Does the fact that these drives draw power from the USB decrease their performance? I'm concerned, however, in two regards: 1) Will this feature result in decreased performance of the drive vs. the same size, same rpm, same buffer sized drive which is...
617849
Actually, I do not think it is the case that power is supplied from the USB port. At least not according to what I have read about the Free Agent Pro.
1331169
It depends primarily on the type of drive you put into it. I'm running WD Black drives and under heavy load they are pretty audible. I'd imagine slower drives would make less noise. The actual unit makes little to no fan noise at all. The product specifications have it listed as "Noise Level : 19.3 dB(A)".
368781
Tested with a WD Passport USB 3.0 2TB 2.5" drive. It seems to power it, though it turned off after 6 or 8 seconds the first time. After powering off, it came back on, my device said it detected mass USB storage, but there are no new mount points created, probably because the drive is formatted in NTFS and not exFAT or whatever it needs to be.
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.
703541
Marginal USB power is ALWAYS a risk with drives that run off USB power. I use my portables to hold maintenance and diagnostic tools. They get plugged into different machines every week, and you never know how much power those machines will be supplying. Some machines (especially laptops) just don't put out the power required to run many drives, and some drives suck down more power than others. When you hear the metronome noise, that's an indication that there isn't enough power. Worse, I have had portable disks work fine for a few weeks or months and then start the metronome noise. When I see that a drive "doesn't need a power cable" I always look for whether it comes with a power jack ANYWAY. That way, you can always add wall power if you're having problems. The best deal of all (as far as reliability) are drives like Other World Computing's, that "don't need a power cord" but come with a power jack AND a power adapter for the same price. That way you can run it off a marginal laptop, an unpowered hub, or whatever you need to.
577851
Not sure I understand the question? I have these two and they are working very well as USP drives ( 250 gig ).
114731
I don't know, I have a PC and the unit I received did not work well. The speed was slow. I don't know if it was just that unit or if the usb did not supply enough power to run it. I returned the item and did not replace it.
259039
I have an older Seagate External HD (1.5TB) and a few 3TB Western Digital HD. I have them hooked to my Window 7 desktop through the Anker USB 3.0 hub; so far I have no issues. When not accessing data on my external HD, the disks do spin down gracefully and go to "sleep"...so far I have not had any issues with this device...hope this helps...
2134770
Rotational drives take more power to spin up the drive, keep it spinning at thousand of rpm and still logically access, read and write data. SSD talk a lot less power and put out less heat. USB3 also provides more power than USB2 did. See http://www.diffen.com/difference/USB_2.0_vs_USB_3.0
288685
MANUFACTURER RESPONSE: Thanks for asking!In a word, no- however as another respondent has noted this would require a little extra caution when handling the drives.Hope this helps! For fastest response, let us know of any other questions by emailing support@plugable.com or visiting support.plugable.com.Best wishes-Jeff EverettPlugable Technoloiges
1034516
I have had nothing but bad luck with LaCie drives, I have had two of them not function out of the box. My experience is the exact opposite with the G Drive, these drives are quiet, and seem to run forever. I have not had a single issue with any one of the seven I own
1678462
All of these drives are good. It depends on the usage. I use mine in a Drobo array for video editing. They are fast enough, but not super fast. The more data you have stored, the slower they run. Probably need to make sure future drives are "enterprise" models.
97229
I've had no issues with the speed of the unit. It really depends on the drives you use.
1206395
Right, RPM would be about revolutions of a drive, however now with hybrid drives you will still see RPM but they have mixed storage creating an advanced cache so the performance is a lot better.
2261998
I suppose that it supplies power to the drive. My guess is that the laptop drive I'm using only needs 5V and that it is getting enough current from the USB port. I do not know how much power is really needed or if this usage is correct; I just observed that it works for me.
1826120
Yes. It does not run power of USB cord. You must have the power cord. I purchased 2 of these 3 years ago and have been moderately happy with them. Though now I require much greater space for my back-ups. Last year I had to purchase 2 new power cords as both of them stopped working. This is a known issue with this Lacie drive. If you buy be prepared to purchase a new power cord about every 18 months.
584199
Have two of these devices, and they work with all form factor 2.5", 3.5", and have used with 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB drives, 5400 RPM, 7200 RPM and while not having used this with 10,000 RPM, I cannot imagine drive speed has any consequence, as it worked with hard drives, and SSD's and flawlessly on my drives, independent of using the computer system, as long as you have drives properly connected.