[conspire] would this be a good external hard drive for, my Linux Certified laptop?

[Darlene Wallach]

Ed,

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Ed Biow <biow at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
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> From: Darlene Wallach <freepalestin at dslextreme.com>
> Subject: Re: [conspire] would this be a good external hard drive for
>    my    Linux Certified laptop?
>> Yes - thank you very much for taking the time to look up and give
>> me urls and for answering my question! I will use the link to check
>>  prices.
>>
>> I will most likely check Costco. I don't like to purchase online.
>
> If you don't like to shop online a good resource to check is
> SalesCircular.com:
>
> http://www.salescircular.com/ca/computer/hdiskp.shtml

Thank you!

>
> Another resource to monitor is the Fry's ads if you happen to live
> near an arbeit macht Fry's.  For some reason there are about 5 stores
> in the South Bay within 10 minutes of each other but I'd have to drive
> 35 minutes to hit either the Concord of (extremely southern) Fremont
> store & the situation isn't better if you live in SF or the North Bay.
> http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com/
> http://newspaperads.mercurynews.com/ROP/ads.aspx?advid=32664
>

I live in the south bay so Fry's are close - though I don't think I'd
buy a hard drive from Fry's.

> - From a price point of view, I find Costco is seldom the lowest choice
> for consumer electronics, simply because they don't discount sale
> items as much as many other stores.  That said, the price is rarely
> much higher than its competition and they have the best return policy
> I am aware of, plus, they actually pay their workers quite well
> compared to other big box stores, on the order of $15 an hour.  Fry's
> doesn't pay much more than half of that to entry-level workers.  Their
> labor practices are one of the reasons I was pleased to see Circuit
> Chity go toes up.
>

I have heard other good things about Costco - they will let anyone buy
prescription drugs even if they don't have a membership.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_City#Criticism_and_controversy
>> I like the fact that the drive has firewire, which might be just a
>> tad faster than USB 2.0?
> Firewire is apparently a bit faster, particular for transfers of large
> amounts of data.
>
> http://www.cwol.com/firewire/firewire-vs-usb.htm

Thank you - good to know.

>
> BTW, I've never seen a USB drive that Windows could read that Linux
> couldn't (unless it was formatted in a file system that Linux wasn't
> prepared to handle, e.g. the ntfsprogs program wasn't installed).
>
> In fact in my experience Linux handles some USB peripherals much
> better than Windows (XP, at least, haven't used 7), particularly USB
> keyboards and rodents. Linux picks these things up in seconds, Windows
> dithers around a lot, even if you just change the port in to which the
> device is plugged.  A few weeks ago I had to go in to Safe Mode on a
> friend's XP to get it to recognize a new USB keyboard (and it was a
> Dell which didn't have any PS/2 ports, so it was just a new model
> keyboard, a Logitech instead of a Dell).  Luckily the Administrative
> account wasn't password protected. I was able to log in to a Guest
> account without a typed password, but it wouldn't let me "install" the
> new keyboard.

My understanding was that Linux knows how to handle USB whatever is plugged in.

>
> Ed
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Thank you for your thoughtful and thorough response!

equal justice under law,
Darlene Wallach