Almost all of today's drives are 7200 or better, so slower models aren't much of an issue any longer. See gate, western digital are a couple of good names. I have a see gate 320 GB sitting right here from tiger direct which I like very much. David Ferrin www.jaws-users.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "tammy cantrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 11:54 PM Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] external hard drives
> Victor, > Thanks for all of the information. I greatly appreciate all of the good > advice. You covered several points I wondered about. I will keep your > words > of wisdom handy. What is your opinion of www.newegg.com? Do you have > another site that would prove to be better? I live in the United States. > > Thanks for your time and information! > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Victor Gouveia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2008 10:31 PM > Subject: Re: [Blind-Computing] external hard drives > > >> Hi Tammy, >> >> I am also in the market for an external drive, and have found some things >> you should look out for when shopping for these monsters. >> >> First is to look at what kind of interface it has. >> >> USB is the common one, but some models will also come equipped with a >> Firewire cable, and even some will come with an RJ45 jack, which means it >> can be connected to the network and used as a network drive. >> >> Secondly, you'll want to look at the rotation speeds of the disk, >> sometimes >> measured in RPM's. The standard is 7200 rpm's. Anything below that is >> tantamount to very slow access. >> >> Thirdly, and I think this is most important, is the read/write speeds and >> the transfer speeds, usually measured in megabytes per second. >> >> There is really no standard for this, and some retailers will sometimes >> try >> to fool you into thinking that the higher the transfer speed, the faster >> you'll get data on the drive. While this can sometimes be true, the fact >> is >> that the read and write speed is more important than the transfer speed, >> as >> the transfer will have to wait while the data is being read or written. >> >> The transfer speed may be referring to the transfer rate of the cable or >> connection, and not necessarily the drive itself. One drive I found was >> boasting a transfer speed of 480 mbps, but the read/write speed was >> abyssmally slow. >> >> An example I can cite is a electronics' chain here in Toronto called >> Future >> Shop. >> >> They were selling a 500 Gb external hard drive for 99 dollars. Once I >> saw >> that, my mouth fell open, as I couldn't believe the price, until I saw >> the >> read and write speeds, about 27 and 25 mbps, reading and writing, >> respectively. >> >> While this seems high, try to remember that the mbps stands for megabits >> per >> second, not to be confused with megabytes per second, as most people >> commonly see it as. >> >> What shocked me was the fact that it still said an rpm of 7200, which >> should >> not support that kind of read write speed, but then I realized what might >> be >> slowing the read write speeds up, and that leads me into the last point I >> want to make. >> >> Circuitry... >> >> You can have the most expensive hard drive in there, but if the enclosure >> stinks to high heaven, then that really expensive drive means absolutely >> nothing. >> >> The circuitry must come with a cache of some kind, and some kind of power >> switch, as this will control how long the hard drive lasts. Continuously >> keeping the drive on will shorten the lifespan of the drive. Although it >> has not been proven to shorten it's lifespan dramatically, it does >> shorten >> it nonetheless. >> >> So this is what I think you should look out for, and I hope this helps in >> some way. >> >> Victor >> >> >> Visit the JAWS Users List home page at: >> http://www.jaws-users.com >> Address for the list archives: >> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ >> To post to this group, send email to >> [email protected] >> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> For help from Mailman with your account Put the word help in the subject >> or body of a blank message to: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Use the following form in order to contact the management team >> http://www.jaws-users.com/BlindComputing.php >> If you wish to join the JAWS Users List send a blank email to the >> following address: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Visit the JAWS Users List home page at: > http://www.jaws-users.com > Address for the list archives: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > To post to this group, send email to > [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For help from Mailman with your account Put the word help in the subject > or body of a blank message to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Use the following form in order to contact the management team > http://www.jaws-users.com/BlindComputing.php > If you wish to join the JAWS Users List send a blank email to the > following address: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Visit the JAWS Users List home page at: http://www.jaws-users.com Address for the list archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help from Mailman with your account Put the word help in the subject or body of a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use the following form in order to contact the management team http://www.jaws-users.com/BlindComputing.php If you wish to join the JAWS Users List send a blank email to the following address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
