Toshiba 320gb external hd - PC World

daveg

TempestSabre wrote:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=318906

More or less the same spec. No postage costs from PC world though.

TempestSabre

daveg wrote:

More or less the same spec. No postage costs from PC world though.

So it nothing special spec wise, and you save maybe be €5 over the normal price on the web. Its hardly a huge bargain is it. Whats amazing it is PC World actually selling something at a resonable price (not a bargain) and actually having stock for once.

I'm just anti PC world, its just a rip off and the service is abysmal. Half the time theres half a dozen IT illiterate sale guys wandering around trying dazzle customers with techo babble, one till open with a queue at it. Sometimes no till open. Theres always a queue of people arguing at the service counter about something or other.

Its dismal.

daveg

TempestSabre wrote:

I'm just anti PC world, its just a rip off and the service is abysmal. Half the time theres half a dozen IT illiterate sale guys wandering around trying dazzle customers with techo babble, one till open with a queue at it. Sometimes no till open. Theres always a queue of people arguing at the service counter about something or other.
Its dismal.

We agree on something then

moonboy

its still usb not firewire.
not such a good deal if youre working with video or music

Wertz

A warning to anyone getting this drive; it has a blindingly bright blue LED on front of the unit, if you're intent on placing it on the desktop be warned.
Other than that, very quiet, does NOT run hot ;I backed up 280gb of stuff over the space of an evening, and left it powered on and streamed some stuff from it and it didn't feel hot at all

oneweb

Does this box power off when the computer does or does the disk stay spinning forever?

Wertz

It's separately powered and has an on/off switch on back so you can power it down when you shutdown the comp.

elvis2002

Wertz wrote:

Umm...USB2.0 has a faster throughput than firewire.

tbh, thats an incorrect statement. Firewire is faster than USB over sustained write periods. Have a look at http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

Wertz

I'll take your word for it...last time I looked 480 > 400, although the USB speed is assuming that there's nothing else taking up runtime on the cpu.

elvis2002

Wertz wrote:

I'll take your word for it...last time I looked 480 > 400, although the USB speed is assuming that there's nothing else taking up runtime on the cpu.

Obviously you never looked at the link as this question is asked and the answer given.

obewan

I just picked one up in PC World, in Sligo today. A good bargain in my mind.

Mick.

TempestSabre

For the hard of reading....

Question: Which is faster Hi-Speed USB 2.0 or FireWire?
Answer: In sustained throughput FireWire is faster than USB 2.0.

Question: If Hi-Speed USB 2.0 is a 480 Mbps interface and FireWire is a 400 Mbps interface, how can FireWire be faster?
Answer: Differences in the architecture of the two interfaces have a huge impact on the sustained throughput.

Read and write tests to the same IDE hard drive connected using FireWire and then Hi-Speed USB 2.0 show:

Read Test:


* 5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 33% faster than USB 2.0
* 160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 70% faster than USB 2.0

Write Test:


* 5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 16% faster than USB 2.0
* 160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 48% faster than USB 2.0

Many Intels CPU's are slower than AMD's even though their clockspeeds are much faster. Higher numbers aren't always better.