Powered Usb Output Enough Juice For External Hd?

[djameson]

Hello...
The question is pretty much the title. I was wondering if the powered USB port on the Pandora will output enough juice to power one of those little pocket HDs, that run off USB power alone. I know that some laptops do not put out enough juice through one USB port so two are required, but my hope is that the one USB port on the Pandora is sufficient, because I'd like to throw a lot of media onto a pocket drive.

tl;dr Pandora's USB port output enough power for a pocket HD?

Thanks for any help!

 

[aesir911]

Hello...
The question is pretty much the title. I was wondering if the powered USB port on the Pandora will output enough juice to power one of those little pocket HDs, that run off USB power alone. I know that some laptops do not put out enough juice through one USB port so two are required, but my hope is that the one USB port on the Pandora is sufficient, because I'd like to throw a lot of media onto a pocket drive.

tl;dr Pandora's USB port output enough power for a pocket HD?

Thanks for any help!

absolutely, check out this and that link.

 

[gruso]

Well maybe not absolutely.

Pandora's USB port can provide 500mA, the maximum allowable under the USB standard. Some computers can deliver more than that, allowing them to drive said USB HDDs with just a single port. Pandora is not such a computer. If you plan on using a 2.5" HDD with Pandora, the best options are:

- Use a HDD that has its own battery/mains power
- Use a powered hub
- Downsize to a 1.8" HDD... or a pricey SSD.

 

[marshal]

Actually you need to be carefully with USB harddrive.

The Pandora USB host port does provide 500mah (and 700mah peak for short period I think). So it is a full powered USB port and any device that are within USB specification in term of power should work.

The problem with harddrive is that they quite often need more than 500mah of power.

If you're looking for really small and power efficient external hd, you might want to look at 1.8' one such as the Smasung s1 mini series. They are a tad expensive though.
2.5' Harddrive will probably be more hit and miss. Maybe some of the more efficient one would work. I am really not too sure.

When the Pandora is finally out people will be able to guide you indication to exactly what harddrive works with it.
I personally have a 1.8' S1 mini 250GB I intend to use with the Pandora.

 

[djameson]

Thanks very much for all your responses:
Specifically I was thinking about a 1tb Seagate Freeagent Go, *or* the WD 1tb My Passport Essential drive. I'll see if I can find any detailed specs about how much power they draw later, I have to run to school at the moment. If they draw too much I guess I'll have to look at 1.8" HDs.

 

[mindlord]

If I were you I'd hedge my bets and go for the 1.8" drive. Spinning up disks takes quite a bit of juice and often spikes way out of the 500mA spec for USB. While a Pandora should be able to deliver enough juice to spin up a 2.5" drive, it might not be able to consistently or at all. Plus a 1.8" is going to use less power overall and be a smaller drain on your battery. I know it doesn't seem like much to ask, but adding an external hard drive is going to be a huge drain on your battery. It may well cut your usage time in half, perhaps more. Ideally, you would want to only use an external drive to move files that you need on-the-go to a largish SD card, or when you have access to mains.

 

[Chip]

The Pandora USB host port does provide 500mah (and 700mah peak for short period I think).
...
The problem with harddrive is that they quite often need more than 500mah of power.

This is exactly correct. MWeston tried a few drives - some worked and some didn't. One pulled something like 900ma for 5-6 seconds during spinup, which is so far out of spec it's a miracle it works with anything. The only way yo be really safe is wait until after the Pandora has shipped and people have had a chance to try it out with drives they already own.

 

[kev187]

I personally have a 1.8' S1 mini 250GB I intend to use with the Pandora.

Interesting? I did not even know drives like this existed?

I was going to drop money on a 64GB thumb drive due to power consumption concerns. A thumb drive should work fine for those of us that do not need massive storage?

 

[mindlord]

I was going to drop money on a 64GB thumb drive due to power consumption concerns. A thumb drive should work fine for those of us that do not need massive storage?

Yes.

 

[djameson]

I can't really find much info on this at all, but from what I can tell here, the Seagate Freeagent Go draws .87amps, quite a bit more than the max bus power of .5amps. According to the same article, an unnamed 500gb WD drive draws .55amps, so maybe the WD drive will work? I was hoping to also use this drive as backup for my primary computer which is why I wanted the terabyte, but if those drives wont work I guess the best option is this hard drive.

 

[gruso]

To be honest, even a drive that operates at 500mA is not the best path to be going down. It's going to slay your battery.

 

[j.pickens]

Gruso is correct.
What people may not realize is that the X86 design of most laptops and netbooks is such an overall energy pig that adding a portable hard drive only draws a fraction of the total energy load of the system.
The Pandora, on the other hand, is a very low power consumption design.
While you may be able to squeak by with enough power to run the hard drive on Pandora battery power, you will cut the number of hours of battery operation from 6-8 hours to 1-3 hours (my estimate).
SSD, thumbdrive, or SDHC card is the way to go.

 

[Joepostal]

There is a 500GB s2 mini selling on amazon for $90. I would consider this drive (you might want to wait until it is tested) to use with Pandora.

From an earlier post I made... (added detail and corrections)

The Samsung s1 & s2 mini are 1.8" drives not 2.5" or 3.5". The controller is built into the drive, reducing power requirements. In standby they reduce power needs by 95% at 5 minutes. They are about the size of two zippo lighters. Great for portability.

I could not find anywhere where they specify the power required. When I looked at the hub properties in windows it said 2ma, yes two milliamps... This is while I am coping files to the drive and not in standby. I find that hard to believe, my mouse is using 100ma. Note: it is possible that windows detected the standby power at 2ma and will not refresh for some reason but that puts power at 200ma, far below the 500ma spec and most other drive. CNET claims that the s1 and s2 have a special spinup design that keeps power usage low as well. Anyhow they should use far less power than a 2.5" or 3.5" drive.

 

[marshal]

You're totally mixing up 1.8' and 2.5' here...

Th biggest 1.8' harddrive on the market are 250GB (as far as I know...).
The 500GB s2 mini you're referring to is a 2.5' harddrive

Samsung S1 mini is 1.8' and S2 mini is 2.5.'.

Here is an actually 1.8' 250GB harddrive:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-1-8-Inch-Portable-HXSU025BA-G22/dp/B002KKM5LA/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1263967803&sr=1-4

Yeah it's more cleary expensive that the 2.5'.

 

[Joepostal]

awe crud well I have the s2 500gb on order and the s1 250 transfers data at about 25MBps. They are just for extra storage anyhow.... Yep still blond.

 

[BackAssward]

awe crud well I have the s2 500gb on order and the s1 250 transfers data at about 25MBps. They are just for extra storage anyhow.... Yep still blond.

Generally takes a day to ship, you can always cancel, or send back...

 

[kin]

Is it possible to communicate by wifi with an external harddrive, or am I talking high-end stuff?

 

[mali]

I remember a car-PC project where someone used a Wifi HDD, so yes, they exist.

 

[laurencevde]

Also consider battery life. 2.5W (max for usb) will drain the battery in 6 hours.

 

[Nation.A.List]

I purchased one of these today from my local Aldi supermarket for £49.99 (they were originally £79.99) and it appeared on my desktop as 'Pocket-n-go' and works fine on my SmartQ7, which we all know are crap, I mean running Google Chrome now powering USB hard drives, whatever next!