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."

iPod?

[Anonymous Coward]

40 GB, plus music, for $399? Why would you choose anything else?

ONLINE

[SirRandom]

If you're oging to be accessing your data from online enabled computers try a good online storage solution. They often cost less than the portable drives or keychains and there's nothing to get lost or stolen.

20G Archos GMINI120

[BoBG]

I purchased this originally to use on vacation for storing pictures from my digital camera. I got used to carrying it around and it will soon be replacing my laptop as the 'take home every night' device. It plays MP3s and has a CF slot built in. Very practical device.

Re:IPod...

[evvk]

... and extremely fragile. Repeat after me: HD is bad. Once it takes a hit, it becomes shit.

(Signed, "one fourth of my hdd mp3 is now bad sectors after having accidentally dropped it")

PQI iStick

[Rexz]

I have one of these [pqi.com.tw]: a PQI iStick 2.0.

It's absolutely minute - far smaller than any other USB key device I've seen. It has a funny shaped contact at the end that looks like it shouldn't fit in a USB port but works perfectly.

It's made of study plastic and comes with a wallet-sized carrier/protector slightly larger than a credit card. Mine is a mere 64mb but they come in flavours all the way up to 1gb.

It works out of the box with no problems. You can use a small utility that comes on a mini-CD to add a password protected partition.

It even has a cool LCD embedded under a thin layer of plastic that gives a funky glow when transferring!

Heartily recommended. (Usual disclaimer: no relationship whatsoever with manufacturers or retailers other than I like their product.)

External USB/FW drive - get the iPod

[erwin]

I've got a 40GB 3.5" hard drive in an external case with USB 2.0 and FireWire ports. The flexibility is nice, but I almost never use one set of ports. The biggest hassle is the external power supply. It's just one more brick to carry around, and it's a non-standard part, so I can't even get another one without buying another (frankly overpriced) case. Very high PITA factor.

The iPod, with an extra dock, is a far superior solution. And the bonus of playing your tunes allows you to completely separate your stuff from your employers stuff. There's no ambiguity. Personally, 25-40% of my laptop's drive is given over to music, so an iPod would be the ideal solution for me.

Re:Get an iPod

[Duncan3]

Unless you really get around, you're gonna use your home PC, a primary one at work or school, so it's not an issue.

And they make these short little cables ... o so cute.

Re:Depnds on the time for which you want to store

[Anonymous Coward]

>wonder if there are any wireless hard drives?

like this [ehomeupgrade.com]?

An iPod is not ideal

[Kris_J]

If you use an iPod, you're wasting it if you have it mounted as a drive all the time. I have an iPod I take to work each day, but it spends most of its time playing music. I connect it in the evening to grab an off-site overnight backup and load anything too large for the main device I use to shuffle stuff back and forth -- a 128MB USB device that looks like a pen. Push comes to shove (ie; I've got too much stuff on the iPod) I might also use a CD-RW for a one-off transfer.

If you're bringing a lot personal of stuff to work every day, you're better off just getting a bus-powered USB2 2.5" hard drive enclosure. Or finding a way to shift your stuff onto a server that's accessible from work. For example, I have all of my emails on Gmail, so I don't need to think about humping them 'round on a drive.

Lacie are very, very nice

[UberPfloyd]

I installed one recently for a guy who does a lot of video. The hardware is beautiful and has a professional feel. I didn't try it on a mac but in xp it just appeared as a drive like it's supposed to.

Ext SATA?

[Viceice]

If you are going to use it between home and work, why not just get a SATA HDD and install the enternal SATA panal that comes with most new motherboards?

No drivers and only a reboot away to very highspeed transfers.

Re:iPod?

[LBArrettAnderson]

Because archos [archos.com] has better mp3 players with more capacity for a lower price. not to mention they support images and video with a color LCD. They don't corrupt data and are very very fast.

Re:iPod?

[mr_zorg]

I agree, though you should ideally have a FireWire-400 port on your system if you plan on using for anything more than copying a few files once or twice a day since the iPod won't charge off a USB cable. And it sucks the juice fast using it as a hard drive. Also keep in mind it gets very hot after prolonged use as a hard drive!

The cheapest solution, and reliable

[Pharmboy]

Ok, this is buried so deep in the thread, you probably won't see it, but I have absolutely found the best solution if "portable" means very portable, but the size of a paperback book.

Removeable IDE hard drive trays from computergate.com are less than $10 each for inner and outer tray. They have some that cost more, too. I bought 12. I installed one frame in a CDROM bay of every computer I access, as the secondary master, and for both masters on my main computer. This allows for alternate booting of other drives/OS. Very cool feature.

Harddrives. Ebay, computergate again, or anywhere. I have over a dozen different drives, from 1.6gb to 200gb. Easy to find 40 gig drives for under $50. Very easy.

Now I can format a drive as bootable or not, partitioned how I want, and take it anywhere. If a computer I use crashes or won't boot (think Windows) then I can take the drive out, mount in a tray if it is not already and mount it easy on another computer to fix.

I can add or update the capacity easily and cheaply. I can try out different OS's on small cheap drives (like $10 10gig) without the risk of messing up my install, and with 5 seconds worth of tray swapping with the computer off.

Here is a typical setup, YMMV:
(6 x $8) + $10 = $58 for trays
(3 x $50) = $150 for three 40GB drive
(2 x $100) = $200 for two 200GB drives
(1 x $25) = $25 for one 20GB drive
Total cost: $385
Total storage: 540GB over 6 disks

For me, it was the cheapest and easiest solution, plus offers other benefit including alternate booting, ability to migrate a portable drive to a permanant one and ease and cost to upgrade.

Re:Get an iPod

[jon787]

It's a firewire harddrive with the right drivers. Noone looks twice at the thing, becasue most people think it's just for music, so your boss isn't gonna think you're smuggling out sourcecode.

Once I used a digital camera as a storage device to get network drivers onto a Windows 2000 workstation.

On the hiding data side, for awhile I had jokingly stored my filesystem's encryption key (loop-AES for the curious) on a 5.25" Sim City install disk. At other times the key has been on a 3.5" AOL 2.5 disk and the digital camera as referenced above. I've been wanting to try putting it on my palm pilot and/or graphic calculator.

Re:PQI iStick

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, these sticks are way cool - I have a few of them and keep two of them with me most of the time. I keep them in a credit card sized plastic holder that fits well in a leather case designed to hold an ID card. one has backup for things I may be currently working on, the other has some utilities for virus, adware, and other suff to help check hte computer I may be using for unwanted softwares, etc.

Since these little keys also have a write protect switch it's even better.

I did have an IBM memory ket I received in the mail for free from IBM (I have no idea what I did to deserve this) and although it was kinda neat the plastic casing fell apart after some time making it useless to carry.

How about the iPod?

[halo1982]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this. At 20GBs for $300 or 40GBs for $400 (and soon [we hope] 60GBs for $500) the iPod isn't that cheap, but it works with Linux, Windows, or Mac. And with USB 2.0 or Firewire it transfers pretty quickly. And its so stylish!
Of course you could also look at some of the cheaper alternatives such as the Dell Digital Jukebox or iRiver.

2.5" USB/Firewire

[mottie]

I work for a tech company and we are always having "failed" laptop drives come through. Run a lowlevel format on them, and then throw them into a 2.5" enclosure. Works great as long as you don't mind the fact that your data could become corrupt at any time.

http://www.frontierpc.com/productlist.aspx?Categor yID=CA-1705/ [frontierpc.com]

has a really good selection. If you're looking at USB enclosures, make sure you get one that either has an external power supply, or has a second USB/ ps2 connector to draw power when you're not on a powered USB hub or are on an older laptop.

How to treat an iPod

[DogDude]

reat it as you would most devices that store data and it will work fine.

I've always wondered about this. I don't buy anything with a portable hard drive, because my experience with hard drives since before they existed was not to:

1. Drop them.
2. Hit them.
3. Get them too hot.
4. Get them anywhere near magnets.
5. Move them while they're spinning.

It seems like all of these rules would be broken in an iPod. Do these things (iPods) last, or do the hard drive heads hit the platters the first time you drop it 6"?

Re:iPod?

[waynelorentz]

The iPod is excellent for its size, speed, and storage. But instead of shelling out for a new one, try finding an older iPod with a dead battery that someone is trying to unload. Maybe for $50 on eBay, or something.

It may not be able to hold a charge on its own, but it still works great as a tiny bus-powered firewire hard drive. An external firewire drive doesn't hold a charge, either, so what's the difference?

And if down the road your needs change, you can always replace the battery for $50 and you've got yourself a music player!

ArcDisk 20GB

[mackkie]

Definately the best storage for the money here. These things are great. http://www.archos.com/products/prw_500455.html [archos.com] If you look around a bit, you could find one about $180. 20GB and not much larger than a MiniDisc.

Re:iPod?

[Onan]

Hah. The "they don't corrupt data" was a nice little jibe; you didn't actually make the incorrect accusation that ipods corrupt data, you just implied it. Very cute.

Traditionally the Archos devices have been perfectly fine as long as you don't mind that they're huge. But actually, a quick glance at the site at the moment does not in fact show any products that are either larger higher capacity than ipods or lower price, much less both. The players they're offering appear to top out at 20G for $350, versus a 20G ipod for $300. And given that they're based around the same 1.8" drives that ipods are, I'd be very surprised if there's any difference in speed.

So mostly this looks like a low-end ipod, 31% bulkier, with a quarter the cache, and $50 more expensive. In what way is this "better"?

NSLU2

[dolmen.fr]

This [slashdot.org] seems to be what you are looking for.

Re:Um, ThinkGeek? Hello?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an older - 3yrs - 4gb model that works great. Then new models do NOT require driver installs and they are USB 2.0 From the mfg's website http://www.pocketec.net/ [pocketec.net] (driver not required for Windows ME/2000/2003/XP and Mac OS 10.1, driver required for Windows 98/98SE and Mac OS 8.6 to 10.0)

FireFly and FireLite from SmartDisk

[samalone]

I've had a FireLite [smartdisk.com] drive from SmartDisk for a couple of years now, and have been extremely happy with it. The drive fits in a shirt pocket (just barely), it's bus powered so you don't need any power adapters, only weighs 6 oz, comes in either USB 2.0 or Firewire, with capacities from 20 - 80 GB. The drive is fanless and extremely quiet. Plus, the smooth metal case and lights look cool.

If you want something even smaller, they have a FireFly [smartdisk.com] drive that's only 3.3 ounces.

Re:iPod?

[dave420]

It is the way to go if you want to fit everything in your pocket... the iPods are TINY compared to nearly every single external HDD, and they don't need a seperate power supply. They are also USB2/Firewire.

One more thing to consider - most external HDDs aren't portable, meaning they're not really supposed to be lugged around. The external HDDs I've bought all have a warning in the manual about that. The iPods use notebook hard disks, and are (supposedly) more hard-wearing. I use mine every day to copy stuff between home and the office (38gigs of simpsons episodes one day), and it's perfect for it. :)

Re:ximeta

[jdh-22]

I recently bought a enclosure [byteccusa.com] and threw my own hard drive in it. The enclosure was only $30, made for 2.5" hard drives, has Firewire, and USB2, and works with Windows/Linux/OSX. The drive I purchased was a 80 gig from Fujitsu from Newegg.com [newegg.com] for about $160. Buying your own enclosure gives you the option for what size you want, and how much you want to spend.

Re:ximeta

[FrO]

Ok, I seem to have stumbled into another product that is similar to this Ximeta NDAS enclosure when I was browsing at the local shopping center today. It's called the Kuro-Box, and it looks like it could be MUCH more Linux friendly (as it's running kernel 2.4.17...) :D

http://www.kuroutoshikou.com/products/kuro-box/kur o-boxfset.html [kuroutoshikou.com]

(btw, it's in Japanese... anyone who could translate would be really helpful... don't ask me, as I'm an illiterate assistant language teacher... lol)

Re:My 40 GB ipod...

[riprjak]

My ipod is vfat for that very reason; I also partition and format my portable hard drives from linux as vfat (fat32) so that they can be read from and written too by the vast majority of 32bit+ operating systems.

Linux *can* read ntfs, mac too... given correct modules; writing to NTFS from linux is fun but ultimately painful. The solution is to use vfat for portability.

In my opinion anyway :)
err!
jak.