Actually, Western Digital now sells a whole line of 2.5" external USB drives that don't even come with a power supply. No modern computer should have trouble running one of these from a USB port. Or at worst from a powered hub.
Watch out though. A client sent in a couple of these for us to copy video files to, and we found they came out of the box formatted to FAT32! I had to do a backup and file conversion when I eventually figured out why transfers were erroring out with a false "drive full" message. On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:34 AM, mike <[email protected]> wrote: > USB was never intended to connect devices of such power, it's not in the > spec. It's not the fault of the designers it's being used in areas it > should not be used in. > > On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 7:25 PM, t.piwowar <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Sep 22, 2009, at 8:47 PM, MrMike6by9 wrote: >> >>> My first gen MBP has a free USB port on the right side and on the >>> left. The port on the left is close to the mag safe power plug but >>> only the port on the right can power my USB hard drive that I use for >>> backups and my iTunes collection. I use the port on the left side to >>> support my IPhone and my iTouch. >>> >> >> USB, being a PC technology picked up by Apple during its dark days, is >> technically a mess. One can have no reasonable expectation about what can >> and can't be successfully powered. I carry a portable drive with me that >> works fine with FireWire. To connect it using USB I have to carry an extra >> cable. First I have to plug in one cord into the drives power socket and >> plug that into one USB port. Then I plug in a second USB cord to carry data >> and supply additional power. The drive won't work unless it is getting power >> simultaneously from two separate USB connections. I see that as pretty >> shameful engineering. ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
