External hard drive for Linux o/s computer
 

Can anyone point me to a hard drive(about 1 TB)which I can use with my Linux o/s computer. I want the external drive mainly for a back up. Thank you.

I can't think of any reason why any standard external drive would not work with Linux. I assume you're talking about SATA drives connected via USB 2.0/3.0. You're not talking about NAS (Network Attached Storage) type of drives, are you?

Sycamorex, Thank you for your quick reply. I asked the question because I noted a number of negative remarks about using a WD hard drive with LInux on the WU site. Best wishes, TKARANG.Yes I am asking about SATA drives connected via UDB 2.0.

Not sure about that. I bought one of those WD mini-portable USB3.0 drives 3 years ago and have not had any problems with it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Digi...-/231446388889

IMHO, a drive from any manufacturer can fail so it's down to the user to have a proper backup system in place.

i just go out and get a toshiba 1tb for about 55$ brand new , best buy, --- I have a USB cable, U can get one off amazon for a few bucks that will let you plug in 2.5" HDD into a USB or if your city is more techy there maybe a store neer bye that'll have one on the shelf to buy, I find it is a litte less exspenive getting HDD, instead of one that is made for external. I just format it to ext4 then set permissions 755 to the whole drive and I'm in like flint ;)

USB pain
 

Before you buy a Western Digital USB external hard drive( see my post) don't buy it until you can recover from the error I have been having. The drive is not recognized on boot either in DMESG or lsusb in Linux but works fine in Windows.

I've purchased many different brands of external USB hard drives and never had any problems with the exception that I have to get the manufacturer's self promoting ware out of my way.

Any of them. Buy it, plug it in, use gparted to format it to the filesystem of your choosing, done.

The only drive I've ever run into that wouldn't work out of the box on Linux was the Samsung T1 SSD. When it comes from the manufacturer all you can see is a ~128MB partition, and you have to use their Windows software to open up the rest of the drive (used for hardware encryption). Once you use their software to open up the drive, it will work just fine on Linux.

I've used a number of brands, including WD, Toshiba, Fantom, and never had a problem with any of them.

I'm presenting you evidence that in some cases there can be a problem. I have a drive that works in Windows 7 but does work in Mint. Does not show up in lsusb or DMESG?

I have had problms with DOS Format external HDD and deleting files off it, I had to manually mount it first, or it would not let me delete files, permissions where not there, nor could be out there because of it being dos format- so i just copied everything off it wiped it - made it Linux ext4 then set permissions to 755 recursive on the entire drive, no more problems.

I've too found that just buying the internal HDD and using a cable it cheeper, less money spent.

I use a usb to sata docking station. And I use a few toshiba usb HDDs that I got from radioshack. It just works within the limits of the hardware. The docking station is older so cannot do > 2TB drives. Not that I have any drives that test those limits. I prefer the smaller drives for external ones as physically moving them around can lead to damage. And being able to lose a drive or two and still maintain most of your capacity has perks.

Well, thanks everyone, I will mull over your replies and then obtain a hard drive for backing up.

y don't you just go out and buy one then read these while you're hooking it up? :scratch:

Have purchased and installed Toshiba 500 GB Canvio BasicsPortable Hard Drive. It installed with no difficulty and shows both the Linux and Windows partitions/files