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  #1  
Old 09-17-2007, 01:28 PM
satheesh
 
Posts: n/a
Default any difficulty in size of hard disc when using it as external device?

is there any relationship size of the hard disc when using hard disc
as external device ?
my system is pentium4 2.6 Ghz 256 RAM and usb 1.0 .
Is there any difficulty in using 250 or larger external hard disc on
my system

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  #2  
Old 09-17-2007, 04:05 PM
geronimo
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: any difficulty in size of hard disc when using it as external device?

NO.


On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:28:12 -0000, satheesh
<satheeshkumarvs@gmail.com> wrote:

>is there any relationship size of the hard disc when using hard disc
>as external device ?
>my system is pentium4 2.6 Ghz 256 RAM and usb 1.0 .
>Is there any difficulty in using 250 or larger external hard disc on
>my system


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  #3  
Old 09-17-2007, 05:12 PM
kony
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: any difficulty in size of hard disc when using it as external device?

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:28:12 -0000, satheesh
<satheeshkumarvs@gmail.com> wrote:

>is there any relationship size of the hard disc when using hard disc
>as external device ?
>my system is pentium4 2.6 Ghz 256 RAM and usb 1.0 .
>Is there any difficulty in using 250 or larger external hard disc on
>my system



No, except:

- You need a certain OS level to support 250GB, regardless
of whether it is internal or external. That OS level
excludes Win9x, requires Win2K with Service Pack 2 (? or 3?)
installed already, or WinXP with Service Pack 1 installed.
If these are not present you may not see all the capacity
and writing beyond the 128GB boundary will corrupt the data.

- USB 1 will be very slow, I recommend you install a USB2
PCI card and connect the external drive to that. If you
don't have any of the parts yet (I mean you don't have the
external enclosure yet), I recommend instead that you buy an
eSATA enclosure, an SATA hard drive, and an SATA PCI
controller card with at least one eSATA socket on it. This
will be significantly faster than USB2, but either are much
faster than USB1. Generally in the US market, a USB2 PCI
card is about $15 delivered if you shop around, an eSATA PCI
card might be about $30, though market prices vary and
sales/rebates/etc will vary the prices.

- An external enclosure may be limited in the max capacity
of hard drive it can support, some not supporting 250GB.
This is mainly referring to relatively old enclosures, any
current generation model should support HDDs beyond 250GB.

- In other words, the details you mention of your system do
not limit the size of external drive you can use, but the
details you didn't mention, could limit it.
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  #4  
Old 09-17-2007, 06:30 PM
John Weiss
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: any difficulty in size of hard disc when using it as external device?

"satheesh" <satheeshkumarvs@gmail.com> wrote...
> is there any relationship size of the hard disc when using hard disc
> as external device ?
> my system is pentium4 2.6 Ghz 256 RAM and usb 1.0 .
> Is there any difficulty in using 250 or larger external hard disc on
> my system


If you can use an internal HD that large, you can use an external HD that
large. Both the computer BIOS and the operating system must support large HDs
(>135 GB) via "48-bit LBA" (Logical Block Addressing).

HOWEVER, some older/cheaper external enclosures do not support large HDs
because of their own firmware limitations. If you buy the HD and enclosure
separately, make sure the enclosure supports large HDs.


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  #5  
Old 09-17-2007, 10:05 PM
Franc Zabkar
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: any difficulty in size of hard disc when using it as external device?

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:12:04 -0400, kony <spam@spam.com> put finger to
keyboard and composed:

>On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:28:12 -0000, satheesh
><satheeshkumarvs@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>is there any relationship size of the hard disc when using hard disc
>>as external device ?
>>my system is pentium4 2.6 Ghz 256 RAM and usb 1.0 .
>>Is there any difficulty in using 250 or larger external hard disc on
>>my system

>
>
>No, except:
>
>- You need a certain OS level to support 250GB, regardless
>of whether it is internal or external. That OS level
>excludes Win9x, ...


Yes and no.

I'm using a Seagate 320GB HD in a USB 2.0 enclosure with Win98SE and I
can read the entire 320GB without problems. You will have issues when
running Scandisk or Defrag (these result in "insufficent memory"
errors), but these can be circumvented by using the ME versions of the
same utilities.

The 128GB limit applies to ATA/IDE interfaces and is imposed by
Microsoft's esdi_506.pdr, but this driver can be replaced in certain
circumstances with 48-bit LBA 3rd party offerings, eg Intel
Application Accelerator, or hacked versions of esdi_506.pdr available
from MSFN.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
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  #6  
Old 09-18-2007, 12:56 AM
Don Phillipson
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: any difficulty in size of hard disc when using it as external device?

"satheesh" <satheeshkumarvs@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1190032092.362591.245830@22g2000hsm.googlegro ups.com...

> is there any relationship size of the hard disc when using hard disc
> as external device ?
> my system is pentium4 2.6 Ghz 256 RAM and usb 1.0 .
> Is there any difficulty in using 250 or larger external hard disc on
> my system


"External" these days usually means connected as USB
device (not SATA or IDE). Your problem is that all large
USB drives were designed after USB version 2 became
the standard. They may or may not work with USB
version 1 but not at design speed.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)


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  #7  
Old 09-18-2007, 01:12 AM
philo
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: any difficulty in size of hard disc when using it as external device?


"satheesh" <satheeshkumarvs@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1190032092.362591.245830@22g2000hsm.googlegro ups.com...
> is there any relationship size of the hard disc when using hard disc
> as external device ?
> my system is pentium4 2.6 Ghz 256 RAM and usb 1.0 .
> Is there any difficulty in using 250 or larger external hard disc on
> my system
>



Yes. A major problem. USB 1 will be way to slow to transfer large amounts of
data.
(With a 250 gig drive I am assuming of course you will have a lot of data.)
You will definately have to add a PCI USB2 card to your machine if it does
not already have USB2.
The good news is that the cards are pretty low cost and generally easy to
install.


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