Since I posted here earlier, I've installed Debian on my old (non-USB-booting) laptop, and since I had recently acquired a 2.5" HDD case, I figured I'd try copying the installer (for a network install) onto the HDD with the N800. I only wrote ~100MB, so it was no stress test, but this setup worked fine for me. And it's sized to fit in a pocket, if you don't mind tethering your tablet to your pocket.



It's one more data point, anyhow.

I took my 2.5" HDD to the maemo summit, only to discover that it was DOA.

So yeah, durability is a big issue with external drives. Get a USB stick or an SD card. Heck, get a handful of cheap 2GB cards. No moving parts, and much more portable.

I think you should get reimbursed. You took the HD to the summit with the sole purpose of doing a demonstration. It is official business.

bun

Nice setup, Benson. Can you read/write to the HD or just read?

bun

Well, I know that an sd card or a flash usb unit would be the ideal but unfortunately where I live a 16 GB sd card cost the same as a 250 GB HD. So you see buying an sd card would be a waste of money.
Justjoe have you tried read and writing with your 320 gig WD passport?, does it work ok?, cause thats the one I would like to buy.

Wow, either your SD cards are insanely expensive, or your hard drives are insanely cheap. Here in Canada, 16GB SD cards are less than half the price ( < $40 ) of a 2.5" drive ( > $90 ).

I'm from Argentina, just to give you an idea an 16 GB sd card from trascend cost around 90 USD and a 250 HD around 100 - 110 USD.

I can write, some; not sure how long, or with what long-term error rate. (I did check md5sums for what I did, and they were correct.)

I haven't done as much experimenting with HDDs as you have, but from what I've heard, and my intuition, I'd guess the reason writing tends to be problematic is an issue of weak power supplies and/or poor design of the USB HDD adapter such that voltage sag on the power-supply USB connection pulls the data-link USB's VBUS low, causing the host device to see glitches. Either of these alone can mean trouble, let alone both.

So I'm cautiously optimistic that my HDD case (with separate power and USB jacks, rather than a single 2-port Y-cable) and my stouter-than-average battery pack might actually constitute a fairly robust system. But not having a spare 2.5HDD around, I can't really do serious benchmarking now (and I didn't think to when I had the HDD out of the laptop before).
Actually, I don't see that, because there's incomplete information there. If I only have 16GB of stuff, it's not wasting money; they cost the same, and hold the same stuff. And you also have to factor in the probability of dropping your drive and breaking it (and buying a new one), the inconvenience of large gadgets, the potential for not having it when you want it because your battery's dead, etc., which could justify spending more for flash. And you can generally get USB flash drives for around twice the capacity/$, and with higher performance, compared to SD cards.

Not trying to make your mind up for you, as I don't know how much data you have, or how lucky you feel about HDD failures (or SD failures, for that matter), just saying there's more to a sane decision than comparing capacity/price ratios. And since you seem to be lumping all flash storage as SD, you might check the prices on 32GB USB flash drives; one or a few of those just might be a better balance than either of the other options.

Ok, so it's the first one; your SD cards are insanely expensive.

I just tried it now, (second bunch of attempts since I got the drive), just to be 100% certain in answering your question, and it does not power the drive -- the drive's LED blinks once for a very short fraction of a second and then there are no signs of life, which is the expected response for devices that will not work at all with solely n800 usb-supplied power. The n800 will not write with the very simple SD card reader I have, (see that in the thread posted below), so I'm sure that it will not spin this passport drive.

Just to be certain that you know, that external SD slot on the n800 is hot-swappable so the convenience factor of multiple cards is great. amazon.com always has good deals on SD cards -- they almost always have 8Gig cards for under 15.00 USD. It's just timing, as with everything.

Just as an FYI, this thread:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=18251 has two different readers that work with a non-power-assisted n800.

Joe