I want to be able to store more mp3s and movies than my hard drive can
handle. Installing a new regular hard drive is out of the question.
I'm trying to decide if buying a USB hard drive is the answer. How
difficult is installing a USB hard drive? Are they fast enough to play
movies and mp3s off of?

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Request for Question Clarification by robertskelton-ga on 04 Mar 2003 01:52 PST

Does your computer have USB 2.0?

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Clarification of Question by gremlin-ga on 04 Mar 2003 15:02 PST

Don't know. How do I find out? Do I need it?

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Request for Question Clarification by googleexpert-ga on 05 Mar 2003 19:36 PST

Open "Control Panels" and click open "System", you should be able to
see which USB ports you have.
USB 2.0 ports are not required for what you need but it doesn't hurt
for faster "transfer rates"

I personal have done exactly what you are asking and I am very
satisfied with the result. But in order to get the speeds you desire,
USB 2.0 is essential. The difference between USB 1.0 and 2.0 is like
night and day:

Transfer speed:
-USB 1.1/USB 1.0 (12Mbps)
-USB 2.0 (480Mbps) 

My laptop has only a USB 1.0/1.1 slot, but I was able to add a
PCMCIA/USB2.0 adaptor card such as the one listed here:
http://www.usb-2-0.com/iogear-gpu202.html

So, even if your PC doesn't have USB 2.0 you can add an adaptor card
to your PC, such as:
http://www.maxtor.com/en/products/accessories/usb/usb2_pci_adapter_card/

I bought a Western Digital drive 80GB 7200 RPM USB 2.0 Hard drive from
myself, but any major brand is about the same. Now 80GB to 120GB
drives seem to be in the $190-$250 range, but of course prices are
subject to rapid change.

As far as installation is concerned: I opened the box and removed the
external drive, plugged the power cable in, and plugged the drive into
my system. It was automatically detected and appeared as a new drive
on my system. I now use the windows backup utility to periodically
backup my personal files to the USB external drive. You can even
install applications on it and run then as if it were a local drive!

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance, and keep your
data backed-up! I bought my USB drive because I lost a hard drive and
6 years images, email, contacts, letters, short stories etc etc. In my
opinion USB drives are a very convenient and affordable way to backup
data. True, burning CDs would be cheaper, but it is time consuming so
we tend to get lazy and not do it. Anyway, best of luck.

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Request for Answer Clarification by gremlin-ga on 05 Mar 2003 22:56 PST

I'm still trying to find out whether I have 2.0. I opened Control
Panel->System like googleexpert said, but I wasn't sure what to do
after that. I did find a "device manager" submenu in there, and it did
contain entries for "Intel 82371AB/EB PCI to USB Universal Host
Controller" and "USB Root Hub", but I'm not sure where they would say
if I have 2.0 or 1.0. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I have USB at
all. How do I find this information?

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Clarification of Answer by maxhodges-ga on 06 Mar 2003 03:27 PST

If Enhanced Host Controller and/or USB 2.0 Root Hub Device is listed,
then the computer has USB 2.0 ports.

If Universal Host Controller and/or Open Host Controller is listed,
then the computer has USB 1.1 ports.

Found here:
http://www.iomega.com/ap/support/documents/11321.html

So...looks like you should invest in a USB 2.0 card. 

Actually, an external hard disk WILL work with your USB 1.0 port;
however you might find as I did that the speed leaves something to be
desired. So if you want a USB external drive you could buy one now and
get started with it, and then decided later if you want to upgrade to
USB 2.0, after you've had some experience with it. As I said my laptop
didn't have USB 2.0 so I added the card, but my laptop wasn't very
high end to begin with--processor is Pentium III 700 mhz. So maybe the
speed of the drive on your system might be acceptable to you.

As another researcher said, your mp3 files should play fine, but we
can't be sure about the movies. Maybe you can let us know with a
comment in the future.

Thanks for the opporunity to help!

Installation is trivial - just plug it in.
Speed is OK for MP3s.

One of the benefits of the compression is that the amount of data
required to be transfered is greatly reduced.  Most mp3 files are
encoded at a bit rate between 128kbit/s and 256kbit/s.  Even a USB 1.1
connection should be able to transfer data at least 10 times faster
than that.  So you should have no trouble playing mp3 directly from
the drive.

Now movies are a different matter.  They typically have a higher data
rate requirement than mp3s would.  But it depends on the resolution of
the movies as well as the compression used.  If the movies are low to
medium resolution and are compressed well, then it should be ok to
play the files straight off the hard drive.

The difficultly installing the hard drive depends on your operating
system.  Typically it will just be plug and play on modern operating
systems.

Hi again gremlin-ga! Are you talking about usb miniature drives? If
you are you may find this article helpful.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/itmanager/technology/story/0,2000029587,20269790-1,00.htm

Thanks!

Depends on the Operating System you're using.
The following OSes are listed in order of ease of USB HD installation:
Macintosh
Windows
Linux