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External Drive to laptop

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by catzgraham

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I was given a Seagate Free Agent Pro external 320G harddrive. I would like to use it with my laptop for media storage and backup --- it connects via USB and yeah, I know it will be slow - but speed is not necessary for what I want to use it for ... anyone know of any problems I could have in the forseeable future? (I am running XP Media Center with Centrino 1.83GHz, 100G HD (68G free) 1G mem) I have also thought about making it a dual boot with XP pro on the Seagate... comments, sarcasm, suggestions welcome.

5 replies

by Former member

I have experienced a comparatively high failure rate with external drives, I assume due to heat related problems as a result of those tiny cases.

You may want to take extra precaution with and data stored there.

by catzgraham

Thanks for this bit of info. I don't know about "tiny cases" as this is about half the size of my toaster! But I will make sure it is well cooled.

I work in cable and software tech support so not as knowledgable in the hardware side of things as I would like to be

by Former member

We have purchased 8 - different brands/models - we have had 5 fail at approximately 1 year, and one more is threatening to die shortly.

by alpha-male

I have used external devices for years - and if your laptop is USB 2.0 you'll probably be pleasantly surprised by the performance. No it's not like an internal SATA drive - lol - but it's not bad.

I've had good experience with reliability - particularly with Seagate devices.

The only recommendation I have is to disconnect it properly when you're getting ready to remove the device. Another nice thought is to buy a fireproof box or safe to keep it in that's rated for media. Just an extra level of protection for your data...

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