Portable Storage?

An anonymous reader asks: "I need a portable storage solution, as I strongly desire to keep my personal stuff separate from my work stuff. In the past I have used some types of portable external hard drive (via USB connection), but I wasn't too pleased with the quality of the barebones models I found at Fry's. With so many new types of portable storage out (USB keys, 2.5" drives, full drives with enclosures, etc) I would appreciate some feedback from others using this type of device regarding what their favorite brand or model is. Remember: bigger storage is better, as is smaller size."

ximeta

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

usb and ethernet, well done

www.ximeta.com

If you have the cash...

[Anonymous Coward]

Get an iPod or iPod mini. Not only are fairly well concealed (not many 'normal' people know that they're anything beyond just a portable mp3 player), they pack a lot of space. A friend of mine just got back from Japan for a study abroad program and used his iPod frequently to transport files between computers on the network there (apparently you didn't have much in terms of personal space on their network). Worked on every machine he tried it on and was quite rugged.

And hey, it's an MP3 player, too.

USB Keys

[gr0ngb0t]

I've got a 512 mb Kingmax USB key, and it's awesome - never had any hassles with it. my dad has got a whole range of sizes of theirs and has had for a few years now - he's happy with them.

Sorry, but you asked

[krray]

WARNING: I'm now a Mac zealot :)

The answer is Firewire and Lacie or a iPod. Self powered and with a Mac either can easily be used to boot the host computer from -- my Lacie is the backup for my Application directory tree and User accounts which can be booted from with the loaded host OS [X].

Yes, they can both work with Windows too.

Two birds with one stone

[Anonymous Coward]

Use this [thinkgeek.com] AND be a babe magnet!!!

Well..

[useosx]

2.5" (laptop) drives are pretty damn expensive, but they are more convenient as they can be bus powered. Here's an example [lacie.com] but I'm sure you can get them for cheaper. I'd personally rather buy the enclosure separate from the drive because I can usually get a longer warranty on the drive itself and I don't have to worry about voiding the warranty if I open the enclosure.

I personally only buy external drives for video stuff so I get 3.5" ones.

Another option would be to get an iPod or iPod mini type device.

I have a 128 meg USB keychain and I really like it. It's a Transcend JetFlash. But it's only good for documents and the occasional set of photos or MP3s.

Personally, this stuff is pretty obvious, just Google around. It's not like there's some kind of hidden mega-cube storage out there that only a few people know about. Pretty basic stuff.

Um, ThinkGeek? Hello?

[ElForesto]

You call yourself a Slashdot reader and yet you didn't check out ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com]? For shame! I found this model [thinkgeek.com] on there that may fit your needs. I haven't used it before though, as a disclaimer.

It's quite simple, but expensive.

[Tuxedo Jack]

I was lucky enough to get my office to pay for a LaCie Bigger Disk. It's one terabyte of space, and we don't have to worry about losing my shares or work.

Cruzer Mini

[thief_inc]

256 megabytes of storage.
I switch between Mac an PC quite abit and this is perfect as it does not require a driver for MacOS v9.1 or higher or for win2000 and XP.

Lots of funky advice in here

[Anonymous Cow4rd]

Sheesh.. Who wants only 20/40 GB or even less space? (iPod, CF, etc.)

Use a Firewire/USB2 to a small 3.5" combo enclosure (some are barely larger than the drive, which is damn small).

250+ GB... works on USB1 (ie. everything), USB2, and Firewire systems. No worries.

Re:USB Keys

[Frogbert]

I have to back this guy up, Kingmax are dirt cheap and their USB Drives are great quality, the only problem I can seem with their drives is that the necklace connects to the cap, not the drive, so if the cap breaks (unlikely at best) you loose your data. That said a small drill peice fixes that little problem.

Re:ximeta

[artlu]

Drive fried... I was a big fan of my ximeta drive, I used it strictly for backup purposes. 3months later, the drive just died. Just one user's experience. Also, it isn't very mac/linux friendly unless you put sometime into it or like annoying messages.

gShares.net [gshares.net]

Re:Get an iPod

[Yaztromo]

I was going to post "Get an iPod", but it looks like a whole lot of other people beat me to it.

So instead of doing so, I'll expand on the benifits of doing so:

• Comes in sizes from 4GB up to 40GB
• Supports both firewire and USB 2.0
• Rechargable
• Size of a pack of cards
• ...and hey, it's a music playback device as well!

I love my iPod with my PowerBook. I routinely use it for storing backups of my data (even though I have the 3G 15GB unit, I'm currently only using about 3GB to hold the ~1050 songs I have on it, so it has lots of free space).

Small, sleek, portable, lots of storage space, and fast -- what more could you want?

Yaz.

Backup backup backup.

[Anonymous Coward]

No matter what media you choose, if the data you transport is of value - make sure you back it up. This makes it much less likely to be lost with catastrophic results.

I have a portion of my home directory in a version control database (I use the excellent, free and cross-platform Subversion [tigris.org]). I have a copy checked out onto my Windows, Mac and FreeBSD machines. I also have a USB keychain drive that I sync onto whenever I need those files away from home. When I return, as soon as I sync up again, I can be sure that I how have all the changes I made while away.

A solution like this might be overkill (and not work well for large binary files), but it lets me take easy backups of all my code and documents (because they're backed up to the server whenever I sync - although since I don't care about the version history, just having a backup on another computer is enough redundancy for me) and easily keeps all the computers I use up to date with the files that I want.. without resorting to network drives (which are often complicated to set up and useless if I'm away from home with no internet connection).

Encryption is a whole 'nother topic, but if the data is sensitive, you might want to consider a portable device with hardware encryption (although usually software needs to be installed on the host machine before it can be accessed).

Re:iPod?

[UberPfloyd]

The RIO Karma player is another storage/music solution to consider. It play Ogg files too. http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/shop/_templates/i tem_main_Rio.asp?model=261/ [digitalnetworksna.com]

ars technica usb review

[KI0PX]

Ars Technica has a good USB 2.0 Hi-Speed drive review [arstechnica.com] covering several USB flash drives. I got a 256MB SanDisk Cruzer Mini from newegg [newegg.com] for $37 and was very pleased (works on Linux well).

I'll second the vote for an iPod if you want more than that. I just bought a 20GB 3G iPod from our local university bookstore for $250, since the new 4G model just came out.

Re:Get an iPod

[damiam]

Drivers aren't required for the iPod on anything supporting standard USB mass storage (win98 and up) or Firewire SBP2 (any recent Mac OS or Windows). The poster wasn't very clear about their needs, so I'm not sure whether an iPod would fit them or not. If you're only concerned with documents, a USB key is all you'll ever need. If you're ferrying around hi-res images or video, then you'll want an iPod or something similar.

Re:iPod?

[mj_1903]

As someone that writes software for the iPod, I can ensure you that it would be impossible for Apple to lock someone out of the hard drive. It is a standard Fat32 mount on all systems.

I have also never heard of data loss caused by an iPod. It's a standard hard drive. Treat it as you would most devices that store data and it will work fine.

Re:IPod...

[damiam]

The iPod is fairly resilient; I've never heard any stories of hard drive failure (not saying it doesn't happen, just that it's not common). Part of that is that the drive is rarely spun up while music is playing, and, when being used as a portable HD, is spun up but quite unlikely to be disturbed.

Economics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple hardware is expensive compared to commodity PC stuff. You can buy a 200GB USB HD for about $130.

Re:ximeta

[SensitiveMale]

usb and ethernet, well done

www.ximeta.com

If you are using this solely as a personal drive then it is pricey, but ok.

If you plan on sharing it then don't buy. It's crappy and crippled "sharing software" (and I use that term loosely) is terrible. You have to install special software to access it and you have to issue passwords for people to be able to write to the drive.

Re:iPod?

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget to mention that they are simply harddisks with a media player built around them. You don't need a special partition for harddisk use like the ipod - it's all just a harddisk to your computer.

Overkill

[nwbvt]

I see a lot of posts suggesting something like an iPod, but isn't that sort of overkill? $250 just to store files? Add to that you will probably lose it within the year. Just get a USB flash drive. $20 for 128 megs or half a gig for under $60. Small, cheap, and easy to use.

Re:ximeta - MOD PARENT UP

[BenFranske]

As others have said, the Ximeta drives are not really good at standards support. They sound really cool and all but they're really just USB drives with a strange USB to ethernet adapter built in. They require you to install driver to access the drive. Let me repeat they do not use smb they use a driver that emulates a local USB port over ethernet. I don't know if it has changes but one of the ones I played with didn't even support TCP/IP it used a strange protocol on top of ethernet meaning the device wasn't even routable and had to be on the same segment. I would stay away from these if you're serious about the network ability of the solution. As far as I can tell they are ok for USB access though.

Overall it's a good idea, but very poorly implementd

You mean aside from an iPod?

[amper]

Sorry, I just couldn't resist. I carry around a full Mac OS X 10.3.5 install, plus all my system fixin' utilities on my brand-spankin' new 4G 40GB iPod, and I *still* have 35GB free for tunes or other files. I like it so much, I bought my wife one, too! With a PocketDock, I can boot any compatible Mac from it and fix the internal HDD.

But, I also have a nice LaCie DataBank 20GB HDD. Bus-powered off of USB 2.0 and FireWire 400, and it's about the size of an iPod (uses the same 1.8" HDDs). I have the older 16mm thick version, but there's a 13mm 20GB now, and also a 40GB (16mm? Go look it up...). The one I have is also loaded up like my iPod.

My two older LaCie PocketDrives (2.5" 20GB) are also handy, though not as portable, as they have two FireWire ports where the DataBank has only one, so they can be daisy-chained. The PocketDrive is only bus-powered off of FireWire, but comes with an AC/DC convertor for USB usage.

The PocketDrives come up to 80GB, now, I think.

I got my DataBank on clearance at an Apple Store for 200USD. Both the DataBank and the PocketDrive work with Mac's and PC's. I'm going to get another Data Bank so I can keep one formatted FAT and one formatted HFS+.

Re:iPod?

[evn]

It is a standard Fat32 mount on all systems.

iPods configured to sync with a Macintosh will be using an HFS+ file system. A PC formatted iPod will use a FAT32 partition which apparently allows you to use your iPod on Windows and Mac OS X computers without paying any special software. I would guess that most Macintosh based iPod users have HFS formatted drives--especially if they use it as an external hard disk.

Not the end of the world, but it is something to keep in mind if you're going to be working in a mixed environment. Tossing your term-paper onto your iPod only to find out that Windows can't read your data when you get to school is just not a pleasant situation to be in.

Apricorn 1.8" USB drive with retractable cable,

[iamnarada]

Small it is...uses the the same 1.8" drive used in the ipod, available in 20GB($165) and 40GB($253) capacities.

Product specs @: http://apricorn.com/product_details.php?ID=412

Lowest price I've found @: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10374007 &SearchEngine=PriceWatch&SearchTerm=10374007&Type= PE&Category=Comp&dcaid=1688

Re:iPod?

[mj_1903]

Indeed you are correct about it being HFS+, but when it comes in the box it is Fat32. If you don't run the updater on it, it can remain Fat32 and still be synced to the Mac. I probably should have been a little more obvious in my parent post.

Also something of note, Windows has a certain tendency to want to format HFS+ devices plugged into it and this can be dangerous if you don't know what to do.

Re:iPod?

[Moofie]

FYI, the 4G iPod will charge off the USB 2.0 port. It will not charge while syncing (or, I assume, copying data) according to the manual.

Just a note from a happy owner.

Re:ximeta

[GeoffSmith1981]

The Ximeta drive is a NDAS drive not an NAS drive. These two technologies are very different. NAS allows you to simply plug it in to the network and it is viewed as a network drive. The NDAS drives you must install software and drivers to use it. The drivers allow you to utilize the drive as a local drive that is viewed within My Computer. The USB segment does not require any special drivers, it just uses the standard Windows drivers to use it. Yes it requires you to enter special serials to read and write to the drive, but that ability to limit other's access to your drive is a security plus for me. Plus you can buy a smaller sized Ximeta drive (80 GB) and remove the HD and replace it with a 200-250 GB drive if you want to save a few $.

Mobile phone with Bluetooth and MMC

[xixax]

Since work paid for it, it's kind of nice to have up to 512 Mb always on me and be able to speak to just about any Mac laptop you can buy. Pity my PC needs a Bluetooth dongle.

Xix.

My 40 GB ipod...

[riprjak]

is my weapon of choice for this; of course, our IT policy does NOT allow portable storage in the building (sensible, if you ask me); we dont actively enforce this (I suggested copper loops around all the doors :), but a thing to consider.

15GB for my moderated music collection, the rest of the space as a mirror of my /home/>username directory from my personal linux box.

Anyway, if ipod (I *REFUSE* to mac up the spelling of ipod) is too pricey, try a USB/firewire 2.5" hdd enclosure; relatively cheap (particularly if you take a trip to asia) and quite small, size of a small PDA; so relatively portable. Most come self powered (from usb/firewire) or with a separate USB~power cable.

Anyway, just my 0.02.
err!
jak.

Re:iPod

[arivanov]

Crap price per G, crap performance, not suitable for the job. The question was not about iPod avertisement solicitation. The question was about portable storage solution and at the moment there is only one answer that is reasonable as far as price/performance is concerned. It is Iomega Rev

• 35G capacity
• Fully supported without extra drivers on Linux 2.6.5+, Windows 2K and XP and MacOS X. 2.4 requires the write-DVD patches. Anything you write is also 100% portable because it uses UDF filesystem which prevents the relevant OSes from doing silly OS specific things
• The cartridges are around 30£ (40$). which smacks iPod, removable harddrives and flash silly
• The device is about the size of an external 2.5" hard drive enclosure so you can carry the device around instead of having one at home and one at work.
• Blazing fast. Blazing fast to the point where I am seriously considering it as a suitable drive for network backups in a small to medium size office. It has roughly the same price as a DLT tape per cartridge, 5 times lower price per drive, 10 times the speed and the cartridges are only a fraction of the size. Add to that years worth of shelf life compared to months for an average tape...

So let the iPod do what it does best - play music. It is not a good personal storage solution.

Re:Um, ThinkGeek? Hello?

[welshwaterloo]

I've used one of the earlier models - a 10 GB Pokey drive that attached via USB1 & had a credit card cd-rom with the drivers on.

Good:
It's lovely & slim
This was a couple of years ago, & 10 gig in something smaller than a fag (homosexual) packet was a marvel.

Bad:
USB1 - v.slow

Driver installation. Somebody has already pointed out that this later model also *needs* drivers installed. This doesn't sound like too much hassle, but it really does suck. And blow.

Unpluggability. It was the most fragile device I've seen concerning unplanned unplugs. If you don't tell Windows to deactivate the device, then power off the drive, and then unplug the damn thing, it's likely to corrupt the p.o.s. HD that's in there. I know - of course you should always unplug nicely, but my laptop's quite elevated, & gravity is often a harsh mistress...

Re:FireFly & FireLite from SmartDisk / iPod

[adzoox]

For the cost of the Firefly - you might as well get the an iPod which uses the same 1.8" hard drive for about $50 more in price.

You can find 15 and 20 GB iPods for $199 to $249

You get both firewire AND USB + well ... the most popular Mp3 player on the market

It also gives you solitare and breakout to boot!

My extra 2 to reply to the parent - the iPod is the smallest drive that includes both firewire and USB (that I know of) - to me there is no comparison in terms of speed and data integrity - firewire USB2.0. Firewire is MUCH faster. Also, you most likely will have to some unplugging if you have a USB device - you usually have an open firewire port.

Re:iPod?

[jsebrech]

you have to set it up since it's hidden and it's a partition since it's seperate from everything else.

Wrong and wrong. Plug any ipod into your PC, and it will show up as a harddrive. You can browse it directly, you can copy music files off of it without any additional software, and you can create extra folders to store your own files in (as I have done for storing large video files). It's just a USB/firewire hard disk. The only thing you need extra software for is finding the actual music file that corresponds to a song, because they're all renamed when they're copied to the ipod, so that although you can copy files off of the ipod with explorer, you might need a program to locate the actual file you want.

Antidote for Maczealots: iPod killer!

[jotaeleemeese]

The guy should use one of the Iriver music players.

Mine has 40GB of disk space (which is what the guy needs) shows as a hard disk (which works in Linux, Winblows and that other OS I suppose), play many different digital music formats, is an FM radio, voice recorder and allows to record directly from another device (both digital and anlaog input).

The only problem is that is a bit bulky, but ehwn compared to some external disks it becomes a nobrainer when it comes to disk storage on the move.

Re:iPod

[arivanov]

It is. But not a hard disk. It is presented to the system as a standard writeable DVD drive. As a result it has to use UDF filesystem which does not have write support in 2.4. You can still read them on unmolested 2.4, you cannot write to them.

It was merged for a while in 2.4.27-pre and rcX, but Marcello rolled back the patch in the last release candidate. So you will have to wait for 2.4.28 or use 2.6.7.

Free and Net support UDF. Looking at the source code in 5_2_RELENG one of the first lines is VFS_SET(udf_vfsops, udf, VFCF_READONLY); so they cannot write to it. Disclaimer - I have not tried it, this is based on 15 seconds looking at the source. Based on that they can read, but cannot write to it. I suggest you look at the CVS for CURRENT if there is write support.

Do not care about Open. Have stopped caring 3 years ago and have lived happily ever after.

Re:PQI iStick

[Sepodati]

I highly recommend these, also. I have a 128mb version that you can pick up from Tiger Direct for around $20 (after rebate, of course). 512mb version were only running $90 after rebate at one time.

If you don't need Gb and Gb of storage and want something you can always have with you, these are perfect. They come with a credit card sized case that'll hold two sticks. Just stick it in your wallet and you always have it.

It's amazing how small these are. Literally two pennies long and as thick as a nickel (those are the comparisons you'll see online).

Now if I could only figure out how to easily boot Linux from one of these, I'd be all geeked out!

---John Holmes...

This is very simple....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure why all the iPod/mp, and worksvery nicely chatter...I guess if you have a hammer, eveerything looks like a nail.

This is very simple.

Best size/volume/cost/performance is:

USB 2.0 aluminum external enclosure - $19.95
Toshiba 80GB hard disk - $194

Total cost: $213.95 (plus applicable taxes shipping)

Here are two links as example; I'm sure other vendors sell the same parts; shop around.

http://www.eebuy.com/IC/t_prddetail.bst?su_sessi on =1677572775&prodid=12439

http://www.meritline.com/usb-enclosure-hard-driv e- external-1.html

You an also go the 1GB Flash drive route, but that runs a little over $200, or less through rebates. Very compact. Good for "small" amounts of data; I use it for backup of critical docs, etc. and quick transfers to others.

I have been vey satisfied with the solution(s).

(Sorry for the AC post; I know they don't get modded up, but I hope this information is of use.)

-Xavier

Re:iPod?

[manifest37]

FLAC also! It's the only player that i know that plays FLAC. Now if I could also have SHN support and FLAC support in the same player, I would buy one in a heartbeat.

Even better: Neuros!

[Tony]

Bah. At the beginning of the year, I picked up a 20GB Neuros [neurosaudio.com] for about half the price of an ipod. It's a USB hard drive, plays many different formats (Ogg!), is an FM radio, an FM *transmitter*, a voice recorder, and allows you to record from another device (analog only, sorry to say).

I looked at the iRiver, and liked it very much (they have some pretty cool designs), but ended up going with the Neuros. Personal choice and all, you know.

Plus, since it uses standard 2.5" drives, I put in a 40GB I got for cheap.