External Hard drive purchase ? [Hardware]

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From: Bill in Co. on 17 Dec 2009 15:27

Roger wrote:
> "Bill in Co." <not_really_here(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:O5zxTw0fKHA.2188(a)TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>> Roger wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Merry Xmas to all you helpers. Here is my question,I wish to buy an
>>> external hard drive for my back up. I Run Xp pro SP2 my USB Hub is 1.1
>>> which is powered with four ports. I don't have much material to store so
>>> around 250 gb would be ample. Most advertise USB 2.0 I believe this
>>> should be ok for my 1.1 Hub but things would backup more slower.
>>
>> A LOT slower. How about the idea of first getting a USB 2.0 card, so
>> you could use the much faster speed of USB 2.0? Or is that not
>> practicable?
>>
>>> Can you give any
>>> advice as I need to use something simple for my system back up just in
>>> case.
>>> PS should it be a desk top or portable unit as latter appears cheaper
>>>
>>> Regards Roger
>>> ==================================
>>> ====================================
>>
>> Well that's a possibility but am looking at cost, and my older pc with
>> 800Mhz AMD board K7S5A with SIS 735 chipset.
> On my PC hard drive very little is used i.e. 11GB used, over 65 GB free.
> So
> some form of small back up at cheap pensioner cost would be ideal. I would
> not mind my back up speed being slower, as I'm not in a rush yet.

I think those USB 2.0 cards are pretty cheap though.
Even with 11 GB to backup, I think the difference would be quite
significant. I don't have the USB max speeds at my fingertips, however,
but just as a wild guess, using USB 1.1, I'm guessing it might take more
than an hour.

From: Paul on 17 Dec 2009 18:26

Bill in Co. wrote:
> Roger wrote:
>> "Bill in Co." <not_really_here(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message
>> news:O5zxTw0fKHA.2188(a)TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>>> Roger wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> Merry Xmas to all you helpers. Here is my question,I wish to buy an
>>>> external hard drive for my back up. I Run Xp pro SP2 my USB Hub is 1.1
>>>> which is powered with four ports. I don't have much material to store so
>>>> around 250 gb would be ample. Most advertise USB 2.0 I believe this
>>>> should be ok for my 1.1 Hub but things would backup more slower.
>>> A LOT slower. How about the idea of first getting a USB 2.0 card, so
>>> you could use the much faster speed of USB 2.0? Or is that not
>>> practicable?
>>>
>>>> Can you give any
>>>> advice as I need to use something simple for my system back up just in
>>>> case.
>>>> PS should it be a desk top or portable unit as latter appears cheaper
>>>>
>>>> Regards Roger
>>>> ==================================
>>>> ====================================
>>> Well that's a possibility but am looking at cost, and my older pc with
>>> 800Mhz AMD board K7S5A with SIS 735 chipset.
>> On my PC hard drive very little is used i.e. 11GB used, over 65 GB free.
>> So
>> some form of small back up at cheap pensioner cost would be ideal. I would
>> not mind my back up speed being slower, as I'm not in a rush yet.
>
> I think those USB 2.0 cards are pretty cheap though.
> Even with 11 GB to backup, I think the difference would be quite
> significant. I don't have the USB max speeds at my fingertips, however,
> but just as a wild guess, using USB 1.1, I'm guessing it might take more
> than an hour.
>

In the same order for the USB hard drive, a PCI USB2 card isn't going
to add much to the overall project cost. And it will be a damn sight more
responsive (by a factor of 30).

(5 port USB2 PCI card - needs an empty PCI slot inside the computer) $9.99
(Uses NEC uPD720101. Positives: Compatibility. Negatives: Sensitive to static.
Some people report the ports on the NEC based cards can die, but when the
ports fail, the failures are independent. The remaining ports continue
to work, at least, until they're all used up.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124008

USB2 devices are supposed to be backward compatible with USB1.1 ports.
So if a person has a computer with only USB1.1 ports, you can still
plug USB2 devices into those ports. For things like mass storage
devices, I would not expect a problem. Your transfer rate in
that case is 1MB/sec, rather than the 30MB/sec typically seen
on USB2 host ports.

There are some exceptions, but those exceptions have never been
provided with a text explanation of what the limitation might
be. Some devices simply won't perform their function well,
if the bandwidth is limited. (Imagine a device taking video
in real time, which is dropping a lot of frames.) But the times
I've seen the exception, there isn't even an explanation like that.
Instead, the description gives the impression it "doesn't work",
which I find hard to believe. I think there is some Apple USB2 product
like that, where the claim is it "doesn't work" if plugged into
a USB 1.1 port. I'm still waiting to see a report from someone
who has tried it.

Paul

From: philo on 17 Dec 2009 18:28

From: Bill in Co. on 17 Dec 2009 19:14

Paul wrote:
> Bill in Co. wrote:
>> Roger wrote:
>>> "Bill in Co." <not_really_here(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message
>>> news:O5zxTw0fKHA.2188(a)TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>>>> Roger wrote:
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> Merry Xmas to all you helpers. Here is my question,I wish to buy an
>>>>> external hard drive for my back up. I Run Xp pro SP2 my USB Hub is
>>>>> 1.1
>>>>> which is powered with four ports. I don't have much material to store
>>>>> so
>>>>> around 250 gb would be ample. Most advertise USB 2.0 I believe this
>>>>> should be ok for my 1.1 Hub but things would backup more slower.
>>>> A LOT slower. How about the idea of first getting a USB 2.0 card, so
>>>> you could use the much faster speed of USB 2.0? Or is that not
>>>> practicable?
>>>>
>>>>> Can you give any
>>>>> advice as I need to use something simple for my system back up just in
>>>>> case.
>>>>> PS should it be a desk top or portable unit as latter appears cheaper
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards Roger
>>>>> ==================================
>>>>> ====================================
>>>> Well that's a possibility but am looking at cost, and my older pc with
>>>> 800Mhz AMD board K7S5A with SIS 735 chipset.
>>> On my PC hard drive very little is used i.e. 11GB used, over 65 GB free.
>>> So
>>> some form of small back up at cheap pensioner cost would be ideal. I
>>> would not mind my back up speed being slower, as I'm not in a rush yet.
>>
>> I think those USB 2.0 cards are pretty cheap though.
>> Even with 11 GB to backup, I think the difference would be quite
>> significant. I don't have the USB max speeds at my fingertips, however,
>> but just as a wild guess, using USB 1.1, I'm guessing it might take more
>> than an hour.
>>
>
> In the same order for the USB hard drive, a PCI USB2 card isn't going
> to add much to the overall project cost. And it will be a damn sight more
> responsive (by a factor of 30).
>
> (5 port USB2 PCI card - needs an empty PCI slot inside the computer) $9.99
> (Uses NEC uPD720101. Positives: Compatibility. Negatives: Sensitive to
> static.
> Some people report the ports on the NEC based cards can die, but when the
> ports fail, the failures are independent. The remaining ports continue
> to work, at least, until they're all used up.)
>
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124008
>
> USB2 devices are supposed to be backward compatible with USB1.1 ports.
> So if a person has a computer with only USB1.1 ports, you can still
> plug USB2 devices into those ports. For things like mass storage
> devices, I would not expect a problem. Your transfer rate in
> that case is 1MB/sec, rather than the 30MB/sec typically seen
> on USB2 host ports.

So let's see, for say 10 GB of data, at 1 MB/sec, we're looking at 10,000
seconds, vs 333 seconds for USB 1.1. Ideally.

10,000 seconds/3600 = 2.78 hrs, vs 333/3600 = 0.093 hrs (around a tenth of
an hour, or 6 minutes), if I didn't mess up the calculations. WOW, what a
difference!

Actually, these speeds sound a bit high (idealistic) to me, though; and
maybe in practice it's even less, and perhaps even significantly less, but
I'm not positive of that.

> There are some exceptions, but those exceptions have never been
> provided with a text explanation of what the limitation might
> be. Some devices simply won't perform their function well,
> if the bandwidth is limited. (Imagine a device taking video
> in real time, which is dropping a lot of frames.) But the times
> I've seen the exception, there isn't even an explanation like that.
> Instead, the description gives the impression it "doesn't work",
> which I find hard to believe. I think there is some Apple USB2 product
> like that, where the claim is it "doesn't work" if plugged into
> a USB 1.1 port. I'm still waiting to see a report from someone
> who has tried it.
>
> Paul

From: Roger on 18 Dec 2009 04:20

"philo" <philo(a)privacy.invalid> wrote in message
news:hgeeq3$34t$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
> Bill in Co. wrote:
>> Roger wrote:
>>> "Bill in Co." <not_really_here(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message
>>> news:O5zxTw0fKHA.2188(a)TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>>>> Roger wrote:
>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>
>>>>> Merry Xmas to all you helpers. Here is my question,I wish to buy an
>>>>> external hard drive for my back up. I Run Xp pro SP2 my USB Hub is
>>>>> 1.1
>>>>> which is powered with four ports. I don't have much material to store
>>>>> so
>>>>> around 250 gb would be ample. Most advertise USB 2.0 I believe this
>>>>> should be ok for my 1.1 Hub but things would backup more slower.
>>>> A LOT slower. How about the idea of first getting a USB 2.0 card, so
>>>> you could use the much faster speed of USB 2.0? Or is that not
>>>> practicable?
>>>>
>>>>> Can you give any
>>>>> advice as I need to use something simple for my system back up just in
>>>>> case.
>>>>> PS should it be a desk top or portable unit as latter appears cheaper
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards Roger
>>>>> ==================================
>>>>> ====================================
>>>> Well that's a possibility but am looking at cost, and my older pc with
>>>> 800Mhz AMD board K7S5A with SIS 735 chipset.
>>> On my PC hard drive very little is used i.e. 11GB used, over 65 GB free.
>>> So
>>> some form of small back up at cheap pensioner cost would be ideal. I
>>> would
>>> not mind my back up speed being slower, as I'm not in a rush yet.
>>
>> I think those USB 2.0 cards are pretty cheap though.
>> Even with 11 GB to backup, I think the difference would be quite
>> significant. I don't have the USB max speeds at my fingertips, however,
>> but just as a wild guess, using USB 1.1, I'm guessing it might take more
>> than an hour.
>
>
> I actually have a USB 1.1 enclosure and I stopped using it years ago.
>
> The data transfer time was *excruciating* slow . I *highly* advise adding
> a PCI USB-2 card to the machine. They cost very little (under $10 from
> Newegg) and are very easy to install

Changing my card seems the possibility now, would it be best to remove the
current USB card from machine and put USB 2.0 in that slot, and are those
leads universal for the new card type.

Roger
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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