Does it always need external power? Can it be used like other small capacity USB disk that simply plug it into USB slot without a separate power cord?
1125411
Nope. You need to use the included power supply. The USB port simply does not deliver enough power to operate 3.5" based external hard drives. Thumb drives use flash memory and the portable hard drives use smaller 2.5" or 1.8" laptop hard drives which use less power.
1125412
I have the similar My Book Premium Edition 500GB and it does have a separate power cord. All of the larger external drives I've looked at have that. I like this hard drive a lot. I've had it about a year and it has been very reliable.
1125413
It always needs external power. It has a 3.5" hard drive, whereas the one's that run only on USB have a 2.5" (laptop hard drive). That is the main difference.
399750
No. This is totally portable. No external power needed. It will not charge devices it is just a hub which is exactly what I wanted. It works terrific.
1416475
External, AC adapter. It's a full sized, 3.5", hard drive with a full set of spinning platters inside. I'm not sure if it could even be used in a context where the device it's in would run off the power from a USB port....perhaps, but in this case, it's not that kind.
1819011
yes , all you need is to put it in an external box. good thing it uses less power and has no moving parts so its stronger than conventional drives
1213491
I use mine with just 1 USB port for power, but apparently it depends on the drive you are using inside the enclosure. I use it for the 'old' drive in a laptop. I upgraded the internal drive and took out the 250Gb drive and put it in this case as a back-up drive.
120462
There is a version of this hard drive which has a Li-Ion battery built in, that's one of the reason this model is cheap. If you want to power it with an external source you can buy a power pack, there are so many models and capacities, it is easy because is he same power pack that you buy for the cell phones. The more the capacity (mA/h) the more the time to perform.
1899940
Does the USB 2.0 port provide enough power for the external HDD? Or should I make sure to use an external HDD that has its own power source?
444629
no. the device needs to have power to work. The largest external hard drive i have seen that can be powered by thunderbolt alone is 2TB
984015
No external power supply is needed. It is "plug & play". It gets power from the computer's ExpressCard/34 slot.
1255034
It appears to work powered by the AC adapter or the USB 3.0 cable alone. My USB 3.0 external hard drive works without the AC adapter. However in order to charge attached devices like my mobile phone, the AC adapter has to be plugged in.
10959
Yes, provided you use your laptop near an AC outlet; the external drive has its own wall-wart power supply. If you want an external drive that's as portable as your laptop, look at the many small portable hard drives that are designed to draw power from the laptop's USB port -- or in some cases, two USB ports for full-speed performance.
1547062
It requires auxilliary power. USB won't power it. But it comes with a power pack.
1704317
You have to have AC to power it. The smaller, "min" versions of the g-tech drives are able to be bus powered. Strangely, on the amazon pages per the technical details, in the "Special Features" section, it says "usb powered". However, upon looking at the g-tech web site and other resources, this likely just refers to it having usb ports...more of a marketing term than a technical term. I reviewed the technical manual, product guide and datasheet on the site for the product with no mention of being able to use the USB to power it. I will try with mine at home but I have had mine for a little over 6 months and had it AC powered the whole time. I would not expect a workhorse like that to be able to be bus powered.
1273332
It is "powered" through the USB port, so expect it to provide only as much power downstream as it receives. In particular, it may not power multiple of those portable hard drives that get power through USB, but it probably will power a single one, depending on how much power it receives from the port it is plugged in.
1960925
This external HD comes with its own power plug, and it has only 2 inputs. One for the USB cable and the other for the Power cord. I am guessing it will only work with the power plug it came with.
1250852
I keep it just plugged in all the time regardless of what I do with the (desktop) computer. The drive seems to be performing well and I think I've had it more than a year. I'm using it for local file sync'ing. It's usb so you should not need to mount or unmount.
1558716
That's another thing I like about the Seagate, powered via USB port, no power adapter needed! One less cord!!