I have to admit I was making these things myself with the 320gb laptop drives and enclosures for people before these gems came out. Now that WD started making these I just send them to costco to get one of these cheap. They defiantly are worth adding to your toolkit IMHO.

And now even smaller. that is too cool... Surprisingly these units do not run very hot at all either... top of the line little drives... Pretty stable it seems too. Even if you do not usb disconnect before unplugging... Something that some drives really do not like...

With all the portable apps out there now, this little gem is a workstation in and of itself. In your pocket so to speak... With a ton of room for all your goodies moving in between machines...

But Seagate does have one advantage in its favor: its 7200 rpm rotational speed, which should yield higher sustained throughput rates.

I wonder how much difference RPM really makes if data is sent over USB anyway.

It depends on the total throughput of the drive, USB can only handle so much data. Large files can quickly overwhelm the USB throughput, but smaller ones that require constant seeking and rotational latancies can make a slight difference in favor of the 7200rpm units. The real world experience (for me) is nearly nil. Older 7200 rpm units use previous generation densities, and the 320GB unit uses much higher densities. The 2.5" sector does not parallel the 3.5" sector when it comes to size/speed/throughput because they are limited to two disks.

I leave my lappy plugged in almost 100% of the time.

I would kill for a cheap 200GB 7200 RPM. Hell, I would *love* a 10K.

Will buy 1 more lappy for personal use before SSD becomes the standard. Can't wait for that to happen. No more rotational speed crap.

I will stick with Seagate, I have had a lot of luck with them. I have never had a seagate drive fail on me like Western Digital has.

I have had the exact opposite experience.

While I can't say I have had the opposite experience, I have had good luck with Western Digital overall. I have seen a couple of Western Digital drives fail, but I've seen a handful of Seagates fail as well. Nothing compares to the number of Maxtors, IBMs, and Hitachi drives that I've seen fail though. Of course Maxtor and IBM no longer make hard drives (Seagate actually seems to have done well in ensuring that the current 'Maxtor' drives had a lesser chance of failure IMO), and the bad hitachi's I saw were limited to a single series of drives produced in 2002 and 2003, but frankly I am happy with both Western Digital's and Seagate's records as far as failure rate goes.

My only issues with WD's were the caviar series in early 2000 (they apparently had a lot of issues on that specific line at that time).

Couldn't really blame them, it wasn't a part they manufactured that was failing.

I *really* liked the IBM drives back then though. That was all I would buy after the WD issues. Never had one fail on me. Must be sheer luck from what I've heard about them.

Right now, it's Seagate and Seagate only. The warranty, coupled with price and availability does it for me. I've had about 6 fail in the past year out of literally hundreds, so I'm not too concerned, besides, the warranty backs them quite well and I always have spares around, imaged and ready to go.

FTM, it probably wouldn't matter at all what drives I got from whom. I rarely keep them around longer than 3 years and it takes less than 5 minutes for a tech(not counting the time it takes to get to the location) to swap it and have the user back up and running.

Question: So, I can do saves to the external drive if it's hooked up to the Xbox 360 or PS3? Or is it just there to moved files back and forth?
Thx

I have one of these 320g SATA drives in my laptop (installed it last week) and it's quicker than my old 160g 7200 rpm drive. It's also a tad quieter and doesn't get warm at all. I can't complain. The 160g went into a portable enclosure for backup purposes.

I own 2 of these hard drives. The first one is a beige 120GB passport that I took to Iraq for 15 months. It survived the dust storm and everything, still working today. I cant compare it to other products since this is the only portable hard drive that I buy.

Still not seeing many PCs and notebooks with E-Sata. Are we waiting for USB 3.0 or what?

Come on, guys, we want to be able to actually *use* our external drives....

I didn't think e-sata offered power and data together like USB, does it?

No, but they can easily power the E-Sata device via USB.

Using the USB port as nothing more than a power adapter and still needing another cable for data? I've seen a few devices that do that, mostly cheap speakers that claim to be USB but really aren't since they still plug into a sound card.

Anyway I hate that, a USB port is not a power plug. Using up a USB port and putting needless strain on the system when you are going to need another cable anyway, why not just use an AC adapter to power it as you're supposed to? USB 3.0 will take care of this problem though. eSATA is lame.

Umm no you can't
being that sata requires 12v 5v 3.3v

and usb only provides 5v

obviously is is possible to transform 5v to the other voltages however that would reqire too many amp's and you would get a polite popup telling you that your usb device has been switched off to stop your usb port burning out. Unless of course your refering to using a low power laptop style drive, which would be pointless because your not goign to get a huge speed increase and your stuck with two cables for no reason

more importantly if your so keen on esata why not just use it?

esata is just sata externally, it has external normal power and external normal sata cable, you can use any sata hard drive with it, however best you use one that is hot swapable and has ncq

incase you didn't already know eSATA = EpicFail

...a little thought goes a long way:

Multiple USB connections. I've seen 'em on otehr devices, why not E-SATA? Plenty of power. I never said there weren't better ways of doing it, I simply suggested one method.

more importantly if your so keen on esata why not just use it?


Assume much? Who said I don't use it?

esata is just sata externally,

Duh?

it has external normal power and external normal sata cable

I was merely suggesting a way so as not to require an additional power outlet, like most USB devices. I understand you do not like ESata...you'r problem, not mine.

incase you didn't already know eSATA = EpicFail

Riiiight....

why not just use an AC adapter to power it as you're supposed to?

Limited resources. There aren't always a dozen or so outlets near your work-center.

I know it's hard for many folks to grasp, but more options is a good thing...

USB 3.0 will take care of this problem though. eSATA is lame.


Once USB 3.0 comes out, I may well agree with you. Until then, it's the fastest you'll get outside the box, and that hardly=lame.

so just build your own pc or pick a motherboard when you buy one that has the e-sata port on it. I just built a PC and my mobo came with a e-sata port on it

PC_Tool,

eSata is hardly lame, you won't be booting Windows XP/Vista off a usb hard drive any time soon. 480mbps of USB 2 doesn't exactly match the 1500 or 3000mbps of eSATA 1/2.

Cheers,
Christian

???

Try spending more than 3 seconds reading the thread before jumping to conclusions.

I am a supporter and user of eSata. I never said it was lame, that was the post above mine.

My last home system MB came with SATA2, but no e-Sata.

Bought it less than a year ago. Not planning on upgrading for a while.

Regardless, I wasn't really thinking of myself, or my home system. Just wondering, mostly rhetorically, why such options weren't more widely available.