On Sun, 04 Apr 2010 22:19:13 +0100, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Sun, 04 Apr 2010 13:43:03 +0100, Clive George wrote:

Definitely get an external HD of some kind - NAS or USB. They're not
expensive.

Sorely tempted by a 500GB "Seagate Expansion" USB drive for £50 in
Tesco Bathgate (nr Edinburgh) last night.

I had/have a Seagate (250GB) one. Niggles included the fact that it used
a bulky wall-wart rather than integrated PSU (and "kettle lead"), the
fact that it was tall and thin (so could be knocked over easily), and the
fact that it'd automatically spin down after x minutes of inactivity
(increasing potential for failure - drives generally don't like lots of
stop-start cycles)

I ended up tearing the guts out of it and re-homing it in a more sensible
case (complete with 5V PSU). Never completely fixed the auto-spin-down
issue, which is irritating - but as it's just used for backups now (not
convenient extra space for my laptop) I don't have any need to keep it
plugged in and running for long.

cheers

Jules