portable hard drives

posts about #portableharddrives more →
Iomega eGo Hard Drives Are Pretty Enough, Cheap Enough
USB 3.0 Only Running at a Quarter of Maximum Speed
Buffalo Shinobi HD Uses MacBook Air HD to Slip Inside Your Pants
Toshiba 200GB Portable Is About Capacity, Not Speed

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Death
05/18/09

In reply to Iomega eGo Hard Drives Are Pretty Enough, Cheap Enough
I've owned way too many faulty Iomega products to ever consider buying anything else from them.
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not_a_virus.exe.vbs
05/18/09

@Death: I have only owned one, the Zip. Now whenever I see anything iomega I don't even bother.
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Nick
05/18/09

In reply to Iomega eGo Hard Drives Are Pretty Enough, Cheap Enough
Iomega eGo Hard Drives are good enough, smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like them.

Fixed it.
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collectiveego
05/18/09

In reply to Iomega eGo Hard Drives Are Pretty Enough, Cheap Enough
sick, eGo is my steam id, crazy...i really want one now.
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Nick
05/18/09

@collectiveego: and what's your steam password?
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Kaiser-Machead
05/18/09

In reply to Iomega eGo Hard Drives Are Pretty Enough, Cheap Enough
For a while, I've wanted a portable HDD that I could use on a laptop, but I was always on the fence about the quality of a lot of these things. Another issue was being able to easily open the enclosure up, and toss the drive if ever I wanted to upgrade, so I bought one of these...

[eshop.macsales.com]

All it really requires is snapping the drive onto the chipset then screwing it in place. I very much prefer these things over prebuilt portable externals.
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frigg
05/18/09

In reply to Iomega eGo Hard Drives Are Pretty Enough, Cheap Enough
Seems fair enough, until you realize this is the same company that made and then STOPPED MAKING the Zip drive.

So yeah, sure, "pretty enough," "cheap enough" yada yada yada. But just wait until you buy one of these only to find out in 10, 20 years IOMEGA will STOP supporting them!
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AmishJohn
05/18/09

@frigg: I was considering more the whole 'portable-click-o'-death' problem...
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szrimaging
05/18/09

@frigg: Wait...you are getting at them for not supporting a technology that was passed by newer, better technologies that there was little to no demand for? Wow, just wow. Lets face it, the Zip Drive was doomed once portable hard drives like these became accessible.
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Kaiser-Machead
05/18/09

@szrimaging: I'd say the SD card is the better replacement for the Zip drive than the portable hard drive. Only problem is that not everyone has a reader (I'm looking at you Apple).
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frigg
05/18/09

@frigg: ... was sort of kidding about the OMG it will be obsolete in 20 years thing!!!... *shuffles back under bridge*
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TBM-Fan
01/07/09

In reply to USB 3.0 Only Running at a Quarter of Maximum Speed
I easily manage to get transfers that are 14Megabytes per second but when i use firewire 400 with my ipod then everything is so slow that i cancel the the upload and plug it in the usb port

1200Mbps is still more then 480Mbps

so bring it on
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madog
01/07/09

@TBM-Fan: Depends on what iPod you have. Apple actually released an iPod software update (I'm ALMOST positive) that killed FW or otherwise made it slower around the time of the 4th/5th (1st/2nd nanos) gen ones. I think there was a valid reason as the batteries could have been different or the connections different in which FW would charge it so fast it could actually damage them.

That very well could be some mixed memory about something, but at the end, they ended up disabling the FW pins of the 30-pin dock connectors and is the reason the 3G iPhones and newer iPods do not function with FW anymore.
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(Starman) Starman
01/07/09

In reply to USB 3.0 Only Running at a Quarter of Maximum Speed
I miss you, FireWire! If only you didn't release that ass port for FW800, you would have conquered all. :'(
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Darkest Daze
01/07/09

@I Got a Cold for New Year's!: They were dead before the FW800. When that port came out, every external device was already available in USB and 1/20 of those devices were also available with a FW connection.
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madog
01/07/09

@Darkest Daze: Anyone who knew anything about USB 1 compared to FW would beat an old lady with a stick to get a FW compatible PC/peripheral. Because it was only available on higher end PC's it never took off as it should have since that is a vast majority of the computer market. As such, not many device manufacturers developed compatible FW devices because it wasn't "standard".

What's even worse is Apple removing it from their new lineup of Macbook's which is completely awful for anyone who has used Mac's for more than a few years and knows the benefits of FW and more than likely has a few devices that are compatible.

For FW coming out years ahead of USB 2.0 and STILL being faster than USB in the long-haul is very sad. Kind of like the death of the electric car and how that "one" amazing car that came out 10 years ago which was vastly better than many of the regular gas powered vehicles at the time ended up getting "recalled" and dumped in a land fill in the desert because it was "too good".

Such a backwards ass market we live in when products too powerful don't get adopted or otherwise get shunned by third parties (or oil/car companies in the case of that electric car), and end up as legend even though they would have made our lives that tiny much better or easier.
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Monty
01/07/09

In reply to USB 3.0 Only Running at a Quarter of Maximum Speed
I was shocked the other day when I hooked up my original iPod to the firewire port and it transferred the music over twice as fast as the USB 2.0 port did on a brand new iPod. I do not have a problem with USB, but it never seems to operate anywhere near the speed they advertise.

I look forward to having USB 3.0 in everything, and I suspect it will be noticeably faster than USB 2.0. But, don't hold you breath for speeds anywhere near what they are advertising.
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smcallah
01/07/09

In reply to USB 3.0 Only Running at a Quarter of Maximum Speed
I don't even seem to get 480Mbps over USB 2.0 anyway.

It all depends on the device, I'm sure. I probably just don't have any devices that will do 480Mbps.

Just like there will barely be any 3.0 devices that do 1200Mbps, or 5000Mbps, or 25Gbps.
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FHJay
01/07/09

@smcallah: USB transfers in bursts, so it kind of peaks at 480mbps, but constantly goes up and down. FW 400 transfers at a steady 400, and 800 at 800mbps. So USB is rarely at its peak speed.
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madog
01/07/09

@FHJay: You are correct, sir! Hey-o!
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Kaiser-Machead
01/07/09

In reply to USB 3.0 Only Running at a Quarter of Maximum Speed
Tempts me to simply wait on it to come to Macbooks to make the plunge. With FW gone from the base I'd sure like to see some 3.0 love.
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#portableharddrives

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Iomega eGo Hard Drives Are Pretty Enough, Cheap Enough

USB 3.0 Only Running at a Quarter of Maximum Speed

Buffalo Shinobi HD Uses MacBook Air HD to Slip Inside Your Pants

Toshiba 200GB Portable Is About Capacity, Not Speed

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Iomega eGo Hard Drives Are Pretty Enough, Cheap Enough

USB 3.0 Only Running at a Quarter of Maximum Speed

Buffalo Shinobi HD Uses MacBook Air HD to Slip Inside Your Pants

Toshiba 200GB Portable Is About Capacity, Not Speed

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