Advise on an external 'Hard Drive' please

[Sutton Warrior]

OK, I have been looking at upgrading my 'Puter'. Gona cost £350-£400, reason, I want to get into RAW files, and the present unit is a 6 year old, Pentium 4, 512RAM. It threw wobblies when I put the soft ware on for RAW . . . so I upgraded RAM to 2GB, this sorted the instability out, but we still suffered a 'Blue Screen' crash a couple of times in a days use. Frustrating, to the point of checking out 'what, how much and when' for a new one.

 

However, as the weather has been a bit off for fishing . . . or photography, I have had many hours (10 days holiday) to sit a stere at the screen, go through the why's and wherefores of what I was proposing and what was happening. You will have seen referances to this frustration in other threads.

 

Finaly had one last ditch at sorting the old girl out, I dont like change, or things beating me when I suspect there is an underlying problem I have not identified. I found a freebe virus/spy program I dont use much, ran it, it found, cookies, viruses and spies in quatity, cookies were few as I had cleaned the HD recently. Cleaned the lot off the HD, made running web sites a problem for a while but all is well now . . . and I have run the RAM assoiated programs, on the computer for hours now, perfectly! I know a modern computer will run so much faster, but the old one is fair tramping along by my standards, after the RAM upgrade and virus/cookie clean up.

 

I know, 300-400 quid, whats the problem . . . as I say I dont like change, re setting things, re registering with Virgin my broad band provider I find daunting, and if I can hang onto most of my cash for another year or two, in the present financial climate, why not. The problem boils down to the 80Gb HD in the old computer, wont store much in the way of RAW fils. Maplin are offering a 'Toshiba, 500Gb external HD' for £65, seems a decent price to extend the usefulness of my old girl, similar offer on a 'Maxtron One Touch 500Gb HD'.

 

Question one; both say they work from a USB2 port, not sure if my computer is 'USB' or 'USB2', will one work from the other, pluged in verious modern card readers, 'printers HPC5180' and the like with no problems, I have a spare USB ports avaliable.

 

Question two; any views on external hard drives? spacificaly Toshiba or Maxtron? The idea is that I have a back stop, if the old computer 'pops its Pentium' in a few months, I still have the external HD to plug into the replacement, so no wast of money

 

Sorry for the long shaggy dog story but it seems a strange way to go about things untill it is understood, I supose I'm getting tight as I see the worl collapsing around my ears?

 

Thanks for your patience, I look forward to you help in answering my questions, SW

[Sportsman]

OK, I have been looking at upgrading my 'Puter'. Gona cost £350-£400, reason, I want to get into RAW files, and the present unit is a 6 year old, Pentium 4, 512RAM. It threw wobblies when I put the soft ware on for RAW . . . so I upgraded RAM to 2GB, this sorted the instability out, but we still suffered a 'Blue Screen' crash a couple of times in a days use. Frustrating, to the point of checking out 'what, how much and when' for a new one.

 

However, as the weather has been a bit off for fishing . . . or photography, I have had many hours (10 days holiday) to sit a stere at the screen, go through the why's and wherefores of what I was proposing and what was happening. You will have seen referances to this frustration in other threads.

 

Finaly had one last ditch at sorting the old girl out, I dont like change, or things beating me when I suspect there is an underlying problem I have not identified. I found a freebe virus/spy program I dont use much, ran it, it found, cookies, viruses and spies in quatity, cookies were few as I had cleaned the HD recently. Cleaned the lot off the HD, made running web sites a problem for a while but all is well now . . . and I have run the RAM assoiated programs, on the computer for hours now, perfectly! I know a modern computer will run so much faster, but the old one is fair tramping along by my standards, after the RAM upgrade and virus/cookie clean up.

 

I know, 300-400 quid, whats the problem . . . as I say I dont like change, re setting things, re registering with Virgin my broad band provider I find daunting, and if I can hang onto most of my cash for another year or two, in the present financial climate, why not. The problem boils down to the 80Gb HD in the old computer, wont store much in the way of RAW fils. Maplin are offering a 'Toshiba, 500Gb external HD' for £65, seems a decent price to extend the usefulness of my old girl, similar offer on a 'Maxtron One Touch 500Gb HD'.

 

Question one; both say they work from a USB2 port, not sure if my computer is 'USB' or 'USB2', will one work from the other, pluged in verious modern card readers, 'printers HPC5180' and the like with no problems, I have a spare USB ports avaliable.

 

 

Question two; any views on external hard drives? spacificaly Toshiba or Maxtron? The idea is that I have a back stop, if the old computer 'pops its Pentium' in a few months, I still have the external HD to plug into the replacement, so no wast of money

 

Sorry for the long shaggy dog story but it seems a strange way to go about things untill it is understood, I supose I'm getting tight as I see the worl collapsing around my ears?

 

Thanks for your patience, I look forward to you help in answering my questions, SW

 

An external hard drive is a great tool, I use one all the time with zero problems. Cant comment on the ones you mention but they are both good makes.

It will almost certainly be USB2 connection but you can easily install a USB2 card, try this one

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nisis-Easycard-USB..._pr_product_top

and no, the price is not a misprint. Much faster connection than USB1

Go for it, or then again, really sort your problems out and get a Mac

Edited December 31, 2008 by Sportsman

[Steve Randles]

Why external? You only mention one 80gb drive that you have which means you can install one more because all ide ribbons can handle two drives afaik. So have a look at this list from spot on computers and take your pick, first one on the list looks good 500gb seagate for £44...http://www.spotonuk.com/components/hard-disk-drives/ saving you another £20 on he price you quoted above. This drive could also be used in your newer pc if and when you go that route.

 

I used spot on for my last upgrade 18 months ago, new motherboard, processor, 1gb ram, 500gb hard drive, power supply, dvd burner and graphics card all for under £200...works for me!

 

Steve...

[Colin Brett]

Afraid I'd go with the external drive as putting another drive in a new computer when you get one will almost certainly invalidate the warranty. Plus a new computer probably won't have IDE connections. La Cie externals are pretty reliable, but like all things these days probably come from one of very few manufacturers.

There are some real bargains for new computers to be had at present from various stores plus don't forget EBAY some of the stuff on there is pretty good although perhaps basic. I bought my son a new computer last year from an EBAY seller and it's been brilliant.

 

Perhaps worth getting a twin video card so you can run 2 monitors [your old one + the new one that comes with the new computer] this makes Photoshop a bit easier to use [tools on one screen, image on the other]

 

I used to build my own but I can't buy the parts cheap enough now, so my next upgrade will probably come from EBAY.

 

Good luck whatever you do.

 

Colin

[chesters1]

Afraid I'd go with the external drive as putting another drive in a new computer when you get one will almost certainly invalidate the warranty. Plus a new computer probably won't have IDE connections. La Cie externals are pretty reliable, but like all things these days probably come from one of very few manufacturers.

There are some real bargains for new computers to be had at present from various stores plus don't forget EBAY some of the stuff on there is pretty good although perhaps basic. I bought my son a new computer last year from an EBAY seller and it's been brilliant.

 

Perhaps worth getting a twin video card so you can run 2 monitors [your old one + the new one that comes with the new computer] this makes Photoshop a bit easier to use [tools on one screen, image on the other]

 

I used to build my own but I can't buy the parts cheap enough now, so my next upgrade will probably come from EBAY.

 

Good luck whatever you do.

 

Colin

i use a freecom 250 gig usb2 one ,slow slow slow

usb1 will work on usb2 and vice versa but windows will remind you the usb2 drive "can run faster" if its in a usb1 hole

raw files use a lot of memory and cpu power so even with a spanky new drive it may still be slow

Edited December 31, 2008 by chesters1

[Sutton Warrior]

Thanks guys, very much what I expected to hear, but as I'm no expert, the confirmation is much appreciated.

 

I have considered all the +&-'es, speed in my terms is anything faster than the old 512RAM set up. Looking at the system spec., it should keep up a reasonable 'rate for me', I dont live on the keyboard, so the fastest, fanciest 'wiz-bang', with the most gizmose is of little interest to me, infact, it would be unapreciated and wasted on me I think. I'd rather have a new D90 camera body or a decent lens to fit the existing D80 Mmm the D90 is essentialy a D300 with out the Pro metal body, so say the media reviews . . . drool . . . pant . . .

 

Apparently, so the 'computer geek' behind the counter in Maplins told me, the 'Maxtor' 500Gb external HD will copy the contents of my entire curent hard drive, including the operating system and its set up, with the option of transfering it to a new computer when I eventualy make the move, sooner or later . . . Which is the whole idea, 'a safty net' cos I know I'm saling close to the wind! with an enforced change, next week, next year . . .

 

SW

Edited December 31, 2008 by Sutton Warrior