external hard drive question

[T-Bird]

OK I'm looking to get an external HD for all my Vids and Music for backup and I was wondering if the size is a factor with external HD's like it is with internal drives?
As in say a Computer can't support Internal HD's of more than 80gigs is that the limit for external HD's or can you go as high as you want without having to get updates or anyhting?
reason I'm asking is because I'm going to be using it on multiple computers and one of them says that it won't read HD's larger than 80 gigs.

[MyTypeR]

I just put an internal 200G and have a back up 120G that I keep all my crap on. I like innie's not Audis. Windows XP has a fix for running hard drive over 139G. I 90% sure it is in Windows SP1.
:microwave:

[itsthepham]

Yeah, you run any harddrive larger than I think 130 something limit...you just need SP1 to get the full size of the harddrive.

[deth]

ya, it shouldnt be a problem w/ if u have sp1 installed. i was running a 200GB external this summer

[Regie]

I think the max size will be dependant on the file format :- NTFS, HFS+ , FAT32 etc

The older ones such as HFS and FAT had restirctions on max hard drive size.

Forgive me for any mistakes or ignorance as I'm not a windows user myself...

For WIndows I think you should stick with either a FAT32 or NTFS system.

These two KB articles talk about tghe FAT32 file system , which I used to think was limited to 40GB, but apparently goes up to a whopping 2 TB.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310525
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314463


Page 17 of this La Cie PDF file discusses file sizes
http://media-server.amazon.com/media/mole/MANUAL000013547.pdf

[T-Bird]

OK thanks
I was wondering because the computers stats said that it wouldn't read higher than 80 internal, I figured it was a mobo problem or something.

[mindgam3]

maybe consider getting a DVD RW instead? I don't know your exact needs n what u want but DVD RW is more flexible and is probably chepaer than an external HD. Plus you basically get an infinite amount of storage, well at least as many dvd's as you can afford ;) If it was my decision i'd go for the dvd writer

[Sachmo12345]

i got an external and all it did was fuck up just get an internal

[T-Bird]

I already have a really good Sony DVD+/-R/RW but I still want an external to go between computers more easily.

[Regie]

i got an external and all it did was fuck up just get an internal
How did it get rooted?
I know some people had problems with the Oxford 922 chipset and firewire 800. But, I've used many external hard drives (firewire only) for my video editing and haven't had any problems or issues.
Laptop users (like me) don't have the ability to add an extra internal hard drive (or DVD-/+/R/RW). AN external HD is the only way to go.

I already have a really good Sony DVD+/-R/RW but I still want an external to go between computers more easily.
Likewise. I've got an 8x Pioneer in an external case. It is great to be able to burn a data DVD in ~15 mins (at 4x) but one needs to organise the file names and structure before hand. With a HD you can just dump stuff on it and organise it at a later date.
I use it more for archiving than storage and am actually thinking about getting an 80GB laptop hard drive for my videos (portable and powered by the firewire bus so no power pack is needed - as long as it is a 6 pin and not crappy 4 pin firewire). The only downside is the small amount of storage space as opposed to the desktop HDs (max 80GB as opposed to 250-300GB). The laptop drives are also more expensive per GB as well.