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kenthepostman
Apprentice
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Posts: 245
Location: Stanford, CA
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 Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:11 pm Post subject: External USB Hard Drive Compatability |
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| I am planning on buying an external hard drive with a USB 2.0 connector to use with my laptop running gentoo. Does it matter what I buy as far as compatability? Will anything work fine? I know if the drive is partioned with NTFS I can just reformat and repartition it. Are there any other issues to worry about? |
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NeddySeagoon
Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 54827
Location: 56N 3W
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| Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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kenthepostman,
Think very carefully before buying an external drive that runs of the power provided by the USB cable only.
They are around but they are very marginal. Its a hardware issue rather than a Linux/Windows issue.
Such drives want 500mA, which is the maximum permittet by the USB sepecification, then the USB hub turns off the power.
_________________
Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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kenthepostman
Apprentice
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Posts: 245
Location: Stanford, CA
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| Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 4:49 pm Post subject: |
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| The one I was looking has an external power supply so that shouldn't be a problem. Are there issues if the drive already includes software? Do you just wipe it clean? |
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Kernel & Hardware
