OWC External Hard Drive …
One of the sponsors and vendors at the Chicago Computer Society Expo last month was OWC, standing for Other World Computing. They were showing several models of Hitachi hard drives, including one with 1 terrabyte of storage space!
I got a review unit of their 160 GB external drive and have been trying it out. As you may realize, an external hard drive has several advantages:
| | It’s portable. You can hook it up to any computer very easily. Your operating system identifies it and makes it available as another hard drive.
It’s easier to install than an internal drive. You don’t need to take the case apart, attach power cables and so on.
This one has both USB and FireWire connections, one of the first, two of the second. Most computers today have USB ports; many also have FireWire ports.
It can be used with either a PC or MAC.
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I had some difficulty installing the drive, because it is formatted for a MAC as it comes from OWC. My XP computer could not even see it! I had to contact tech support to find out how to get it recognized by my operating system.. Even then, I had to access a web page with instructions which were a bit arcane. I got the job done, however, formatted the drive and have been using it successfully for almost a month.
The drive has a power cord and transformer; it’s powered by the usual 110 volt AC outlet. There is an on/off switch on the rear of the drive. When turned on, a blue power light shows through the front of the case.
The drive also comes with cables for USB and for FireWire, so you don’t have to buy or have anything else in order to use the drive. I thought that was a really nice touch. Many products require you to buy a cable, presumably so that the price can be a bit lower, but it’s a real pain to get home and find out you need something else to make it work! Not with this product. It also comes with a stand to hold the drive in a vertical position, which uses the least desk space.
The Owner’s manual is brief, to say the least! There are four pages, the first of which has no information, just a picture of the drive and the title. It was sufficient, however.
The drive also comes with a CD-ROM containing Retrospect, software to help you back up your computer to the drive.
You can do this by copying all files or by creating a backup image. Then when it comes time to restore, you can use the former to copy only those files you need to restore, or the latter to restore the entire operating system, all programs and files. The software is very easy to use.
OWC has many versions of hard drives, both external and internal. They have quite a few other products as well, including batteries and CD/DVD drives. The company deals primarily with MAC products, but also tolerates PCs and their needs (joke!).
Prices vary with product; the one I tried out is about $170 list. The unit is fairly small, measuring 9 X 2 X 6 inches and weighing about 3 pounds. The drive rotation speed is 7200 rpm and has an 8 MB buffer. For those interested, the maximum transfer rate is 400 Mbps FireWire or 480 Mbps USB2. Warranty is two years.
For more information see macsales.com/elite-al.
Requires WIN ME or better and either USB or FireWire connectors, and a CD-ROM to install Retrospect.
