Portable hard drive & External HD (merged)

[ctlmd]

Can anyone recommend a good portable hard drive of about 60-80 Gbytes that is easily Linux compatable and rugged/plastic, and travels well in a backpack?

Thanks

[banzaikai]

Howdy.

Yes, I could, but...

I need to know what interface you're using (usb, firewire,scsi, etc.), what you're plugging it into (home PC/Lab PC, laptop), and how you're going to power it (wall-wart, battery, usb).

My Uncle's got an Acom external that uses both usb2 and firewire (NOT at the same time), and powers itself from a wall-wart. It's not very heavy, but it is nicely designed and rugged enough for bouncing around in a backpack (he uses it on his laptop and home PC). I wouldn't recommend using any drive that takes it's power from the host computer, especially one used on a laptop. Make sure the drive you get is self-powered, unless you're just toting it between AC-powered computers.

Hope this helps...

banzai

[ctlmd]

I need it for use on a Dell Latitude laptop with Redhat Linux 9.0, on a USB port preferably, or a 4-pin Firewire that is, however, unreliable. Although it will be on a laptop, I will generally be using it with AC power; it would be nice to have the option of self-power. My main question, I guess, is do you have to have Linux drivers for these hard drives, or will they automatically be recognized, mounted, and usable on boot up?
Thanks

[ctlmd]

I am also looking for a good external hard drive for my laptop, as I dual boot and am running out of space. Have you found anything? I only have USB and not USB 2. I also have a Pentium IV 1.6 GHz with 512 Mbyte RAM, an unreliable connection on the 4-pin IEEE 1394 (or I would use that), and Redhat Linux 9.0. I'd like something portable with about 80 Gbyte storage capacity that will be used solely for Linux.
Have you or anyone else had success with any particular external hard drives?

Thanks

[Hayl]

Originally posted by ctlmd
I am also looking for a good external hard drive for my laptop, as I dual boot and am running out of space. Have you found anything? I only have USB and not USB 2. I also have a Pentium IV 1.6 GHz with 512 Mbyte RAM, an unreliable connection on the 4-pin IEEE 1394 (or I would use that), and Redhat Linux 9.0. I'd like something portable with about 80 Gbyte storage capacity that will be used solely for Linux.
Have you or anyone else had success with any particular external hard drives?

Thanks

any USB 2.0 driver will be backwards compatible with USB 1.x. however, the transfer rates will suck.

[ctlmd]

Do they have to have Linux drivers, or just format and they work?