Cheap external hard drive

OkeyDoke12

I'm looking to get a cheap external hard drive preferably not online as I need it ASAP. A 120 gb would be fine.

Skerries

500gb hard drive for €48.50 from Argos

availability

frankoreagan

If you have any old laptops/netbooks lying about, buy a sata-usb external HDD caddy in PC World for a tenner, remove hdd from old laptop (simple) and slot it in the caddy. Connect it to your current machine to format it (takes 2 mins) and you're away. Have re-used a couple of old 500 gig hdd's this way, instead of forking out for new external ones.

OkeyDoke12

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cyclone-Primus-2TB-Media-Player/dp/B004VR83EI/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1427404441&sr=1-1&keywords=Cyclone+Primus

I have this here at home. Wonder could I remove the hard drive from this?

styron

The Sumvision come with a 2TB 3.5" (ie. desktop) drive - so you'll need a powered caddy/enclosure like this (USB2.0 are a bit cheaper still).

You could go for an ultra cheapy 'bare wire' usb to sata/ide adapter cable with psu but I wouldn't advise buying one direct from any Chinese site ... the power supply was flimsy and roasting after a couple of seconds with mine.

OkeyDoke12

styron wrote: »

The Sumvision come with a 2TB 3.5" (ie. desktop) drive - so you'll need a powered caddy/enclosure like this (USB2.0 are a bit cheaper still).

You could go for an ultra cheapy 'bare wire' usb to sata/ide adapter cable with psu but I wouldn't advise buying one direct from any Chinese site ... the power supply was flimsy and roasting after a couple of seconds with mine.

Ok so I've removed the hard drive from the cyclone box as you can see in the attachments.

If I buy the usb caddy from Amazon how hard is it to set it up? Is it just a case of putting the harddrive inside the box and I'm good to go?

styron

OkeyDoke12 wrote: »

Ok so I've removed the hard drive from the cyclone box as you can see in the attachments.

If I buy the usb caddy from Amazon how hard is it to set it up? Is it just a case of putting the harddrive inside the box and I'm good to go?

It's very straightforward alright - just a case of popping open whatever enclosure you get - aligning and sliding on the data/power connectors, screwing the drive in place with the 2-4 retaining screws and putting the enclosure lid back on.

Plug in the usb and power cables and power on. Go into admin tools->computer management->storage->disk management. The drive should be seen. Usually you initialise a new disk by right-clicking on it but your 2TB is already preformatted so if you've nothing to save from it it's a case of reformatting the drive ( usually NTFS especially if any of your intended files' size is over 4GB).

If you purely intend to use the new external drive with a legacy system a usb 2.0 enclosure will be sufficient and save a few quid, but 2TB for a £20-30 reusable caddy is good value in anyone's book.

OkeyDoke12

Would this one here do the job?

http://www.pcworld.ie/Product/dynamode-usbhd35sibn-35andrdquo-sataide-usb-20-enclosure-black/312688/403.4.5

styron

OkeyDoke12 wrote: »

Would this one here do the job?

http://www.pcworld.ie/Product/dynamode-usbhd35sibn-35andrdquo-sataide-usb-20-enclosure-black/312688/403.4.5

As you want to get your paws on one ASAP it fits the bill - as a bonus, it can take the older PATA/IDE type of desktop hard drive too if you have any lying around or ever want to recover data from an old machine.

The USB 3.0 (SATA only) version is available there for €4 extra if you want to take advantage of the much faster transfer speeds with USB 3 ported systems and futureproof it a bit. If you end up using alot more of that 2TB beyond the 120GB you currently need, the more it makes sense.