Wayne Youngman
wrote in message ...

Simple Version:

I need to backup 1GB-80GBs of data twice a week on different
clients machines. I intend to use a USB v1.0 - 2.0 enclosure.

Can the USB (v1.0 or 2.0) interface take advantage of more
*advanced* drive features over the standard 5,400rpm/2MB
cache. For example would a newer 7,200rpm/8MB cache be
faster at making large back-ups than the older drives when
they were being used via USB?

Yes, but its basically just the rpm that matters.
And a housing that supports the fastest firewire
in spades. It may be worth adding the fastest
firewire to the PCs for the better speed.

And cooling can be a problem with 7200 rpm drives in external
housings that dont deliberately attempt to cool the drive somehow,
either with a fan or excellent conduction to a metal case etc.


(Long Version)

I want to *create* an external USB hard-drive that I can use to *backup*
stuff on clients machines when I do a *clean* install of WindowsXP.

I mean their MP3's, word documents, etc. . .

If the data is just like like .docs and doesn't exceed 128MB-256MB I could
just use a USB *pen-drive*, but allot of people now have many GB's of data
in My Documents (DivX, MP3, APE, etc) so I figure the best way to go is to
buy an *External* USB housing and slap in a 40-80GB disk.

Sure.

I did a bit of research and noticed that *Fire-Wire* is faster
in this situation, but not all machines have a FireWire port,

But it doesnt cost much to add firewire to a PC that doesnt have it.

so that's why I am thinking of USB.

Makes more sense to get a combo housing that does both.

I did also notice that you can get External housing that is both
USB and FireWire but I didn't find one for sale yet in U.K.

Cant have looked very hard.

This is the kit I am thinking of buying:
BELKIN - Hi-Speed USB 2.0 External Drive Enclosure Kit (£58.74 inc VAT UK)


http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...USB%2FUSB20%2F

So anyway I am wondering whether I what sort of IDE hard disk to get?.

1) Buy nice shiny new IDE HDD 7,200rpm 8Mb cache

The cache isnt relevant.

1a) Use this in the new USB v2.0 enclosure to max performance
1b) Use this is my 2nd PC and install old *slower*drive in new USB enclosure

That last would give the better overall performance.

2) Just buy an older 5,400rpm 2Mb cache
2a) Slap it in the new USB v2.0 enclosure

I don't know if USBv1.1 and USBv2.0 are
strong enough to *need* a blazing drive?

You'll find that USB 1.1 is irritatingly slow if you move that 10GBs
much. Well worth adding USB2 to that dinosaur or firewire.

also what about the cache, is 2MB or 8MB gonna make any difference.

Nope. It isnt even noticeable with a desktop PC with a
double blind trial without being allowed to use a benchmark.
That sort of copying of a decent quantity of data by one
app isnt an op that the cache makes much difference with.