Korean Job Discussion Forums

[freebeerandchicken]

G'day g'day,

I am on the hunt for a super cheap external harddrive that i can plug into my Dell laptop. I don't know much about this business, but I'd say the bigger the better.. 125-225 Gigs, or thereabouts, would be sweet.

Can anyone direct me in the direction of cheap and amazing deals? Preferably an online purchase.

Thanks,


Freebeer

[BigBlackEquus]

In Korea? www.danawa.co.kr or www.enuri.com are two popular sites.

You can try www.tigerdirect.ca in Canada.

[freebeerandchicken]

Yup, in Korea.. Thanks for the links!

[the saint]

has anyone got any recommendations on external drives as opposed to just the sites which list tons of options?

I"m looking for somewhere around 200G and I'm wondering if any run off their USB cable for power or do they all need an external power source?

[denverdeath]

[Giant]

I have had good experiances with Sarotech ext cases, then just choose your drive.

[the saint]

[Giant]

Okay, it depends if you want a small notebook size hard drive case, or if you are okay with a larger PC type hard drive size case.

I personally prefer the PC type ext. cases, since you can get like a 500GB drive, a notebok size is limited to like 120GB, and its more expensive for the notebook size.

As with everything in life, there are pros and cons to both options.

PC HD size case:

Pros
===

Larger capacity
Cheaper

Cons
===

Needs an extra power cable
Large physical size, heavier

Noebook HD size case:

Pros
===

Smaller, More portable
Light
Does not need extra power cables since it gets power from the USB port

Cons
====

More expensive
Smaller capacity drives


I hope this clears things up for you.

Cheers
Giant

[Demophobe]

saint....I guess you are looking for a large-capacity drive, but I bought an 80GB, 2.5" notebook drive (as giant said), powered by the usb port.

I can't tell you how cool that is....not having to find a power source is the go mate. The external cases are cool because the capacity is almost unlimited, or at least you can go as high as desktop (3.5") hard drive capacities go. That need for a power plug-in is a real deal breaker, IMHO.

Also, the 2.5" drives are really small and light, unlike an enclosure, hard drive inside and the power cable/adapter. 120GB seems to be the max on the 2.5" though.

[the saint]

Thanks guys. Well I had a look and it seems that those who make these 2.5 inch USB drives are people I've never heard of. That kind of makes it hard to decide on a brand for reliability but THIS ONE caught my eye because
a) it's small (check out that cigarette packet)
b) it runs of USB power
c) you can dismantle it to insert another drive at any time which seems like a very handy way to increase storage at a future date

is c) something that only these smaller ones do or can you remove and add in drives ad hoc with the larger ones?

BTW, not all of these drives seem to be USB powered. THe LGs have a little 9V DC input jack in the pics.

[Giant]

No, all these external case type drives can be upgraded with larger drives.

[Demophobe]

Yeah....mine is an "aike" enclosure, but inside is a fujitsu HDD. They are all like that....some weird name outside, but inside is a known name. The HDD can be swapped easily and the whole thing is not much bigger than the HDD itself.

You may want to just buy the enclosure and pick up the HDD separately, if you are wary.

[the saint]

hmmm what's with that split USB thing on your aike?

[Giant]

Thats just if you need extra power.

[StAxX SOuL]

Samsung manufacture a number of portable 2.5" laptop drives. I came across them on gmarket.co.kr which was recommended to me as one of the cheapest places to buy electronics.

As far as powering off a laptop's USB ports you may be unlucky because many laptop manufacturers underpower their USB ports. I'm running a 500GB LaCiE external drive that I bought back home and even with it powered from the mains I required a USB Hub for it to work with my HP laptop.