USB voltage woes

Can any of my techie readers suggest a bus-powered USB 2.0 external hard drive that will actually work with my PowerBook and its 500 mA bus?

(Yes, I realize I could get a special cord that would allow me to plug a drive that isn't getting enough power into both USB ports simultaneously. But that's not a good option, because my computer only has two USB ports, so such a setup would make it impossible for me to, say, transfer files between a bus-powered drive and a second external USB drive.)

Alternatively, are there any bus-powered FireWire hard drives out there that aren't obscenely expensive? (To give you an idea of my price and gigabyte range, I bought the Western Digital 250GB Passport for $139.99 at Best Buy tonight, only to discover that it doesn't get enough power from my computer's USB bus.)

Comments

[Jim Hu]

I think that most or all available drives above 160 Gb need external power... which is why that's the max on the iPod classics.

Hope I'm wrong, but I ran into something similar when I was looking for external drives to do backups on my Powerbook G4 about a year ago. I wound up just getting one with the external power brick. I figured that I wouldn't be using the external drive away from a plug that often, if ever. Of course, the fact that my battery was so dead that I had to plug in anyway just to use the laptop made this kind of moot.

Got a MacBook Pro recently so I run off battery more than back then. I did get my money's worth out of the Powerbook!

[Jim Hu]

I'm wrong! I may have been right a year ago...

I found one that's 250Gb from LaCie. Don't have one, but have used their products before. They say a 320 Gb will be shipping later this month.

[Condor]

What's the internet?

[David K.]

You can get something that has a lower capacity for around that range or less:

http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-33721-Black-FireWire-Portable/dp/B000KCX9LA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=pc&qid=1201490417&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-33749-Silver-FireWire-Portable/dp/B000SAF5U2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=pc&qid=1201490417&sr=1-2

Less portable, slightly more, larger capacity:

http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-External-FireWire-Interfaces-300790U/dp/B000AY7A5O/ref=sr_1_40?ie=UTF8&s=pc&qid=1201490492&sr=1-40

Or this one is good, we use one at work for an external boot disc for some of our Macs:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10976

[David K.]

Sorry, forgot it doesn't create links automatically anymore.

[Brendan Loy]

Indeed you are wrong, Jim. :) As I mentioned, I bought a 250 GB external bus-powered drive from Best Buy... so such things certainly exist. The problem is that they require more than the 500 mA of power that my (in this case not-aptly named) PowerBook can give them.

David, I definitely need at least 200 GB of capacity. Your last link, to the LaCie Little Disk drives, is promising, but I wonder if I'll have the same problem with it? It notes that "For computers with a low-powered USB port, the included power-sharing cable helps turn the drive on by drawing extra power from a second USB port." That's a standard disclaimer for such drives -- the real question is what they mean by "low-powered." I'd love to hear if someone can get that particular drive to work off a single USB slot on a 15- or 17-inch PowerBook G4...

[Jim Hu]

Poor reading comprehension- doh. :(

It does seem like the external drives I looked at via Googling are lacking in basic info on minimum power required. I wonder if the power sharing cable can reach around the Powerbook to the other USB port.

[aeromusek]

Another option would be to buy a hard drive enclosure (without a drive) and either purchase the HD separately, or hack open the enclosure on the Western Digital you just bought and use the HD from that. I have this one, which works well:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/MacAlly/PHR250CC/

[aeromusek]

That would mean using FireWire, of course. Which is faster anyway.

[David K.]

Brendan, the last drive is Firewire as well :)

[Brendan Loy]

Oh! Right. Heh, heh, I knew that.

I just wish it were a little cheaper...

[Brendan Loy]

Hmm, well, that's a bit better...

Aeromusek's suggestion also has promise...

[Jim Hu]

Um.. doesn't using an enclosure just push the problem back to which drives work with enclosures that run off the USB or Firewire port?

[Brendan Loy]

Well, if I get a self-powered FireWire enclosure, then I'm all set, because FireWire doesn't have the power issues that USB does. Of course I have to get a compatible drive, but that's much easier than trying to find a USB drive that'll work with my computer power-wise (because the manufacturers don't seem to publish the relevant stats on current strength).

If I get a hub-powered USB enclosure, then yes, we're back at Square One. But it's a different way to try to construct an affordable solution that I hadn't seriously considered before.

[GaryC]

I'm confused. Why don't you just buy a powered USB (or FireWire) hub?

Do you really need to use the external hard disk when you don't have access to an outlet?

I find it fairly simple to keep only the most frequently used files on the internal hard disk, and move other files on only when I know I'm going to need them on a trip.

If you have a tiny hard disk (anything less than 40 gigabytes, although my first hard disk was 8,000 times smaller), then a large flash drive can give you emergency storage at a tolerable cost. Eight gigabytes seems to be the sweet spot right now, in terms of price per gigabyte.

[Alasdair]

Brendan - if all you are wanting to do is run another USB device while running your multi-GB external drive, as long as the second USB device uses very little power, could you not use an unpowered USB hub to give the extra USB Port access ?

(Remember - I'm a mainframe computer geek, so this may be too simple a solution)