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Thread ID: 143741 2017-03-30 04:08:00 external HD Woody (710) Press F1
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1433550 2017-03-30 04:08:00 Son needs an external hard drive of about 1+ TB.
Must be fast. Much of his work involves very large spreadsheets but I don't know what his graphic requirements are.
A few years ago he had a 1 TB Seagate but it was deathly slow on backup or any intensive large file operations.
Any suggestions of type and supplier would be appreciated.
Cheers
Woody (710)
1433551 2017-03-30 04:51:00 Well go for USB3 so long as his computer has the port for it. gary67 (56)
1433552 2017-03-30 06:32:00 As Gary said. I have an USB3 ADATA 1TB one that I find works well. CliveM (6007)
1433553 2017-03-30 11:24:00 You can also now get external ssd drives so they would be much faster but also more expensive. CYaBro (73)
1433554 2017-03-30 20:37:00 Agree with comments so far, if it's an older PC without USB 3.0 the next best option if available would be E-sata but that's less common so you'd one that also has USB for attaching to other PCs if required.

SSD is nice, but you shouldn't really need that much speed and a 1TB external SSD will be expensive.
dugimodo (138)
1433555 2017-03-31 03:23:00 Thanks for replies guys. Having got few more details - it appears that the home PC is a real dinosaur - USB 1 !! Although a lot of work will be for business use at work, it will also be transferred to work at home. Probably very doubtful that USB 3 would be backwards compatible with USB 1? In fact would even a USB 2 drive work into USB1 system?
Would appreciate any comments on compatibility.
Cheers anyway
Woody (710)
1433556 2017-03-31 05:47:00 USB 3 & 2 are both backwards compatible with 1, however USB 3.0 can supply more power so a drive powered solely off a USB 3.0 port may not get enough juice from a single usb 1 port. Some drives have an external power supply or use more than one port to get enough power.

If it's really that old I'd replace the PC with an ex lease PC with USB 2? they can be had for very cheap and it's just not worth using anything older than this for example www.pbtech.co.nz
dugimodo (138)
1433557 2017-03-31 07:30:00 Yes a new used PC. Some may be had for under $100. You could then also upgrade to USB3.0 but for a USB1 machine you really need to upgrade that. Nomad (952)
1433558 2017-03-31 08:40:00 If the case is okay,get a used i3 board/CPU as most have USB3

Can be got for $200/220, not only gives you USB3 but a big jump in performance but the power supply may be underpowered also
Lawrence (2987)
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