[Lawrence]

I just found out about a 60 gig external usb hard drive that is pocket sized and runs on a rechargeable Lithium (Cell phone type) battery, My brother in-law bought one and told me about it yesterday, I think I'll have to check this thing out.

He says that it doesn't have a brand name on the box, Nor does it have any specs, The only thing that it says is...Made in China and a few small descriptions of the drive like:
USB and Firewire 60 gig pocket drive. $129.99

What do you guys think, Is this deal too good to be true?

D

 

[Ohenri]

Well, a USB drive. for simple b/u, yeah I guess, but for anything else that may be substantial - nahh. And the fact that it's a pocket drive AND must run off another cell (pwr source), doesn't sit with me. If you desperately need a portable - maybe, if not, you can get a 60G ext 7200 from Macdoc. Having a sale now. Got the email... Anyhow, depending on what you need for. What about warranty? Reputable store?

 

[Lawrence]

He says he's been using it for MP3's and says that it works great, I'm mostly interested in using it for RAW photos and TIFF's.

D

 

[dibenga]

I HIGHLY doubt they are using it for MP3's for anything more than storage, external USB drives are incredibly slow and playback would be terrible. He is prob using it to STORE MP3's ...

As far as a lithium battery system that sounds pretty flakey too.. I'd try to find something that uses 'bus power' or a brick adapter.

Just my 2 cents

 

[MACSPECTRUM]

2 more cents

much better to get a FireWire drive too, as long as your Mac supports FW of course.

much faster

 

[mycatsnameis]

What exactly does "pocket size" mean.

Usually the portable HDs (FW or USB) are made using the 4200 rpm laptop drives and they are _much_ more expensive that $129 (even US) even if you buy them without an enclosure.

If it's a standard 3.5" IDE drive you can buy a 7200 rpm 80 gig Western Digital caviar for $140-$160 Cdn easy and stick that in an enclosure (which for FW would run you about the same price).

 

[Ohenri]

No doubt,. I though that $129 was a little low. Unless they were Euros...

But nonetheless, I'm not in favor of USB storage -unless it's a keychain. Like all have said ... this smells like Chinatown during garbage strike in GTA.

Pocket size - basically fit in your hand. Not crazy about'em. I've seen them , and they have a very light 'neet' element to them. Thant's it really.

H!

 

[ErnstNL]

I've seen a 30G USB pocket drive made by Cooldisk, check this link which is a Canadian "auction" site:
http://www.auction4it.com/lot.cfm?lotID=1562931
There is a 40G drive available and the empty case to put in a bare drive.
Cheers

 

[jfpoole]

For what it's worth, a USB external harddrive would be fast enough to play MP3s off of directly.

USB provides up to 6Mbps of bandwidth per device. Even at high bitrates, MP3 players only need to read about 320kbps in order to play a file without skipping, and clearly a USB harddrive can do this without any problems.

 

[Lawrence]

I'll be going downtown to look at it on friday, It is supposed to be a firewire and usb drive, I'll let you all know whether I buy it or not.

It certainly would save me a lot of money compared to the Lacie pocket drives that are $239. and up.

Although I want to upgrade my laptop hard drive first with this:

https://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm?ID=5434&Item=TOSMK4019GAX

Decisions...Decisions...hmmm.

D

 

[Ohenri]

Go with the HD... a 5400 w/ 16MB?? That's as much performance as you can get from an int HD on a PB.Will be much better than that suspect unit. My 2¢.

H!

 

[used to be jwoodget]

Please post your thoughts here dolawren, after you've seen it. Sounds like a great price to me for a FW drive. Please check to see if its got a 6 pin FW socket (rather than the smaller, square shaped 4 pin on digicams). If it has 6 pin, it should be powered by the laptop.

I saw a La Cie FW 800 drive in North Star Computing the other day. It was big (160 gb?) but was $999!

 

[Lawrence]

I found the web site with the drive and it's in American dollars not Canadian, Oh well.

http://www.smartdisk.com/Products/Storage%20Products/Hard%20Drives/DesktopHardDrives.asp

D.

 

[used to be jwoodget]

Hang on a few weeks and it won't matter

 

[mycatsnameis]

Hmmm, won't exactly fit in your shirt pocket either. Time to go give your friend a little whack upside the head.