Is there an external hard drive that does not need an external power source?

Question

Is there one that can be powered by only the USB port?

Answer 1

Yes, you can purchase a hard drive caddy that will connect to your PC or laptop via the USB port, this will provide the power for the drive. Once you have the caddy you can put almost any hard drive in it. Just plug it into your PC (windows XP will install the drivers for it and allocate a drive letter).

I have a tiny "IBM Travelstarinsde" which takes a laptop hard drive, its so small it will fit into my shirt pocket - 80gb in my pocket - not bat at all.

Answer 2

Yes, there are external hard drives that can be powered by only the USB port. They are called "bus-powered". IT Pro (above me) is partially correct except that if you make the power consumption small enough, it is possible to have a hard-drive that is NOT a USB flash drive but it is an external hard drive (with moving parts).

How do I know this? Because I own two of them. They are pretty hard to find though and much more expensive than others. BUT I love them because I can literally take them anywhere and use them. The power consumption also limits the physical size which means that they literally fit in my pockets so I love them even more. The power consumption limits their capacity as well but the biggest ones I found were 80GB which are more than enough for my needs.

All you do is that if you are buying them online, make sure to look for the feature "bus-powered". Some of these have an optional power adapter, so you CAN hook up the power if you want or don't if you don't want to.

If you want to go the cheap way, then just get an internal LAPTOP hard drive and get a case for it. You will save about $50 this way and it will be no different in anyway. Because bus-powered external hard drives are jsut laptop hard drives in nice shiny cases. Plenty of companies make both the cases and drives. I suggest that you put one together yourself. Or you can buy one already put together.

I have two of those and they are both 80GB by Western Digital.

http://www.everythingusb.com/hardware/Storage/Hard_Drives.htm

Answer 3

Do you mean a jump drive? You can import/export information into it without an external power source, through USB port

Answer 4

Any traditional hard drive (one with spinning platters) will definitely need external power. The power provided thru USB is only about enough to operate a flash drive (no moving parts).

Answer 5

Yes, there is. I bought a 80gb external harddrive(which is pretty small - calculator size) for £70. I bought this last year...really good. It is powered through the USB and comes with a leather case.
They have also got other sizes like 20, 40, 60 and 100gb.

Answer 6

You will probably have to look at mobile external hard drives.

Freecom do one, the Classic Mobile. (link below though currently out of stock)

Alternatively you could get a hard drive MP3 player that has its own internal battery - I have a 40 gb Iriver that can store my music and my files.

However, unless you are using it for mobile purposes where you do not have access to AC power, I would recommend getting an AC powered drive. You will get about three times the capacity for your money.

Answer 7

what you need is a 2.5" hard drive with a usb cage that plugs into a usb port
readily available from most places like pc world etc.


you can do this because, 2.5 inch drives run at 5 volts (usb voltage)

But 3.5" drives run at 12 volts

Answer 8

Here 's a drive you can plug straight in: 'LaCie Mobile 100GB USB2 4200rpm 2MB' it is a small form factor mobile hard drive. You can find it on www.dabs.com. If you look for similiar items you can find higher spec ones. If your PC is fairly new & you are running XP then it shouldn't be a problem. You can check out the specs on USB on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus hope this helps

Answer 9

hi
if your computer has powered usb ports, theretically, you dont need external power, however i wouldnt reccomend dragging half an amp through your usb port.. buy an external powered hub.... so you machine doesnt get hot/unstable.... often you can power them through your ps2/mouse/keyb port...... which is better than power from usb

Answer 10

i could purchase one that relise on an exterior power source because way your laptop does not could positioned up with the burden of powering it because of the fact difficult drives can take somewhat some power. the suitable exterior difficult drives are ones that hook up by using SATA ports. reliable luck!