Karaoke Forums

I'm getting ready to purchase an external USB drive for my laptop so I can carry more tunes with me. I noticed a lot of the Seagates are running 7200 RPM where as the Western Digitals are running 5400 RPM. I've even seen some by  I/O Magic that are cheaper, i've heard some longevity issues about these. Whats your experience, will I notice the difference or are we talking the ever elusive nano second here comparing 5400 vs 7200. Preferences anyone?

_________________
Quickness of mind will deceive the eye

assuming youre lappy is usb 2 compatible I doubt you would notice...unless its a celeron chip then you might have issues

_________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

External HD are expensive compare to internal HD. I use an internal HD as an external drive. A usb case is all that is needed. The whole thing cost just half of the real external  of the same capacity.

_________________
I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Agree with Jian, get an internal drive & an external case - cheaper & still does the same job.  I would go with a 7200 rpm or higher personally, why take the chance in a show with bare minimum speed & capacity?
I just saw an internal Seagate 750gb drive last week on sale for $150 (after rebate ($225 before).

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

every western digital drive I own is 7200... you have to be aware of the sales that's going on, and not to get older drives they're trying to get rid of.

Thanks for the input. I didn't know they sold the cases separately. I ran across one from Ultra that has a fan and its USB and Firewire capable. It even comes with the cables for less than 30 bucks. I don't think you could beat that with a stick.

_________________
Quickness of mind will deceive the eye

I recently lost another HD in an external enclosure. If they are not unmounted the heads are not parked and when power is applied the heads slam into the mechanical limits.(you can hear them) One I lost because I didnt have it plugged in the rack and it was powered all night with no digital control. Another one the external power supply had an intermittent plug to the drive. This really destroys one over a short period of time Never pull the power on a HD before unmounting. Actually it is best to boot with it hooked up and shutdown before unplugging the HD.

So I need another HD and just hate to go out and buy a huge capacity drive..

_________________
Join The Karaokle Singers Social Network. Upload Your Music!!

www.pcgigs.com is where I get my enclosures. Don't get me wrong, I've bought elsewhere, but routinely, these guys always treated me right.

One great resource is www.pricewatch.com for ANY computer needs... you can watch the prices raise or go lower on a DAILY basis.

One last note... some of the enclosures aren't rated for really HUGE drives (some are not rated for higher than 300gb drives). So make certain you read the fine print.

Also, some don't immediately come with usb cables...

I used to work for Maxtor and Seagate and I can tell you, I would trust Seagate more than other brands as far as quality point of view. I would go with 7200 RPM, you will see throughput increase of about 15%. That may or may not be noticeable but to me, it's worth it to me, since the cost differential is so small between the two.

Make sure when you get an enclosure, you get a decent size power supply. Newer drives, specially spinning at 7200 or 10k RPM, they need more power.

_________________

Seize the day and SING!!!

I have had really good luck with Western Digital 7200 RPM hard drives.  What Ben says about the higher capacity power supply and what Karyoker says about unmounting the drive properly is very important too.

If you put an internal in a USB case, just make sure you format it FAT and not as a Windows drive. I learned that lesson the hard way.

I totally disagree.

I have my externals formated NTFS, and they work as internal or external drives.

It depends on which OS you are using. If you are using XP, definitely use NTFS. If you are using Win98, you are better off with FAT then NTFS. I heard differing views on NT but you are probably better with NTFS then FAT, due to some inherent advantages, including speed but some people prefer FAT because it's simpler file system.

_________________

Seize the day and SING!!!

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... ber01.mspx

The biggest advantage I remember with the NTFS is the file naming abilities.

I think I read somewhere that if you format to Fat32 it will limit your files to a little over four megs. I'm running XP, I plan on staying away from Vista for a good long time. Thanx for all the help so far guys, I've gotten a lot of useful information.

_________________
Quickness of mind will deceive the eye

If you have XP as your operating system, by all means go with NTFS.  You won't have the 4 Gig file size limit that FAT has.  If you're ever dealing with uncompressed video files, this will be important.

This is wrong. 4 gig, maybe. But I doubt you will need files that big.

In Xp FAT limits a partition to 32Gig This problem can be solved

quote from different forum

_________________
Join The Karaokle Singers Social Network. Upload Your Music!!

NTFS is better if you are certain you are always going to use a Windows machine to access the files. But if you are going to use some appliance or the other -- like a dedicated karaoke player, for example -- you are definitely safer with FAT32.

Also, I don't believe the 32G partition limit applies to FAT32 -- I have several USB-based devices which are FAT32 and bigger than that.

 Yea I got to wondering about that too My memory is still hazy from the win 2k days and what it did to large partitions

For awhile I was playing with linux which doesnt see ntfs but it does fat32 and it even gets more complicated. Out of habit I have always fat32 'd the external...I forget what we are talking about sometimes It does depend upon the overall setup. My main is a sata which is dual parted ntfs on both..

_________________
Join The Karaokle Singers Social Network. Upload Your Music!!