External Hard Drive Specs - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

12/08/2006 06:00:37 PM · #1

I'm looking at some specs and some show the interface as Ultra ATA 100.

Doesn't mention anything about USB or Firewire, so what type of cable is needed for this?

The spec is for an I/O Magic 250GB 3.5" External Hard Drive. Is this drive any good?

TJinGuy

Nikon Coolpix 2100

12/08/2006 06:52:06 PM · #2

I did a quick search and found this.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

12/08/2006 07:11:00 PM · #3

The ATA100 refers to the connection between the drive and the enclosure. The unit connects to the PC with USB 2.0.
FWIW, I don't personally prefere these drives that want you do use their interface. This one says it encrypts your files, which I suppose is OK as long as you never forget the encryption key. I don't like my data messed with, and would rather use the operating system to move/copy files. But that's just me.
Check out this LaCie drive. It's available for about the same price, and is a well-respected brand. I have two LaCie FireWire externals for backup drives, and they have been working flawlessly.

Bobster

Canon EOS-20D

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

12/08/2006 07:17:18 PM · #4

i use ICY BOX for my enclosure - it has bothe USB2 and Firewire connetions

i then stick whatever drive i like in it :)

12/08/2006 09:06:52 PM · #5

Thanks for the replies. I've just started looking into getting an external drive. There's some good sales at FutureShop right now though they don't seem to have any firewire drives.

I'll check out the La Cie drives as well as the Western Digitals which I believe others (in another thread) have said are pretty good.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM II

12/09/2006 01:26:58 AM · #6

Any opinions on this drive:

LaCie d2 Extreme External 250GB Hard Drive
(USB 2.0/Firewire 400/800, 7200 RPM, 8MB - MPN: 300770)

PhotoDave

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

12/09/2006 02:01:28 AM · #7

I'm a 3D modeler / Hardware Consultant by trade and build/maintain all my own systems, and currently have 13 systems on my personal network. IMHO a removable drive or aka Hard Drive Caddy would be your better bet as it would stay cooler in your case and last longer than an external drive and you don't have to worry about extra cables and or power for an external drive and would be way faster than an external unit as your connecting directly to the SATA or EIDE ports on the mother board its self. I personally hate external enclosures as the poor internal cooling they provide drastically reduces the hard drives life span.

One more thing, for external storage there are NAS (Network Accessible Storage) devices available now that are targeted for small businesses and home users that are not to bad as some have deasent cooling abilities. If you are thinking of one of these they can be good for file backups as most of them support Raid for redundancy. But beware there are a lot of devices that are complete crap like the Netgear NAS devices that although cheep, have little or no support and the hardware is not much better and you have a greater chance of loosing your data to the encousure failing than the hard drives failing. You pretty much get what you pay for...

As for brands, I my self have used/tried pretty much all the top brands over the years like Maxtor, Seagate, Quantium, Western Digital, IBM and so on, in all my new systems I build for who ever and all my personal systems I run Western Digital as Ive had the best overall reliability and support with these drives. When I build a new system it pretty much runs 24/7 till I retire it and with having 40+ Drives on my network I don't like fixing them any more than I have to and the only drives Ive had fail are the ones Ive had running pretty much 24/7 for the past 5 to 8 years but all my systems have good cooling also for the drives which does help extend their life.

Lastly I see that your profile says that you are in Alberta, Im not sure where you are but there is a retailer named www.memoryexpress.com that I have been exclusively using for several years as they have been extremely good in the past if I ever had to warranty anything and their pricing is good also. Also they have 2 retail locations in Calgary and 1 in Edmonton.

Im starting to ramble again but if you have any other questions I would be more than happy to try to help you out, and please beware of the advice of (not all) but most of the people working in places like Futureshop, BestBuy and the like, as they don't always know what they are talking about. Ive been kicked out of both of those stores for "properly educating" people on their potential in store purchases as I hate seeing people getting mislead or worse ripped off by in store sales staff.

Ok I'm stopping now :)

-dave