for himself.

You can get "small" external drives that have two drives in RAID 1. I actually have such an enclosure that I put in my own two drives (I am not actually using it in RAID 1...just as one enclosure to house two drives). The issue you likely would run into is that I believe these drives typically require supplemental power when using USB (i.e. a small external power adapter), but can be purely bus powered when using Firewire (I use Firewire). Firewire supplies more power on the bus. I am not sure if USB 3.0 changes this or not, but since you seem to be dealing with older computers, they likely won't have USB 3.0. I suspect your issue likely would be having to mess with the external power adapter when moving the drive from computer to computer.

Here is what I have (I bought just the "bare" enclosure...not one that included drives):

http://eshop.macsale...FW800_FW400_USB

There are certainly other options.

Good idea. Actually, I have older WD external drives with firewire ports on them as well, they are self-powered, AND have USB connections. At least one of my computers has a separate firewire port on it (maybe two machines). But I've just not used firewire yet. So thank you for the information on another way to use firewire, very useful!

This post has been edited by brainout: 15 November 2012 - 04:32 AM

[smax013]

brainout, on 15 November 2012 - 04:30 AM, said:

Good idea. Actually, I have older WD external drives with firewire ports on them as well, they are self-powered, AND have USB connections. At least one of my computers has a separate firewire port on it (maybe two machines). But I've just not used firewire yet. So thank you for the information on another way to use firewire, very useful!

FWIW, Firewire is better than USB 2.0 in many ways. It is faster. It will always have enough power on the bus to power the drive, which in some cases USB 2.0 will not have enough power on the bus to power some external drive without using either an external power adapter or a second USB port (typically by way of a "Y" shaped USB cable).

The main advantage of USB 2.0 is that it is more ubiquitous than Firewire (i.e. most computers have a USB 2.0 port while not many will have Firewire ports).

I pretty much always use at least Firewire, if not eSATA (even faster than both versions of Firewire). The primary exception is with my MacBook Air since it is my one computer without a Firewire port...it only has USB 2.0 ports (it is the model before Thunderbolt ports were introduced). Thus, I am forced to use USB drives with it.

[brainout]

smax013, on 15 November 2012 - 10:57 AM, said:

brainout, on 15 November 2012 - 04:30 AM, said:

Good idea. Actually, I have older WD external drives with firewire ports on them as well, they are self-powered, AND have USB connections. At least one of my computers has a separate firewire port on it (maybe two machines). But I've just not used firewire yet. So thank you for the information on another way to use firewire, very useful!

FWIW, Firewire is better than USB 2.0 in many ways. It is faster. It will always have enough power on the bus to power the drive, which in some cases USB 2.0 will not have enough power on the bus to power some external drive without using either an external power adapter or a second USB port (typically by way of a "Y" shaped USB cable).

The main advantage of USB 2.0 is that it is more ubiquitous than Firewire (i.e. most computers have a USB 2.0 port while not many will have Firewire ports).

I pretty much always use at least Firewire, if not eSATA (even faster than both versions of Firewire). The primary exception is with my MacBook Air since it is my one computer without a Firewire port...it only has USB 2.0 ports (it is the model before Thunderbolt ports were introduced). Thus, I am forced to use USB drives with it.

Thank you again for the useful info! The two Dell computers I just bought each have eSata ports, which were NOT listed when I bought them in Dell Auction last week. They also have HDMI, again, not listed when I bought them. The models were Optiplex 780 SFF and 760 MT, respectively. The SFF has Win7Pro, and the MT has Vista Business (which oddly enough, I think I like, ouch). Prices were 225 and 286 in bidding, but Dell Auction is glutted with them; so you might not have to pay as much, if you're in the market.

If relevant to you, Dell monitors are flooded, too. I just got in dellauction.com, two 20" 2010Ht monitors with 16:9 aspect ratio (so the panel is only 11.25" high). They have 2.0 hubs (4, plus one upstream so you can power the monitor's hub, unless you like frying the monitor). Since most video editors (i.e., Cyberlink) require 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio, it's a pistol to create an onscreen instructional video if you have a monitor screen recording which doesn't fit those aspect ratios. I learned all this the hard way, after making over 500 such videos. Cost me 8 hours or more per video, to fix.

A self-powered usb (forget those stupid Y-cords) drive of over 250GB works better from the monitor hub, especially if WD Passport 3.0. People who complain about that model don't realize it needs more power, and that power is stable if the WD is hooked up to the monitor hub, rather than to the back of the machine's own USB; for the latter, allocates power among ALL its usbs.

This post has been edited by brainout: 15 November 2012 - 11:48 AM