Has anybody used a USB harddrive of a decent size? I was looking at a 120GB that uses USB 2.0. It looks nice, and it would be great for what I do (ie, have it hooked up to my laptop at home, but pull it off for school/work). I just worry about the speed, though, will I be able to play games/stuff like that off it, or is it too slow?

Anybody ever used one of these before?

Well... Possibly. You should be able to play most games considering the main amount of slowness will come while loading, and USB 2.0 is hardly slow but I would recommend those things mainly for storage.

Weren't you just bragging about how you didn't need one of these due to your schools network? :P

Me? Hardly. I've been wanting a new hard drive forever. Right now I use my other computer's drive to store all my crap on, but that's slow and non-portable.

A usb drive would be great, though, since I'm also going to get a dvd burner, and this would make it better to burn crap for my friends, or between my laptop/desktop/etc.

Ah, I was thinking you were going to be using it for transfering files, etc.. Which you said you'd rather do with your network/ftp. Sorry. ;)

That too, but outside my LAN it's a slow transfer. But I still don't remember saying that :P

Ugh, maybe I'll look for the quote later.

Ok, I bought one:
$300 base
- $40 instant rebate = $260
- 10% because the box was open
+ 14% tax = $266
- $80 mail-in rebate = $186.

<edit> exact number was $186.75. Damn I'm good at guessing! :)

I was happy with that :)

It's 120gb, 7200rpm, usb2.0. So far, it's great to use. For anybody with a laptop, I would highly recommend usb!

14% tax? Crazy Britons.

[quote author=Stealth link=board=2;threadid=4505;start=0#msg39450 date=1073962280]
14% tax? Crazy Britons.
[/quote]

Well, our Prime Minister was voted in based on the fact that he would eliminate GST (7%). He was quoted promising it at least 4 times. Here we are 14 years later, and he just retired, and he recently said he never promised anything like "dat"

120 gig?

Damn, that's insane.

[quote author=iago link=board=2;threadid=4505;start=0#msg39452 date=1073963160]
[quote author=Stealth link=board=2;threadid=4505;start=0#msg39450 date=1073962280]
14% tax? Crazy Britons.
[/quote]

Well, our Prime Minister was voted in based on the fact that he would eliminate GST (7%). He was quoted promising it at least 4 times. Here we are 14 years later, and he just retired, and he recently said he never promised anything like "dat"
[/quote]

Do you have to pay sales tax on Internet purchases as well? We get a break over here -- very few (if any) states require you to pay sales tax on internet purchases unless the company you're buying from is based within your state.

It's 17.5% here :P

And 25% here.

9% here
and 120gb isnt that big they got 500gb externals

I don't think I'll ever fill 120gb. I would have bought an 80gb, but 80gb would have been more expensive under the circumstances. 500gb is expensive and most of the space would be worthless to me.

I didn't think I'd fill 120 GB any time soon when I went from 20 to 120, but it was full after about a month.

I figure I'll fill it quick, but I'll start cycling content. Like, I'll burn movies/delete them, uninstall games I don't play, etc.

Haha, maybe it'll work for you. I tend to install lots of games and download lots of movies, and then I don't finish playing/watching them before downloading the next. I did clean up 20 gigs recently, but that involved several hours of recording cd-r's.

That brings me to this question: Is there any good cd recording application that allows you to make a job queue? Something like how in say gordian knot you can set one movie encoding, meanwhile preparing the next one and queuing it up?

Also, I am planning on getting a dvd burner, but I'm not sure whether I'll get internal or external yet.. it depends on the price. That'll help, too, since I won't need to have movies on my drive forever.

Iago, you have a "Factory Direct" store around you? They constantly have sales for things like that, for dirt cheap prices.

I got it at Best Buy. Hardly factory direct.

Try to find one, it's honestly the best store in Canada you can buy from... I think the website is www.factorydirect.ca

I just checked my bios settings, and it was listed in "boot order" as a bootable device. I'm going to try installing an Operating System on it and try out that feature.

Told ya :)
Did it work?