which external hard drive to buy?

[grashdur]

I need to get an external hard drive that's bigger and faster than my 7-year-old 20GB Pockey, and this time I want one that is immediately plug-and-play compatible with Ubuntu, Windows, and Macintosh. Any recommendations?

[bwhite82]

I could be wrong, but I thought that all external USB drives fall under the category "mass storage devices" and utilize a universal driver in the kernel? So it wouldn't really matter which you got.

[Steve413z]

I usually go with whatever one is the cheapest price per gigabyte. However, I don't look for anything that high performance, cause I just use my external hard drives for backup/etc.

(check best buy, they often have some really good deals on hard drives, the last 2 external drives i have gotten were western digitals from best buy)

[nebben11]

You also want to check to see if you have usb 2.0. ubuntu wouldnt see my 80gb 2.5 ide ext hdd on usb 1.1 but after installing a new usb 2.0 nic chiped card it did. I'm now happy as a peach in my mouth

[grashdur]

Thanks for the feedback.

@ Soldierboy: When I plug my Pockey external HD to my computer running Ubuntu, the drive receives power from the computer and the LED turns on red. The drive doesn't mount on the computer, nor is it listed in the media folder. This is the same behavior I get on a computer running Windows if I haven't yet installed the drivers from the Pockey's little CD. This is why I'm assuming that not all hard drives are immediately compatible with Linux.

On the other hand, perhaps the external HD is not noticed because it's formatted with NTFS? But I thought Gutsy Gibbon could see NTFS but just not write to it.

@ nebben11: I'm not sure what USB 2.0 is. Is it included in Gibbon? I also looked in Add/Remove Programs, and in Synaptic Package Manager, but didn't see it listed.

[Steve413z]

@ nebben11: I'm not sure what USB 2.0 is. Is it included in Gibbon? I also looked in Add/Remove Programs, and in Synaptic Package Manager, but didn't see it listed.

USB 2.0 is a hardware specification, if your computer is less than 8 years old, you should be ok

[nebben11]

@ nebben11: I'm not sure what USB 2.0 is. Is it included in Gibbon? I also looked in Add/Remove Programs, and in Synaptic Package Manager, but didn't see it listed.

grashdur is right. I would also try different ports. on my desktop the front is usb v1.1 and the back is usb v2.0 here is a good read on usb http://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/info/...ification.html

[grashdur]

nebben11, thanks for the helpful link. So I see USB version is about the hardware. Since I bought my computer new in 2002 I assume I have version 2.0. Also, previously when I had Windows installed on this same computer, I was able to use the Pockey external drive with no problem (once I installed the driver for Windows). So I think it's an Ubuntu/hardware issue.

[nebben11]

I did find this:
INSTALLING THE POCKEY FOR USE WITH LINUX
To be able to use Pockey in Linux, take the following
steps.
1. Plug in and turn your Pockey on after Linux has
booted. You should do this in your “root”
account.
2. Next, use whatever partitioning tool to see if the
Pockey is recognized and the partition is seen.
3. Create a mount point in folder mnt. You may
name this folder whatever you want, “pockey” for
example.
4. Next, add the following line into FSTAB:
/dev/sda1 /misc vfat noauto,user 0 0
At this point, you may choose to mount the Pockey
through command line, or you may create an icon
on the desktop for the Pockey.
In order to mount the Pockey using command line,
type the following:
Mount –t vfat /dev/sda1 /pockey

This was taken from page 11 from http://www.pocketec.net/downloads/POCKETECmanual.pdf
let me know if it works for you

[nebben11]

oh forgot use "sudo" before the commands hence you login as root