Usable with USB 2 and USB 3 without reformat? Could I, for example, write contents onto the drive using USB 3.0 and give it to someone with a USB 2.0 and would he be able to read/write then could we pass it back and forth using such procedures? Second question - using NTFS under WIN7 Ultimate both sides in example above?Thanks! Usable with USB 2 and USB 3 without reformat? Could I, for example, write contents onto the drive using USB 3.0 and give it to someone with a USB 2.0 and would he be able to read/write then could... » Read More Usable with USB 2 and USB 3 without reformat? Could I, for example, write contents onto the drive using USB 3.0 and give it to someone with a USB 2.0 and would he be able to read/write then could we pass it back and forth using such procedures? Second question - using NTFS under WIN7 Ultimate both sides in example above?Thanks! « Show Less
301144
Yes, it comes with a (short) cable. Well, the computer end of the cable is the same for USB 2.0 and 3.0
301145
Does this come with a USB 3.0 cable or do we have to purchase that separately?
301146
Should work. As I do the same thing within my own house with flash drives. My desktop is win7 / USB 2.0, my Laptop is win7 / USB 3.0. I've never needed to re-format my flash drives and I do get the speed increase from the USB 3.0 Laptop. I can imagine, with the proper operating systems involved: Portable HDDs should't be any different.
121412
you certainly can use both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0; the only difference is transfer speed.
508481
I believe this drive is backwards compatible with USB 2. I have the same drives and had no trouble with using USB 2.
684174
It's been a long, long time since I've bought an Iomega diskette type drive. Compared to a USB Hard Drive (like Seagate Backup Plus) the older Iomega is much slower and less reliable. In my opinion it's way past its prime. I would take your friend's advice and get a USB hard drive. If your Win7 computer supports USB 3.0 I would definitely get a 3.0 USB Hard Drive. 3.0 is 10 times as fast as 2.0 and really flies. That's my opinion. Good luck with your decision. --- Sam
1567201
Yes, I am using these Flash Drives on Windows 7. I also have used them on Win XP and I see no reason why they wouldn't work with ANY Windows operating system. No special drivers are needed. They work just like another folder in Windows. I have the 32 GB, but I prefer using the 16 GB because they work faster - as it takes only slightly longer for my laptop to read the 32 GB. I keep several 16 GB handy.
735342
No reformatting necessary as the hard drive ships in FAT32 format, which is instantly compatible with a Mac. If there is /any/ chance that you will be hooking into a Mac and a PC at some point, I'd highly recommend leaving the formatting as is (of course you can wipe the drive and then reformat it in MSDOS format through Disk Utility). You cannot easily write to a Windows (i.e., NTFS) drive but you can read it on a Mac. Have no idea as to whether a Windows machine can read/write something that is Mac formatted, however.
1827011
Of course. USB 2.0 will never match 3.0 speed. When the drive worked read on 3 was at least 4 times faster
1944386
Yes. It can be reformatted if not in the correct windows format. I only two formats I know are FAT-32 (Mac and pc) and Windows NT (Mac read and PC readwrite).
36840
Usb 3 is backwardly compatible with usb 2. You can use the usb 2 cable to connect to the drive but your data transfer rate will only be that of usb 2. This is variable depending on the hardware software, cable, file size but for example usb 2 of 30 mbps and 3 of 100 mbps (note the actual specifications of both standards are much higher)
1524565
Generally, you can only use a 2 TB or smaller USB drive that hasn't been reformatted. Here are the limits as I know them: 1) Only FAT (File Allocation Table), FAT32, and an old version of NTFS are supported. 2) Intel GUID Partition Table (GPT) and Linux ext3 formats are not supported. So it must be a WinXP-or-below PC-formatted drive, not Mac or Linux, and not a modern NTFS, which uses dynamic or GPT partitioning. 3) Because GPT volumes are not supported, 2TB is the max volume/partition size. 4) Maximum file sizes are as follows: FAT: 2 GB. FAT32: 4 GB. WinXP NTFS: Volume Size. So, you will have trouble storing some HD movie or TV shows if you are using a FAT-formatted volume. To create the old-style NTFS format, you will need a Win XP or 2000 computer. 5) You are limited to using the first 8 volumes/partitions on the drive. 6) The drive cannot be encrypted. 7) If the drive is powered off the USB port on the router, then it cannot draw more than 500mA.
1343732
".......with Windows 8.1?"&gt;&gt;Don't see any reason why not. It's an electro-mechanical switch. It doesn't know what your running nor does it care. "Can same copy of Windows be loaded on each drive?"&gt;&gt;Anytime you install a Windows OS from a disk to a drive as a new install you are risking key number and activation issues. It reads the HDD serial number and MB type etc and thinks it's a new machine. Clone your existing HDD's. You shouldn't have any issues. I cloned my primary HDD to another HDD of the same brand and specs (bought them both at the same time) and I have had zero issues with activation etc when I boot to the clone. I don't like "back-ups". I do a full blown clone at least once a month or even less. So far, so good. The other 4 channels on the Orico are devoted to Linux OS's. Hope this helps.
8084
I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit with a 3.0 PCI add-on card connected to the 7 Port USB hub. I have a Seagate 2TB, 3TB and 4TB 3.0 drives attached as well as 320GB and 500GB USB 2.0 drives and have no problems. Just remember any USB 2.0 drive is still limited to 2.0 speeds. Some of the drives are network shares and still I have had no problems. The 7 Port USB Hub works great for me.
2059
I use three 2T Verbatim USB drives. I am *very* happy with each of them. They work as advertised and I've never had a problem. I use them in a Windows environment and always reformat them to use NTFS file formatting--as that is much quicker. Typically, I leave them off, and only power them on to copy a backup to or to restore files from. Two of the drives I use are model # USB2T. I think they are USB2. The other is model # SNS2TB which I think is USB3. I prefer it because the on/off switch toggles in a different direction rather than being a button that one might think they pushed on or off when they didn't push hard enough. It's not a big deal either way, but it may be indicative of their making small improvements over time. Best of luck to you.
643770
Macs can read Windows formatted (NTFS) drives but they cannot write to them natively. But you can download a third party driver to do this. Just Google "Mac NTFS driver". If the drive is formatted as FAT32, both systems can read and write to it with no problems. However, FAT32 has a 4GB file size restriction. I am not sure what this drive comes formatted as. Probably NTFS. But you can easily change that.
1375822
You can format it as you wish. Put NTFS, because FAT32 limits the file size to below 4 GB which is fairly useless and negates the real strong point of this stick - lightening and moving huge fils around...
1314944
I don't have this device, but as a retired IT geek I thought I'd chime in and mention that many of these tablets can't read flash drives that have been formatted to NTFS on a pc. They tend to prefer FAT32 over NTFS. Most flash drives are formatted FAT32 by default, but if you reformatted it on a pc it would likely have defaulted to NTFS. Hope that helps.
148834
No. I tried hooking up a 3 TB drive and you have to format it NTSF which doesn't go up to 3 TB.Tech support said you can format the drive with two partitions. But that didn't work for me.
668780
Yes, of course. You have to format it in ExFAT, it supported by Win7 and Mac without problem.Also you can format any flash drive in ExFAT, it allows files more than 4Gb