External Hard Drives

[differentSmoke]

Basically:

Can I connect my 500GB external hard drive to it? Could I connect external drives with their own power source to it? The information on the specs is a bit to technical for me(what in god's name are 500mA?), but I'm predicting is a no no? If not, can I connect pendrives(USB flash drives) of any capacity to it? 32GB? 256GB?

 

[fischju2000]

You can. Thumb drives will work, as will external drives with their own power source. 500mA is how much the USB port on the Pandora can supply but external drives that don't have their own power source draw more than this.

 

[WizardStan]

Basically:

Can I connect my 500GB external hard drive to it? Could I connect external drives with their own power source to it? The information on the specs is a bit to technical for me(what in god's name are 500mA?), but I'm predicting is a no no? If not, can I connect pendrives(USB flash drives) of any capacity to it? 32GB? 256GB?

500mA means 500 milliamps. It's a measure of electricity. It indicates the maximum amount of electricity that any devices plugged into the USB can draw. 500 is the maximum allowed by the USB standard and what is also found in your PC usually. In other words, the Pandora provides the same amount of power as your PC on the USB port. There is absolutely no reason you couldn't plug an external hard drive into the Pandora.

 

[differentSmoke]

thanks a lot!

*I actually know what amps are(a measure of current, if I'm not mistaken?), and being versed in math, I can deduce the milli part. But still knowing what they are doesn't get me much closer to understanding what they mean on a technical specs sheet, I just wanted to get that feeling across.*

 

[Mjlink]

So I've got a 500gb Adata Nobility, I can plug and go to the Pandora regarding backup?

Will the OS have any backup features?

Peace & legal cannabis,

Link

 

[marshal]

Yes you can connect mass storage device to the Pandora. It will be supported just as in any Linux computer.
USB flash drives will work without problem.

Concerning external hard drive, the Pandora is one of the few device (among small portable devices) to have a fully powered USB host port. The host post will be able to provide 500mah (and a little more at peak).

That mean that if your device uses less than 500mah it should work. The problem is that some hard drive tend to use more than the USB specification and need more than 500mah. This is especially true when the hard drive is spinning up.

My personal rule of the thumb would be:

3.5' All of them have an external power supply
2.5' Usually USB powered but a lot does uses more than 500ahm - be careful
1.8' most probably use less than 500mah

 

[gruso]

http://pandorawiki.org/USB

If there are too many words, just click on the pics.

 

[Mjlink]

2.5' Usually USB powered but a lot does uses more than 500ahm - be careful

Can you elaborate, mine is 2.5 but has no external power, just two USB plugs Y'd into one.

Thanks,

Link

PS Thanks Gruso, I checked there for the specifics regarding 2 USB Ports one being powered, just really more concerned with a backup feature in the OS more than anything since I'm not a linux diehard.

 

[zhasha]

Concerning external hard drive, the Pandora is one of the few device (among small portable devices) to have a fully powered USB host port. The host post will be able to provide 500mah (and a little more at peak).

You better hope it's able to provide more than 500mAh or I'll be pissed when my USB port stops working.

 

[gruso]

Mjlink: The two USB plugs mean that the device is going to draw more than 500mA. It's designed to use a second USB port as a power boost, basically. That means you can't connect to Pandora without a powered USB hub in between. Well you can try, but it might not spin up and it will definitely flog your battery.

I'm not aware of any included backup utilities in Angstrom (bearing in mind that there are probably a million things in there I'm not aware of). What kind of things are you thinking of backing up? The stuff on the NAND (ie the operating system) or apps & documents stored on your SD cards?

 

[Mr B]

thanks a lot!

*I actually know what amps are(a measure of current, if I'm not mistaken?), and being versed in math, I can deduce the milli part. But still knowing what they are doesn't get me much closer to understanding what they mean on a technical specs sheet, I just wanted to get that feeling across.*

It probably doesnt help if i say that it means you got 2.5 watts you can use. On the upside there usualy is specs on harddrives that would contain the needs of the drive...
B!

 

[rabidpoobear]

Concerning external hard drive, the Pandora is one of the few device (among small portable devices) to have a fully powered USB host port. The host post will be able to provide 500mah (and a little more at peak).

You better hope it's able to provide more than 500mAh or I'll be pissed when my USB port stops working.

I see what you did there

 

[clippa]

Ooh, so I'll just be able to plug in my 500gb seegate freeagent go, that only needs 500ma. That's good news, I was under the impression that all hard drives would need their own power source. That will be handy for backup.

 

[lulzfish]

Ooh, so I'll just be able to plug in my 500gb seegate freeagent go, that only needs 500ma. That's good news, I was under the impression that all hard drives would need their own power source. That will be handy for backup.

All hard drives do need a power source.
The thing is, most full-size laptops and desktops have loads of extra power, so you just plug in a 2nd USB and use that for extra power.

The Pandora has a smaller battery and only 1 USB port, so you need either a low-power device (flash drive) or an external power source like an AC adapter or some kind of external USB battery.

And it should work with any capacity of hard drive up through several terabytes, or whatever USB Mass Storage supports.

 

[WizardStan]

Concerning external hard drive, the Pandora is one of the few device (among small portable devices) to have a fully powered USB host port. The host post will be able to provide 500mah (and a little more at peak).

You better hope it's able to provide more than 500mAh or I'll be pissed when my USB port stops working.

OH! I get it.
I had this whole "WTF! 500ma is standard. Why would you get pissed?" and then I got it

 

[zounder1]

Ooh, so I'll just be able to plug in my 500gb seegate freeagent go, that only needs 500ma. That's good news, I was under the impression that all hard drives would need their own power source. That will be handy for backup.

All hard drives do need a power source.
The thing is, most full-size laptops and desktops have loads of extra power, so you just plug in a 2nd USB and use that for extra power.

The Pandora has a smaller battery and only 1 USB port, so you need either a low-power device (flash drive) or an external power source like an AC adapter or some kind of external USB battery.

And it should work with any capacity of hard drive up through several terabytes, or whatever USB Mass Storage supports.

@lulzfish: You might not realize that "Seagate FreeAgent GO" external drives are powered with only one USB port. They draw less than 500ma on that one port and should be able to work fine plugged into the Pandora. So it does indeed qualify as a low-power device. I also double-checked in Windows 7 and when I plugged in the device, Windows 7 said it required 500mA.

@clippa. Yes, I THINK your Seagate FreeAgent GO will able to work on the pandora without an external power supply.

Of course, we will only really know for sure when the Pandora is out and someone tries one of these drives. I'll be trying mine out for sure.

 

[lulzfish]

Ah, that's cool.

 

[Mjlink]

Mjlink: The two USB plugs mean that the device is going to draw more than 500mA. It's designed to use a second USB port as a power boost, basically. That means you can't connect to Pandora without a powered USB hub in between. Well you can try, but it might not spin up and it will definitely flog your battery.

I'm not aware of any included backup utilities in Angstrom (bearing in mind that there are probably a million things in there I'm not aware of). What kind of things are you thinking of backing up? The stuff on the NAND (ie the operating system) or apps & documents stored on your SD cards?

Gruso,

Was looking for a quick easy backup for SD cards, for instance if I wanted to format my 32gb so I can use it to shoot some HD Video with, download the video, reformat, and reinstall Pandora software.

Its no big deal, I just don't want backups all over the place and it would be cool to use the 2.5" 500gb drive for this. Would also be nice to have a backup for NAND/OS in case the internet gets destroyed.

Peace

Link

 

[rick0815]

I assume that the Pandora will not be able to read NTFS-Formated drives out of the box, if ever!?

Since windows doesn't allow devices with larger capacity than... i think 32gb was the artificial limit... to be formated FAT32 someone may stumble over this. Or has that been changed with windows vista or 7?
Anyway, your Pandora should be able to format any device FAT32 up to 8Tb.

 

[WizardStan]

I assume that the Pandora will not be able to read NTFS-Formated drives out of the box, if ever!?

What makes you assume that? NTFS read-only drivers have been part of the Linux kernel since 2.4, with write support added (experimentally, but I've never heard of a problem) as of 2.6.

Since windows doesn't allow devices with larger capacity than... i think 32gb was the artificial limit... to be formated FAT32 someone may stumble over this.

My 200GB FAT32 Win2k partition disagrees with you