External hard drives

[Jonathan_King]

I was talking to a friend in Poland, who needs an external HD but knows nothing about them. The current is much higher there than in the US, so he was wondering about the risks of frying his electronics. What does anyone have to say about this?

He wanted a drive that was USB powered, to reduce the risk of burnout. If there is a real risk to the current issue, can anyone recommend a USB powered external drive? I have looked at many drives, but they do not specify the power source.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Isn't the higher current taken into consideration by the power supplies that are designed for that current? I wasn't aware that there was a whole different line of hardware that was suitable only for countries with a different power architecture. I thought Europe generally used higher voltage?

 

[Jonathan_King]

Yes, but external HDs don't use PSUs right? They plug in either to the wall or get their juice from USB.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I have never used external HDs and don't know where they get power. Do printer manufacturers make models that are suitable only for Europe? I think that is true of radios and electric razors and home appliances generally. Can your friend consult a local Polish dealer for insight? I would think that PC equipment sold in Poland is designed to operate properly on local power, whatever it is?

 

[Ex_Brit]

Most external hard drives that I have looked at and/or owned have a separate power supply that plugs into a power outlet so would automatically come with the appropriate power converter for that region.
I don't know of any that are USB powered.

If the person is looking to buy online make sure the unit is conpatible with the region he/she lives in.

 

[RugbyHoe]

I was talking to a friend in Poland, who needs an external HD but knows nothing about them. The current is much higher there than in the US, so he was wondering about the risks of frying his electronics. What does anyone have to say about this?

He wanted a drive that was USB powered, to reduce the risk of burnout. If there is a real risk to the current issue, can anyone recommend a USB powered external drive? I have looked at many drives, but they do not specify the power source.

I have a 320 GB USB-powered Maxtor portable drive that I've used for over a year with no issues, unfortunately Maxtor is no more (absorbed by Seagate).

Toshiba makes a 640 GB USB-powered portable (about $110 USD on newegg), but I do not have any experience with that particular model. The user reviews look pretty good though.

UPDATE - found the same Toshiba drive on amazon for $10 less (the deal looked so good that I bought one).

 

[RugbyHoe]

The new Toshiba Portable arrived today. It's working great and is dead silent. Just plug it in to a powered USB 2 port and it works. It arrived formatted as FAT32 and includes some sort of backup software installer on it, so the first thing I did was reformat it to NTFS.

Note: The provided USB cable is pretty short (10"); it's perfect for road warrior use, but you might want to have an extension cable handy if you are going to use it with a desktop PC.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Thanks everyone for the advice.