external usb drive?

bacardi · Post by **bacardi** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 3:48 pm

background:
- currently running 3x17gb drives that i got for free... in 97

yes thats right. they're 7 yrs old

since i dont want to give up on my bp6 yet, i'm thinking about buying a new HD in the 100-200gb range. i want an external for 2 reasons... 1- i want to avoid any hpt issues at all. i've never had any stability with it, but even during the good days, never noticed a huge performance gain. 2- i might be getting a laptop in the future so it'd be easier for me to shift over

i looked over the recent posts and dont really see much information regarding usb or firewire drives, so its hard to do a pros/cons list. from the little bit of info i do see, the board's 2 usb slots are v1.0, and it obviously has no firewire support.

so.. does anyone have any experience with external HD's? is usb v2.0 backwards compatible? and if so, would i be better off getting a usb drive than a firewire card (i read a little bit about ppl have tons of problems installing a firewire card) ? should i abandon this idea altogether as having a usb v1.0 connection means i'll be spending 10-12 years moving data?

any suggestion would be helpful so thanks in advance

24seven · Post by **24seven** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 4:26 am

If I was you I would get an new controler and a new internal hard drive. Thus not having to worry about slow transfer rates or compatability.
Then at a later date when you get the laptop buy an external drive caddy and put the drive into it to allow it to be used with the laptop.
Eather that or keep it in the BP6 and use the BP6 as a file server.

Oh and yes USB 2 devices are backwards compatible.

bacardi · Post by **bacardi** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 10:53 am

the thing is, speed isnt my primary concern, as i will be mainly using it as storage. at worst, if i can stream movies from it, then i'll be perfectly content (and even usb v1.0 should handle that -- i think..)

and i'd also rather not spend the extra money on a controller, and then later a drive caddy. its 2 extra devices to worry about, in regards to both price and unforeseen technical glitches. the less, the better..

davd_bob · Post by **davd_bob** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 9:33 pm

If you are thinking about portability between a laptop or any computer for that matter USB sounds good but in your shopping see how fast you could transfer 2 gigabytes from one drive to another. Im sure the cache/mechanical limitations are simular between different types of drives.

A harddrive can only transmit data at the advertised speed of the controler until it's cacheis empty then its limited by the mechanical maximum speed of the drive. Your 17gigs probably have 5400rpm and 512kilo cache. Really state of the art then but now...great for storage but not speed. HPT66 or standard33 wont really matter much if you are moving quite a bit of data since it will always exceed the cache.

Good luck,
David

RRLedford · Post by **RRLedford** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:36 pm

External Hdisk storage means USB 2.0 (or firewire) & you may want to think twice about what card you get for adding USB 2.0 to the BP6.

After giving up on two generic brand USB 2.0 cards because of devices disappearing and not initializing, I finally got an Adaptec card. Far and away the best USB2.0 card I've seen to date. The bundled S/W is exceptionally good. If I were in your shoes, I'd accept nothing less.

bacardi · Post by **bacardi** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 10:18 am

hmm.. for some reason i never even looked at the usb v2.0 cards because i unconsciously assumed that with ppl having some many problems with firewire cards, it would be the same for usb. from there, i had been willing to suck it up and deal with v1.0 speeds...

david -- yah you're exactly right, all my 17g drives are 5400/512 cache. i cant complain too much though, as they've survived my abuse for 7+ years now and are still churning

well now i suppose i at least have 1 vote for a usb drive.

rrledford -- you've had no problems with your usb v2.0 drive + card? i'm almost concerned the bottleneck wouldnt be on the card or the drive, but on the bp6... any limitations on speed and/or size?

thanks for the input so far guys

RRLedford · Post by **RRLedford** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 11:06 am

bacardi wrote: rrledford -- you've had no problems with your usb v2.0 drive + card? i'm almost concerned the bottleneck wouldnt be on the card or the drive, but on the bp6... any limitations on speed and/or size?

thanks for the input so far guys

Well I have only connected WLAN adapters, mouse, KB, wireles KB-mouse, Digital camera, Digital vid cam, MP3 players, flash card readers to the Adaptec USB 2.0 cards in my (3) BP6 systems.

The speed limit is based on the bus speed of the BP6
Theoretically, a 33MHz bus clock will allow 33MBs per second.
PCI bus speed tops out at 66MHz on better systems (not BP6)
Most drives can't match this data xfer speed except for burst from cache.

bacardi · Post by **bacardi** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 1:11 pm

awesome to know!

which adaptec card and usb drive do you use? if i go with this solution, i might as well try something that i know works (in 1 out of 1 case anyway

)

RRLedford · Post by **RRLedford** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 1:20 am

Loading the Adaptec "USB Control Utility" that came with the card tells me
my computer has two USB hubs, and

that the "HubA" is the ABIT BP6 Root Hub Manufacturer: Intel

and the "HubB" is the Adaptec USB2Connect 3100B_LP Mfg.: Adaptec, Inc.

I think that newer versions of USB2 cards are now circulating, but this one may still be available. On newe cards, just be sure that the PCI bus spec version requirement is not too far beyond what the BP6 can handle.

bacardi · Post by **bacardi** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 10:29 am

amazon has the adaptec 3100 for $30 so im gonna order that in the next day or so!

what about the ext HDD that you use? is there any size limitation? or other things i should be looking out for?

kuun · Post by **kuun** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 11:47 am

as long as the usb card works correctly.. it doesn't matter what size hdd you put on it..

the OS would be at fault then

RRLedford · Post by **RRLedford** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 12:48 pm

The external case+USB2 interface electronics device you use to mount your IDE drive will determine what the size limit if the drive must be. The kits may have a firmware upgraade or S/W driver to install that lets you go with the newest high GB drives.

bacardi · Post by **bacardi** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 6:15 pm

just an update..

picked up my adaptec 3100 card. xp detected it right away and i have no problems hooking up usb devices to it. although in the device manager, its reading as an nec card.. not sure what kind of effect that might have, as i dont have any usb2 devices to test..

now time to pickup a drive... gonna wait on a deal for this one

hyperspace · Post by **hyperspace** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 9:01 pm

The Adaptec has a NEC chip on it (most likely).

bacardi · Post by **bacardi** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 6:54 pm

yay my thread is still here

in case this might help someone in the future, i ended up with an acom 160gig. the biggest selling point is that it supports both usb2 and firewire. i dropped it into the usb2 card i got for my bp6 and it works just fine, abeit much slower than expected.

since i now also have a mac powerbook, i have no problems just popping it into the firewire on the mac and the speeds are through the roof. however, 90% of the time it stays plugged into the bp6 pc cuz its easier to leave plugged in for long downloads/uploads.

thanks for all the help!

hyperspace · Post by **hyperspace** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 8:52 pm

Thanx for the feedback, bacardi !