[RndTbl] External hard drives for Linux

John Lange john at johnlange.ca
Tue Mar 3 10:02:17 CST 2009


On Tue, 2009-03-03 at 10:26 -0600, schwartz wrote:
> I'm thinking of buying an external USB hard drive for my Linux desktop.
> I'm concerned that these USB drives might be non-generic, somehow dependent
> on XP/Vesta or have fixed file systems ( NTFS or FAT36 ) or just slow.
>  Are any of the above an issue, or do they do a reasonable job.

They are not OS specific. Some of them may come pre-formatted (must USB
keys do) but you can easily reformat it. Keeping that in mind, if you
intend to move it between a Windows machine and a Linux machine you
should stick to a file system the Windows OS understands.

> I just want to use one for storage, not to run an OS on.

> Best Buy has a SimpleTech 1 TB for $150. 

> Future Shop has Comstar One-touch 1 TB for $150.

Storage is so cheap now is ridiculous. Mind you I'd be interested to
know how reliable they are.

Regards,

John Lange



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