large external drive OK?

I think Paul answered the issue about how large external drives can be.

Thanks Paul
JS

"Paul" wrote in message ...
Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Thank you, Paul!

As you probably saw in one of my responses, I do have USB2. JS says,
however, that I need to check my system to see if it has 48bit LBA. I
haven't worked out exactly how to do that yet. I just asked him for more
info.

Are you saying, though, that what matters is the external hard drive
itself rather than what's in my computer?

Jo-Anne


http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/usbfaq.mspx

Q: Does usbstor.sys need to be modified to support disks over
137 GB in size?

A: No. Support for disks that are larger than 137 GB is not an
issue for the USB mass storage class driver. However, such
support is an issue with the USB-ATA bridge chip in the
external USB storage device.

USB-ATA bridge chip vendors are working on new devices that
support the 48-bit ATA LBA mode. When these devices are available,
the storage limit on a single device should be 2048 GB.

Since Iomega put a 500GB drive into the enclosure, they know the
USB-ATA or USB-SATA chip supports larger than 137GB.

The "2048 GB" limit is a limitation for a 32 bit operating system,
where a 32 bit unsigned integer is used to hold a sector number. If
each sector contains 512 bytes of data, the storage limit that
results, is 2048 GB. Since I cannot find a definition of the
packet format for USB for mass storage, I can't tell you
how much larger than 2048GB that the USB protocol supports.
Perhaps with some 64 bit OS, an even larger limit would exist
on USB mass storage.

Documents like this one, from Seagate, address the connection of
internal hard drives, to IDE connectors, and the potential for a
137GB limitation. That is related to the difference between
28bit LBA and 48bit LBA. 48bit LBA is how IDE disks get past the
137GB mark. But, your usage of an external enclosure, with a
different protocol between the device and the motherboard (USB
mass storage), is how you're able to work around the limit.

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

Paul

I don't have that version of Norton, if it blocks you from downloading then
turn it off temporarily so you can download the file.
I do use Norton AV and it does not block downloads.

JS

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
Thank you again, JS! I use Norton Internet Security. I know that to
download software I should turn off autoprotect. Is there anything else I
need to disable while downloading HD Tune?

And do you disagree with Ed about the need for 48 Bit LBA?

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message ...
There is a free version, on the left edge of their web page is a link
named 'Download'.
You will see two versions, HD Pro and HD Tune (628KB).

Download the one named 'HD Tune', (628KB). It does not have all the
features of Pro but does have what you need to determine if your PC
supports 48Bit LBA.

JS

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
Thank you, JS! What you listed is close to but not quite what I have.
Below, I've commented on the differences in brackets. (I took out the
carets that preceded each line.)

Re HD Tune, not sure what to do. The website says "HD Tune Pro is an
extended version of HD Tune which includes many new features such as:
write benchmark, secure erasing, AAM setting, folder usage view, disk
monitor, command line parameters and file benchmark.Click here for more
information and to download a trial version." Are you saying I should
download the trial version? Or is there something else I should do?

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message ...

2002 - DELL 8250 Series
[I bought mine in late April 2003, for what it's worth.]

2.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 Processor
[The invoice said it was a 2.40 GHz; definitely an Intel Pentium 4.]

512MB Rambus 400 MHz (400MHz Front Size Bus) RDRAM Memory
[Invoice: "512MB PC1066 RDRAM."]

200GB Ultra ATA-100 (7200 RPM) Hard Drive
[Invoice: "60GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive 7200RPM." Note: You asked the
size of the current internal hard drive; it's 55.83GB, according to the
latest scan. It's the same drive I started with.]

18" LCD Flat Screen Monitor, ATI Radeon 9700 128MB Pro graphics card
[Invoice: "18 in. 1800FP Digital Flat Panel Display, 64MB GEForce4 MX
Graphics Card with TV-Out."]

16X DVD ROM and 4X DVD+RW Drives
[Invoice same.]

Creative's Audigy 2.0 sound card, Altec Lansing 5.1 speaker system,
[Invoice: "SoundBlaster Live! with 5.1 Support," "Harmon Kardon HK-206
Speakers." Recent scan: "Unimodem Half-Duplex Audio Device," "Creative
SB Live! Series (WDM)."]

10/100 Network Interface Card
[Invoice: "Intel Pro 100M Integrated PCI NIC Card."]

Windows XP Home Edition
[Yes.]

Does the above describe your PC?
[Pretty much, with changes noted in brackets.]

Search on the web shows some 8250's do and some don't support 48Bit LBA.
Download HD Tune and report the results, also what is the current size
of your existing internal hard drive?


JS



"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
Thank you, JS! Before I do what you suggested, can you tell anything
from the model number? As I mentioned in response to Al's message, I
have a Dell Dimension 8250 with USB2 ports.

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message
...
What the Model number for your Dell?
Some PC's in of this vintage may not support 48 Bit LBA
(drives larger than 137GB).

You can verify if your PC does or does not support large drives
(48Bit LBA)
using Belarc Advisor: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Note: Belarc identifies the IDE/ATA control (part number) on your
motherboard,
you then need to Google this part number to find if the
controller/chipset
identified by Belarc supports 48Bit LBA.

Also there is: HD Tune, run and then click on the 'Info' tab,
is there a check mark in the 48Bit-address box
http://www.hdtune.com/

As for the USB Bus, version 1.x is way to slow for external hard
drives.
Solution is a PCI USB 2.x card.

JS

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
I have a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer running Windows XP SP3. I
want to buy my first external hard drive and have my eye on an Iomega
500 GB drive. One of the reviewers of this drive at Amazon said that
it wouldn't work with her older computer, which is about the same age
as mine. The reviewer asked at a local computer store and was told
that in general the large external drives don't work with older
computers. (My internal drive is only 50 GB, as I recall.)

Is that indeed the case?

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

It's not that it necessarily blocks downloading, but people have said it can
cause problems by trying to do something while the file is downloading. I
was told to turn off all antivirus software while downloading (which of
course leaves the computer vulnerable).

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message ...
I don't have that version of Norton, if it blocks you from downloading then
turn it off temporarily so you can download the file.
I do use Norton AV and it does not block downloads.

JS

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
Thank you again, JS! I use Norton Internet Security. I know that to
download software I should turn off autoprotect. Is there anything else I
need to disable while downloading HD Tune?

And do you disagree with Ed about the need for 48 Bit LBA?

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message ...
There is a free version, on the left edge of their web page is a link
named 'Download'.
You will see two versions, HD Pro and HD Tune (628KB).

Download the one named 'HD Tune', (628KB). It does not have all the
features of Pro but does have what you need to determine if your PC
supports 48Bit LBA.

JS

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
Thank you, JS! What you listed is close to but not quite what I have.
Below, I've commented on the differences in brackets. (I took out the
carets that preceded each line.)

Re HD Tune, not sure what to do. The website says "HD Tune Pro is an
extended version of HD Tune which includes many new features such as:
write benchmark, secure erasing, AAM setting, folder usage view, disk
monitor, command line parameters and file benchmark.Click here for more
information and to download a trial version." Are you saying I should
download the trial version? Or is there something else I should do?

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message ...

2002 - DELL 8250 Series
[I bought mine in late April 2003, for what it's worth.]

2.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 Processor
[The invoice said it was a 2.40 GHz; definitely an Intel Pentium 4.]

512MB Rambus 400 MHz (400MHz Front Size Bus) RDRAM Memory
[Invoice: "512MB PC1066 RDRAM."]

200GB Ultra ATA-100 (7200 RPM) Hard Drive
[Invoice: "60GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive 7200RPM." Note: You asked the
size of the current internal hard drive; it's 55.83GB, according to the
latest scan. It's the same drive I started with.]

18" LCD Flat Screen Monitor, ATI Radeon 9700 128MB Pro graphics card
[Invoice: "18 in. 1800FP Digital Flat Panel Display, 64MB GEForce4 MX
Graphics Card with TV-Out."]

16X DVD ROM and 4X DVD+RW Drives
[Invoice same.]

Creative's Audigy 2.0 sound card, Altec Lansing 5.1 speaker system,
[Invoice: "SoundBlaster Live! with 5.1 Support," "Harmon Kardon HK-206
Speakers." Recent scan: "Unimodem Half-Duplex Audio Device," "Creative
SB Live! Series (WDM)."]

10/100 Network Interface Card
[Invoice: "Intel Pro 100M Integrated PCI NIC Card."]

Windows XP Home Edition
[Yes.]

Does the above describe your PC?
[Pretty much, with changes noted in brackets.]

Search on the web shows some 8250's do and some don't support 48Bit
LBA. Download HD Tune and report the results, also what is the current
size of your existing internal hard drive?


JS



"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
Thank you, JS! Before I do what you suggested, can you tell anything
from the model number? As I mentioned in response to Al's message, I
have a Dell Dimension 8250 with USB2 ports.

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message
...
What the Model number for your Dell?
Some PC's in of this vintage may not support 48 Bit LBA
(drives larger than 137GB).

You can verify if your PC does or does not support large drives
(48Bit LBA)
using Belarc Advisor: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Note: Belarc identifies the IDE/ATA control (part number) on your
motherboard,
you then need to Google this part number to find if the
controller/chipset
identified by Belarc supports 48Bit LBA.

Also there is: HD Tune, run and then click on the 'Info' tab,
is there a check mark in the 48Bit-address box
http://www.hdtune.com/

As for the USB Bus, version 1.x is way to slow for external hard
drives.
Solution is a PCI USB 2.x card.

JS

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
I have a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer running Windows XP SP3. I
want to buy my first external hard drive and have my eye on an
Iomega 500 GB drive. One of the reviewers of this drive at Amazon
said that it wouldn't work with her older computer, which is about
the same age as mine. The reviewer asked at a local computer store
and was told that in general the large external drives don't work
with older computers. (My internal drive is only 50 GB, as I
recall.)

Is that indeed the case?

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

You should not turn off your AV software while downloading a file to a
folder on your hard drive.
The only time to turn it off is one of two possibilities:
1) You are installing software after it has been downloaded to your hard
drive - sometimes but not very often AV software can interfere with the
installation process.
2) Some people recommend that you turn off your AV software when installing
the latest patches from Microsoft's Windows Update site as AV software has
been reported to cause a problem or two when performing updates.

JS

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
It's not that it necessarily blocks downloading, but people have said it
can cause problems by trying to do something while the file is
downloading. I was told to turn off all antivirus software while
downloading (which of course leaves the computer vulnerable).

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message ...
I don't have that version of Norton, if it blocks you from downloading
then turn it off temporarily so you can download the file.
I do use Norton AV and it does not block downloads.

JS

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
Thank you again, JS! I use Norton Internet Security. I know that to
download software I should turn off autoprotect. Is there anything else
I need to disable while downloading HD Tune?

And do you disagree with Ed about the need for 48 Bit LBA?

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message
...
There is a free version, on the left edge of their web page is a link
named 'Download'.
You will see two versions, HD Pro and HD Tune (628KB).

Download the one named 'HD Tune', (628KB). It does not have all the
features of Pro but does have what you need to determine if your PC
supports 48Bit LBA.

JS

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
Thank you, JS! What you listed is close to but not quite what I have.
Below, I've commented on the differences in brackets. (I took out the
carets that preceded each line.)

Re HD Tune, not sure what to do. The website says "HD Tune Pro is an
extended version of HD Tune which includes many new features such as:
write benchmark, secure erasing, AAM setting, folder usage view, disk
monitor, command line parameters and file benchmark.Click here for
more information and to download a trial version." Are you saying I
should download the trial version? Or is there something else I should
do?

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message
...

2002 - DELL 8250 Series
[I bought mine in late April 2003, for what it's worth.]

2.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 Processor
[The invoice said it was a 2.40 GHz; definitely an Intel Pentium 4.]

512MB Rambus 400 MHz (400MHz Front Size Bus) RDRAM Memory
[Invoice: "512MB PC1066 RDRAM."]

200GB Ultra ATA-100 (7200 RPM) Hard Drive
[Invoice: "60GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive 7200RPM." Note: You asked the
size of the current internal hard drive; it's 55.83GB, according to
the latest scan. It's the same drive I started with.]

18" LCD Flat Screen Monitor, ATI Radeon 9700 128MB Pro graphics card
[Invoice: "18 in. 1800FP Digital Flat Panel Display, 64MB GEForce4 MX
Graphics Card with TV-Out."]

16X DVD ROM and 4X DVD+RW Drives
[Invoice same.]

Creative's Audigy 2.0 sound card, Altec Lansing 5.1 speaker system,
[Invoice: "SoundBlaster Live! with 5.1 Support," "Harmon Kardon HK-206
Speakers." Recent scan: "Unimodem Half-Duplex Audio Device," "Creative
SB Live! Series (WDM)."]

10/100 Network Interface Card
[Invoice: "Intel Pro 100M Integrated PCI NIC Card."]

Windows XP Home Edition
[Yes.]

Does the above describe your PC?
[Pretty much, with changes noted in brackets.]

Search on the web shows some 8250's do and some don't support 48Bit
LBA. Download HD Tune and report the results, also what is the current
size of your existing internal hard drive?


JS



"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
Thank you, JS! Before I do what you suggested, can you tell anything
from the model number? As I mentioned in response to Al's message, I
have a Dell Dimension 8250 with USB2 ports.

Jo-Anne

"JS" @ wrote in message
...
What the Model number for your Dell?
Some PC's in of this vintage may not support 48 Bit LBA
(drives larger than 137GB).

You can verify if your PC does or does not support large drives
(48Bit LBA)
using Belarc Advisor: http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html
Note: Belarc identifies the IDE/ATA control (part number) on your
motherboard,
you then need to Google this part number to find if the
controller/chipset
identified by Belarc supports 48Bit LBA.

Also there is: HD Tune, run and then click on the 'Info' tab,
is there a check mark in the 48Bit-address box
http://www.hdtune.com/

As for the USB Bus, version 1.x is way to slow for external hard
drives.
Solution is a PCI USB 2.x card.

JS

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
I have a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer running Windows XP SP3. I
want to buy my first external hard drive and have my eye on an
Iomega 500 GB drive. One of the reviewers of this drive at Amazon
said that it wouldn't work with her older computer, which is about
the same age as mine. The reviewer asked at a local computer store
and was told that in general the large external drives don't work
with older computers. (My internal drive is only 50 GB, as I
recall.)

Is that indeed the case?

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Thank you again, Paul! I'm hoping this means that the person who reviewed
the Iomega at Amazon and said it wouldn't work on her older Dell was just
experiencing a glitch, not a feature.

Time to order a drive!

Jo-Anne


Could you provide a URL (link) to the review in question ?
You can test the link, by pasting it into a blank browser
window, and see if the same page pops up.

You should be warned about a few things with externals.

1) Manufacturers pay little attention to cooling for the enclosure.
When I build my own externals, I only use enclosures that
have an exhaust fan and an intake vent. I've even bought
enclosures that had a fan, but had no way to draw in air
from the outside. Cooling is important. When there are no
vents to let air in, I use an electric drill, and do a
"Swiss cheese" pattern.

2) Some drives solve the heat problem, by rapid spindown. If
the drive is inactive for 5 minutes, the drive may spin down.
In Windows, this might not be a problem, as an attempt to
access it, will probably cause it to spin up again. On Linux,
some users get no response from the drive. So the thermal
solution kinda backfires in that case.

3) If you read the reviews, you'll notice a number of people lost
their data. If you're going to use an external, *never* have
files in just one place. If the files are stored on the
external 500GB, then a copy should also be on another hard drive.
These external devices are not reliable enough, for archival
storage (your only copy of a file). If you want reasonable
reliability, use two drives and put the same files on each.
If the drive only lasts 24 hours, then the second drive will
save you some grief.

In looking at drives in the past, I noticed that the reviews
for the 2.5" versions of drives, tended to be better than the
3.5" versions of drives. The 2.5" drives are small enough, they
are almost pocket size. The only downside of the 2.5" drive,
is it may be powered via the USB bus. And in some cases, a
computer may not deliver enough power over the USB bus, to run
them properly. But at least from a thermal point of view, they
don't get nearly as warm as some of the higher capacity
3.5" drives.

This warning is meant to scare you. Don't treat these externals
as "golden", because they may let you down. But with a few
precautions, such as storing the files on two separate drives,
there are much better odds of getting to keep your files.

HTH,
Paul

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
I have a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer running Windows XP SP3. I want to
buy my first external hard drive and have my eye on an Iomega 500 GB drive.
One of the reviewers of this drive at Amazon said that it wouldn't work
with her older computer, which is about the same age as mine. The reviewer
asked at a local computer store and was told that in general the large
external drives don't work with older computers. (My internal drive is only
50 GB, as I recall.)

Is that indeed the case?

Jo-Anne Naples later adds...
Thank you, Al! My Dell is a Dimension 8250, and it does have USB2 ports,
not USB1. I've used the front port for my camera, and it worked fine. My
mouse is plugged into one of the back ports; when I had to unplug it to
take the computer to the shop and then plugged it back into one of the USB
ports, it didn't work. Changing to another port made it work OK again.
I've been told this is not unusual--that USB ports can be finicky.

A progammer friend recommended the Acronis program too. How would I do a
backup and read-back test before buying the software? I bought a 7-port
USB hub (which I haven't used yet) and a couple USB flash drives (also not
yet used). If the flash drives work for simple backups, is it likely the
Acronis program would work too?

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne


Jo-Anne:
I'm virtually certain your Dell desktop machine supports large-capacity hard
drives, i.e., hard drives whose capacity is 137 GB. It is true that some
PCs, even those that like yours that supported these large-capacity disks
did run into problems with hard drives 300 GB, but they were relatively
few & far between. Actually the problems we usually ran into with 300 GB
drives was more with the USB external enclosure rather than the PC itself.
All things considered I really don't think you'll have a problem with your
500 GB HDD from that angle.

Besides, your PC contains RDRAM (RAMBUS) memory. We've never worked with a
more stable problem-free RAM than RDRAM. In some ways it's a pity that type
of RAM disappeared from the market but because of pricing considerations and
some licensing problems it simply couldn't compete economically with the
type of RAM (primarily DDR RAM) that ultimately superseded it. I do hope
your PC is equipped with 512 MB of RDRAM which was pretty much the maximum
with those Dell machines. While RDRAM is still available from a few sources
it's generally quite expensive and in most instances it simply doesn't make
economic sense to purchase add'l RDRAM.
Anna

Thank you, Anna! Your information sounds rock-solid. I'm going to go ahead
with the 500GB Iomega drive. Yes, I have 512MB RAM.

Jo-Anne

"Anna" wrote in message
...

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
I have a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer running Windows XP SP3. I want
to buy my first external hard drive and have my eye on an Iomega 500 GB
drive. One of the reviewers of this drive at Amazon said that it wouldn't
work with her older computer, which is about the same age as mine. The
reviewer asked at a local computer store and was told that in general the
large external drives don't work with older computers. (My internal drive
is only 50 GB, as I recall.)

Is that indeed the case?

Jo-Anne Naples later adds...
Thank you, Al! My Dell is a Dimension 8250, and it does have USB2 ports,
not USB1. I've used the front port for my camera, and it worked fine. My
mouse is plugged into one of the back ports; when I had to unplug it to
take the computer to the shop and then plugged it back into one of the
USB ports, it didn't work. Changing to another port made it work OK
again. I've been told this is not unusual--that USB ports can be finicky.

A progammer friend recommended the Acronis program too. How would I do a
backup and read-back test before buying the software? I bought a 7-port
USB hub (which I haven't used yet) and a couple USB flash drives (also
not yet used). If the flash drives work for simple backups, is it likely
the Acronis program would work too?

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne


Jo-Anne:
I'm virtually certain your Dell desktop machine supports large-capacity
hard drives, i.e., hard drives whose capacity is 137 GB. It is true that
some PCs, even those that like yours that supported these large-capacity
disks did run into problems with hard drives 300 GB, but they were
relatively few & far between. Actually the problems we usually ran into
with 300 GB drives was more with the USB external enclosure rather than
the PC itself. All things considered I really don't think you'll have a
problem with your 500 GB HDD from that angle.

Besides, your PC contains RDRAM (RAMBUS) memory. We've never worked with a
more stable problem-free RAM than RDRAM. In some ways it's a pity that
type of RAM disappeared from the market but because of pricing
considerations and some licensing problems it simply couldn't compete
economically with the type of RAM (primarily DDR RAM) that ultimately
superseded it. I do hope your PC is equipped with 512 MB of RDRAM which
was pretty much the maximum with those Dell machines. While RDRAM is still
available from a few sources it's generally quite expensive and in most
instances it simply doesn't make economic sense to purchase add'l RDRAM.
Anna

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
I have a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer running Windows XP SP3. I want
to buy my first external hard drive and have my eye on an Iomega 500 GB
drive. One of the reviewers of this drive at Amazon said that it
wouldn't work with her older computer, which is about the same age as
mine. The reviewer asked at a local computer store and was told that in
general the large external drives don't work with older computers. (My
internal drive is only 50 GB, as I recall.)

Is that indeed the case?

Jo-Anne Naples later adds...
Thank you, Al! My Dell is a Dimension 8250, and it does have USB2 ports,
not USB1. I've used the front port for my camera, and it worked fine. My
mouse is plugged into one of the back ports; when I had to unplug it to
take the computer to the shop and then plugged it back into one of the
USB ports, it didn't work. Changing to another port made it work OK
again. I've been told this is not unusual--that USB ports can be finicky.

A progammer friend recommended the Acronis program too. How would I do
a backup and read-back test before buying the software? I bought a 7-
port USB hub (which I haven't used yet) and a couple USB flash drives
(also not yet used). If the flash drives work for simple backups, is
it likely the Acronis program would work too?

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne


"Anna" wrote in message
...
Jo-Anne:
I'm virtually certain your Dell desktop machine supports large-capacity
hard drives, i.e., hard drives whose capacity is 137 GB. It is true that
some PCs, even those that like yours that supported these large-capacity
disks did run into problems with hard drives 300 GB, but they were
relatively few & far between. Actually the problems we usually ran into
with 300 GB drives was more with the USB external enclosure rather than
the PC itself. All things considered I really don't think you'll have a
problem with your 500 GB HDD from that angle.

Besides, your PC contains RDRAM (RAMBUS) memory. We've never worked with a
more stable problem-free RAM than RDRAM. In some ways it's a pity that
type of RAM disappeared from the market but because of pricing
considerations and some licensing problems it simply couldn't compete
economically with the type of RAM (primarily DDR RAM) that ultimately
superseded it. I do hope your PC is equipped with 512 MB of RDRAM which
was pretty much the maximum with those Dell machines. While RDRAM is still
available from a few sources it's generally quite expensive and in most
instances it simply doesn't make economic sense to purchase add'l RDRAM.
Anna

ADDENDUM...
I meant to also comment on your apparent interest in a comprehensive backup
program such as the Acronis one your programmer friend recommended. While
the Acronis (True Image) program is a fine program and should certainly be
considered by you (there's a trial version available at the Acronis
website), our preference is for another program, the Casper 4 program.
There's a trial version also available from the developer's site -
http://www.fssdev.com/products/free/
The trial version is slightly crippled but it should give you a good idea of
how the program works. And if you want more info on our thoughts re this
matter I'll be glad to provide such.
Anna

Thank you yet again, Paul! I've been thinking along the same lines--that is,
having two external drives and alternately backing up to each (to date all
I've been able to do is back up my important data to CDs). I figured on
buying the first one and making sure it works OK, then finding another
one--maybe a different one.

One thing that bothers me about the Iomega I'm looking at is that it's very
cheap, which makes me wonder about details such as air movement. Some of the
reviewers said it ran hot; others said it didn't. The Iomega drive at Amazon
is B000HI9O5W, in case looking at the photo would help determine if it's
vented enough. The review that mentioned it not working with an older Dell
was by "Grandma Gloria," who gave it two stars (there are only six two-star
reviews, and hers is next to last). Her Dell is actually younger than mine.
I think this web address will work; I pasted it into another window and got
to the same place:
http://www.amazon.com/review/product...y=addT woStar

When you talk about 2.5" versus 3.5" drives, is that the difference between
desktop drives and portables? I was also looking at LaCie portable drives,
which claim to be particularly sturdy, albeit somewhat more expensive (don't
know about cooling); if I got one of them, I'd probably go with just 160GB:
B000J4HCAI at Amazon (and yes, it is USB-powered).

A friend has used the Western Digital Passport drives, which are also
portables and USB-powered: B0012GQZZU for the 320GB I've seen at Amazon.

If you have experience with particularly good external drives or
particularly bad ones, I'd be grateful for your suggestion(s).

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

"Paul" wrote in message ...
Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Thank you again, Paul! I'm hoping this means that the person who reviewed
the Iomega at Amazon and said it wouldn't work on her older Dell was just
experiencing a glitch, not a feature.

Time to order a drive!

Jo-Anne


Could you provide a URL (link) to the review in question ?
You can test the link, by pasting it into a blank browser
window, and see if the same page pops up.

You should be warned about a few things with externals.

1) Manufacturers pay little attention to cooling for the enclosure.
When I build my own externals, I only use enclosures that
have an exhaust fan and an intake vent. I've even bought
enclosures that had a fan, but had no way to draw in air
from the outside. Cooling is important. When there are no
vents to let air in, I use an electric drill, and do a
"Swiss cheese" pattern.

2) Some drives solve the heat problem, by rapid spindown. If
the drive is inactive for 5 minutes, the drive may spin down.
In Windows, this might not be a problem, as an attempt to
access it, will probably cause it to spin up again. On Linux,
some users get no response from the drive. So the thermal
solution kinda backfires in that case.

3) If you read the reviews, you'll notice a number of people lost
their data. If you're going to use an external, *never* have
files in just one place. If the files are stored on the
external 500GB, then a copy should also be on another hard drive.
These external devices are not reliable enough, for archival
storage (your only copy of a file). If you want reasonable
reliability, use two drives and put the same files on each.
If the drive only lasts 24 hours, then the second drive will
save you some grief.

In looking at drives in the past, I noticed that the reviews
for the 2.5" versions of drives, tended to be better than the
3.5" versions of drives. The 2.5" drives are small enough, they
are almost pocket size. The only downside of the 2.5" drive,
is it may be powered via the USB bus. And in some cases, a
computer may not deliver enough power over the USB bus, to run
them properly. But at least from a thermal point of view, they
don't get nearly as warm as some of the higher capacity
3.5" drives.

This warning is meant to scare you. Don't treat these externals
as "golden", because they may let you down. But with a few
precautions, such as storing the files on two separate drives,
there are much better odds of getting to keep your files.

HTH,
Paul

Thank you, Anna! I would definitely like more info. I have to admit that
ease of use is something I appreciate--and Casper seems to offer that. Of
course, reliability is paramount. I read some reviews of Acronis in which
people said it corrupted their computers to the point where they had to
reinstall Windows. Of course, lots of others said it worked fine.

I don't mean to be intrusive, but it sounds like you're in a corporate
environment and have a good deal of expertise
with various drives and backup situations. I'm just a home and
small-business user; but after a nasty malware attack, I'm trying to get
more organized in dealing with the possibility of disk or software failures
that could leave me stranded.

So, yes, anything more you can tell me will be gratefully accepted!

Jo-Anne


"Anna" wrote in message
...

"Jo-Anne Naples" wrote in message
...
I have a 5-year-old Dell desktop computer running Windows XP SP3. I want
to buy my first external hard drive and have my eye on an Iomega 500
GB drive. One of the reviewers of this drive at Amazon said that it
wouldn't work with her older computer, which is about the same age as
mine. The reviewer asked at a local computer store and was told that in
general the large external drives don't work with older computers. (My
internal drive is only 50 GB, as I recall.)

Is that indeed the case?

Jo-Anne Naples later adds...
Thank you, Al! My Dell is a Dimension 8250, and it does have USB2 ports,
not USB1. I've used the front port for my camera, and it worked fine. My
mouse is plugged into one of the back ports; when I had to unplug it to
take the computer to the shop and then plugged it back into one of the
USB ports, it didn't work. Changing to another port made it work OK
again. I've been told this is not unusual--that USB ports can be
finicky.

A progammer friend recommended the Acronis program too. How would I
do a backup and read-back test before buying the software? I bought a 7-
port USB hub (which I haven't used yet) and a couple USB flash drives
(also not yet used). If the flash drives work for simple backups, is
it likely the Acronis program would work too?

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne


"Anna" wrote in message
...
Jo-Anne:
I'm virtually certain your Dell desktop machine supports large-capacity
hard drives, i.e., hard drives whose capacity is 137 GB. It is true
that some PCs, even those that like yours that supported these
large-capacity disks did run into problems with hard drives 300 GB, but
they were relatively few & far between. Actually the problems we usually
ran into with 300 GB drives was more with the USB external enclosure
rather than the PC itself. All things considered I really don't think
you'll have a problem with your 500 GB HDD from that angle.

Besides, your PC contains RDRAM (RAMBUS) memory. We've never worked with
a more stable problem-free RAM than RDRAM. In some ways it's a pity that
type of RAM disappeared from the market but because of pricing
considerations and some licensing problems it simply couldn't compete
economically with the type of RAM (primarily DDR RAM) that ultimately
superseded it. I do hope your PC is equipped with 512 MB of RDRAM which
was pretty much the maximum with those Dell machines. While RDRAM is
still available from a few sources it's generally quite expensive and in
most instances it simply doesn't make economic sense to purchase add'l
RDRAM.
Anna

ADDENDUM...
I meant to also comment on your apparent interest in a comprehensive
backup program such as the Acronis one your programmer friend recommended.
While the Acronis (True Image) program is a fine program and should
certainly be considered by you (there's a trial version available at the
Acronis website), our preference is for another program, the Casper 4
program. There's a trial version also available from the developer's
site - http://www.fssdev.com/products/free/
The trial version is slightly crippled but it should give you a good idea
of how the program works. And if you want more info on our thoughts re
this matter I'll be glad to provide such.
Anna

I don't see why you would need TWO external drives for backup. One works
fine over here. I back up everything on my C: drive partition to an
external USB drive, and it only takes me 15-20 minutes to do so. That
includes all the programs and user data, so if anything goes wrong, I can
get it ALL back, no problemo.

There is no comparison with doing it this way, vs using CD's, or DVDs.
Egads, I hate to think how many that would take. And it's generally not
necessary. :-)


Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Thank you yet again, Paul! I've been thinking along the same lines--that
is,
having two external drives and alternately backing up to each (to date all
I've been able to do is back up my important data to CDs). I figured on
buying the first one and making sure it works OK, then finding another
one--maybe a different one.

One thing that bothers me about the Iomega I'm looking at is that it's
very
cheap, which makes me wonder about details such as air movement. Some of
the
reviewers said it ran hot; others said it didn't. The Iomega drive at
Amazon
is B000HI9O5W, in case looking at the photo would help determine if it's
vented enough. The review that mentioned it not working with an older Dell
was by "Grandma Gloria," who gave it two stars (there are only six
two-star
reviews, and hers is next to last). Her Dell is actually younger than
mine.
I think this web address will work; I pasted it into another window and
got
to the same place:
http://www.amazon.com/review/product...y=addT woStar

When you talk about 2.5" versus 3.5" drives, is that the difference
between
desktop drives and portables? I was also looking at LaCie portable drives,
which claim to be particularly sturdy, albeit somewhat more expensive
(don't
know about cooling); if I got one of them, I'd probably go with just
160GB:
B000J4HCAI at Amazon (and yes, it is USB-powered).

A friend has used the Western Digital Passport drives, which are also
portables and USB-powered: B0012GQZZU for the 320GB I've seen at Amazon.

If you have experience with particularly good external drives or
particularly bad ones, I'd be grateful for your suggestion(s).

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

"Paul" wrote in message ...
Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Thank you again, Paul! I'm hoping this means that the person who
reviewed
the Iomega at Amazon and said it wouldn't work on her older Dell was
just
experiencing a glitch, not a feature.

Time to order a drive!

Jo-Anne


Could you provide a URL (link) to the review in question ?
You can test the link, by pasting it into a blank browser
window, and see if the same page pops up.

You should be warned about a few things with externals.

1) Manufacturers pay little attention to cooling for the enclosure.
When I build my own externals, I only use enclosures that
have an exhaust fan and an intake vent. I've even bought
enclosures that had a fan, but had no way to draw in air
from the outside. Cooling is important. When there are no
vents to let air in, I use an electric drill, and do a
"Swiss cheese" pattern.

2) Some drives solve the heat problem, by rapid spindown. If
the drive is inactive for 5 minutes, the drive may spin down.
In Windows, this might not be a problem, as an attempt to
access it, will probably cause it to spin up again. On Linux,
some users get no response from the drive. So the thermal
solution kinda backfires in that case.

3) If you read the reviews, you'll notice a number of people lost
their data. If you're going to use an external, *never* have
files in just one place. If the files are stored on the
external 500GB, then a copy should also be on another hard drive.
These external devices are not reliable enough, for archival
storage (your only copy of a file). If you want reasonable
reliability, use two drives and put the same files on each.
If the drive only lasts 24 hours, then the second drive will
save you some grief.

In looking at drives in the past, I noticed that the reviews
for the 2.5" versions of drives, tended to be better than the
3.5" versions of drives. The 2.5" drives are small enough, they
are almost pocket size. The only downside of the 2.5" drive,
is it may be powered via the USB bus. And in some cases, a
computer may not deliver enough power over the USB bus, to run
them properly. But at least from a thermal point of view, they
don't get nearly as warm as some of the higher capacity
3.5" drives.

This warning is meant to scare you. Don't treat these externals
as "golden", because they may let you down. But with a few
precautions, such as storing the files on two separate drives,
there are much better odds of getting to keep your files.

HTH,
Paul

Hi, Bill,

The idea of using two drives is simply that one of them could crash and at
least I'd have one I could still use in an emergency. I've read quite a few
reviews of external drives that crashed after a week or a month or six
months, some without warning. I gather they're not quite as reliable as
internal drives.

Given how quickly you're backing up, I assume you're not cloning the
internal drive?

Thanks much!

Jo-Anne

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
I don't see why you would need TWO external drives for backup. One works
fine over here. I back up everything on my C: drive partition to an
external USB drive, and it only takes me 15-20 minutes to do so. That
includes all the programs and user data, so if anything goes wrong, I can
get it ALL back, no problemo.

There is no comparison with doing it this way, vs using CD's, or DVDs.
Egads, I hate to think how many that would take. And it's generally not
necessary. :-)


Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Thank you yet again, Paul! I've been thinking along the same lines--that
is,
having two external drives and alternately backing up to each (to date
all
I've been able to do is back up my important data to CDs). I figured on
buying the first one and making sure it works OK, then finding another
one--maybe a different one.

One thing that bothers me about the Iomega I'm looking at is that it's
very
cheap, which makes me wonder about details such as air movement. Some of
the
reviewers said it ran hot; others said it didn't. The Iomega drive at
Amazon
is B000HI9O5W, in case looking at the photo would help determine if it's
vented enough. The review that mentioned it not working with an older
Dell
was by "Grandma Gloria," who gave it two stars (there are only six
two-star
reviews, and hers is next to last). Her Dell is actually younger than
mine.
I think this web address will work; I pasted it into another window and
got
to the same place:
http://www.amazon.com/review/product...y=addT woStar

When you talk about 2.5" versus 3.5" drives, is that the difference
between
desktop drives and portables? I was also looking at LaCie portable
drives,
which claim to be particularly sturdy, albeit somewhat more expensive
(don't
know about cooling); if I got one of them, I'd probably go with just
160GB:
B000J4HCAI at Amazon (and yes, it is USB-powered).

A friend has used the Western Digital Passport drives, which are also
portables and USB-powered: B0012GQZZU for the 320GB I've seen at Amazon.

If you have experience with particularly good external drives or
particularly bad ones, I'd be grateful for your suggestion(s).

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

"Paul" wrote in message ...
Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Thank you again, Paul! I'm hoping this means that the person who
reviewed
the Iomega at Amazon and said it wouldn't work on her older Dell was
just
experiencing a glitch, not a feature.

Time to order a drive!

Jo-Anne


Could you provide a URL (link) to the review in question ?
You can test the link, by pasting it into a blank browser
window, and see if the same page pops up.

You should be warned about a few things with externals.

1) Manufacturers pay little attention to cooling for the enclosure.
When I build my own externals, I only use enclosures that
have an exhaust fan and an intake vent. I've even bought
enclosures that had a fan, but had no way to draw in air
from the outside. Cooling is important. When there are no
vents to let air in, I use an electric drill, and do a
"Swiss cheese" pattern.

2) Some drives solve the heat problem, by rapid spindown. If
the drive is inactive for 5 minutes, the drive may spin down.
In Windows, this might not be a problem, as an attempt to
access it, will probably cause it to spin up again. On Linux,
some users get no response from the drive. So the thermal
solution kinda backfires in that case.

3) If you read the reviews, you'll notice a number of people lost
their data. If you're going to use an external, *never* have
files in just one place. If the files are stored on the
external 500GB, then a copy should also be on another hard drive.
These external devices are not reliable enough, for archival
storage (your only copy of a file). If you want reasonable
reliability, use two drives and put the same files on each.
If the drive only lasts 24 hours, then the second drive will
save you some grief.

In looking at drives in the past, I noticed that the reviews
for the 2.5" versions of drives, tended to be better than the
3.5" versions of drives. The 2.5" drives are small enough, they
are almost pocket size. The only downside of the 2.5" drive,
is it may be powered via the USB bus. And in some cases, a
computer may not deliver enough power over the USB bus, to run
them properly. But at least from a thermal point of view, they
don't get nearly as warm as some of the higher capacity
3.5" drives.

This warning is meant to scare you. Don't treat these externals
as "golden", because they may let you down. But with a few
precautions, such as storing the files on two separate drives,
there are much better odds of getting to keep your files.

HTH,
Paul

Bill in Co. wrote:

I don't see why you would need TWO external drives for backup. One works
fine over here. I back up everything on my C: drive partition to an
external USB drive, and it only takes me 15-20 minutes to do so. That
includes all the programs and user data, so if anything goes wrong, I can
get it ALL back, no problemo.

There is no comparison with doing it this way, vs using CD's, or DVDs.
Egads, I hate to think how many that would take. And it's generally not
necessary. :-)

snipped

It always pays to back up redundantly, that is to 2 separate, or
independent, systems, devices, etc. A backup always implies that
there is an original and a copy. However, should the original be
damaged or corrupted and if the backup also becomes inaccessible,
then there is nothing. One of our normal operating configurations
consists of two computers, each mirroring the other, and an external
backup.

Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Hi, Bill,

The idea of using two drives is simply that one of them could crash and at
least I'd have one I could still use in an emergency. I've read quite a
few
reviews of external drives that crashed after a week or a month or six
months, some without warning. I gather they're not quite as reliable as
internal drives.

Well, I haven't had a problem yet, with the standard ones I'm using. And
BTW, they are ONLY powered on when I make the backup.

I'm still using the older, standard, Western Digital, classic IDE type
drives, in a USB hard drive enclosure (USB2, of course).

Given how quickly you're backing up, I assume you're not cloning the
internal drive?

I *am* cloning my main C: partition of the internal drive, which holds all
of my programs and my data. (But I'm not cloning my music file and video
file partitions, however - that is true. But I have copies of them on
another HD).

Thanks much!

Jo-Anne

"Bill in Co." wrote in message
...
I don't see why you would need TWO external drives for backup. One
works
fine over here. I back up everything on my C: drive partition to an
external USB drive, and it only takes me 15-20 minutes to do so. That
includes all the programs and user data, so if anything goes wrong, I can
get it ALL back, no problemo.

There is no comparison with doing it this way, vs using CD's, or DVDs.
Egads, I hate to think how many that would take. And it's generally not
necessary. :-)


Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Thank you yet again, Paul! I've been thinking along the same lines--that
is,
having two external drives and alternately backing up to each (to date
all
I've been able to do is back up my important data to CDs). I figured on
buying the first one and making sure it works OK, then finding another
one--maybe a different one.

One thing that bothers me about the Iomega I'm looking at is that it's
very
cheap, which makes me wonder about details such as air movement. Some of
the
reviewers said it ran hot; others said it didn't. The Iomega drive at
Amazon
is B000HI9O5W, in case looking at the photo would help determine if it's
vented enough. The review that mentioned it not working with an older
Dell
was by "Grandma Gloria," who gave it two stars (there are only six
two-star
reviews, and hers is next to last). Her Dell is actually younger than
mine.
I think this web address will work; I pasted it into another window and
got
to the same place:
http://www.amazon.com/review/product...y=addT woStar

When you talk about 2.5" versus 3.5" drives, is that the difference
between
desktop drives and portables? I was also looking at LaCie portable
drives,
which claim to be particularly sturdy, albeit somewhat more expensive
(don't
know about cooling); if I got one of them, I'd probably go with just
160GB:
B000J4HCAI at Amazon (and yes, it is USB-powered).

A friend has used the Western Digital Passport drives, which are also
portables and USB-powered: B0012GQZZU for the 320GB I've seen at Amazon.

If you have experience with particularly good external drives or
particularly bad ones, I'd be grateful for your suggestion(s).

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

"Paul" wrote in message
...
Jo-Anne Naples wrote:
Thank you again, Paul! I'm hoping this means that the person who
reviewed
the Iomega at Amazon and said it wouldn't work on her older Dell was
just
experiencing a glitch, not a feature.

Time to order a drive!

Jo-Anne


Could you provide a URL (link) to the review in question ?
You can test the link, by pasting it into a blank browser
window, and see if the same page pops up.

You should be warned about a few things with externals.

1) Manufacturers pay little attention to cooling for the enclosure.
When I build my own externals, I only use enclosures that
have an exhaust fan and an intake vent. I've even bought
enclosures that had a fan, but had no way to draw in air
from the outside. Cooling is important. When there are no
vents to let air in, I use an electric drill, and do a
"Swiss cheese" pattern.

2) Some drives solve the heat problem, by rapid spindown. If
the drive is inactive for 5 minutes, the drive may spin down.
In Windows, this might not be a problem, as an attempt to
access it, will probably cause it to spin up again. On Linux,
some users get no response from the drive. So the thermal
solution kinda backfires in that case.

3) If you read the reviews, you'll notice a number of people lost
their data. If you're going to use an external, *never* have
files in just one place. If the files are stored on the
external 500GB, then a copy should also be on another hard drive.
These external devices are not reliable enough, for archival
storage (your only copy of a file). If you want reasonable
reliability, use two drives and put the same files on each.
If the drive only lasts 24 hours, then the second drive will
save you some grief.

In looking at drives in the past, I noticed that the reviews
for the 2.5" versions of drives, tended to be better than the
3.5" versions of drives. The 2.5" drives are small enough, they
are almost pocket size. The only downside of the 2.5" drive,
is it may be powered via the USB bus. And in some cases, a
computer may not deliver enough power over the USB bus, to run
them properly. But at least from a thermal point of view, they
don't get nearly as warm as some of the higher capacity
3.5" drives.

This warning is meant to scare you. Don't treat these externals
as "golden", because they may let you down. But with a few
precautions, such as storing the files on two separate drives,
there are much better odds of getting to keep your files.

HTH,
Paul

GHalleck wrote:
Bill in Co. wrote:

I don't see why you would need TWO external drives for backup. One
works
fine over here. I back up everything on my C: drive partition to an
external USB drive, and it only takes me 15-20 minutes to do so. That
includes all the programs and user data, so if anything goes wrong, I can
get it ALL back, no problemo.

There is no comparison with doing it this way, vs using CD's, or DVDs.
Egads, I hate to think how many that would take. And it's generally not
necessary. :-)

snipped

It always pays to back up redundantly, that is to 2 separate, or
independent, systems, devices, etc. A backup always implies that
there is an original and a copy. However, should the original be
damaged or corrupted and if the backup also becomes inaccessible,
then there is nothing.

But it is extremely unlikely that BOTH hard drives would fail at the same
time. And I mean extremely. If only one drive fails, another drive can
be brought into service, and a backup made right then. And as I mentioned
to the OP, I'm using a standard IDE drive in an external HD enclosure that
is ONLY powered on when I make a backup.

One of our normal operating configurations
consists of two computers, each mirroring the other, and an external
backup.