External HDD on USB2

[leosayer]

I have a spotted a 250gb (Western Digital) external drive for £100 which uses USB2, but I'm not sure if any of my USB ports are USB2, how do I tell?

I'm running a Dell Dimension 4500 on XP which I bought in 2002.

[Plotloss]

Its backwards compatible, if its a 1.1 socket then it will run at that data rate.

Or, I may have got that arse about face, cant be certain.

>> Edited by Plotloss on Wednesday 27th July 12:49

[scorp]

USB 2.0 HDD devices normally supports USB1.0 "lo-speed" (12mbps) mode.

Go to My Computer->Properties->Device manager, click on "Universal Serial bus controllers". There it will list the usb controllers you have.

[JonRB]

If your machine only has USB 1.1 ports (like mine did) then it will still work, albeit very slowly.

However, USB2 PCI cards are extremely cheap and it is very easy to drop one into your machine and gain full USB2 speed.

[trevorw]

JonRB said:

However, USB2 PCI cards are extremely cheap and it is very easy to drop one into your machine and gain full USB2 speed.

Thats the route I took on my October 2002 Dell Laptop, albeit a PCMICIA adapter. Or have you got a Firewire port and get a Firewire compatable HDD instead, I have one that uses USB 2.0 or Firewire.

[leosayer]

Cheers everyone, I already have firewire but the USB2 drive is so much cheaper, so I'll drop in a USB2 card if necessary.

[JonRB]

trevorw said:

Thats the route I took on my October 2002 Dell Laptop, albeit a PCMICIA adapter. Or have you got a Firewire port and get a Firewire compatable HDD instead, I have one that uses USB 2.0 or Firewire.

No, I just dropped a 4-port* USB2 PCI card into my machine (which was also a Dell of around 2000 vintage actually) and now have more than enough USB ports - the 4 on-board USB 1.1 and the 4 USB 2.0 from the external card.

I use the on-board ones for low bandwidth things such as mouse, keyboard, etc. and the the 2.0 ones for things like external HDDs and keyfob devices etc.

(* - actually it is 5-port, but one is internal so I don't count it)

>> Edited by JonRB on Wednesday 27th July 13:16

[hornet]

leosayer said:

I have a spotted a 250gb (Western Digital) external drive for £100 which uses USB2, but I'm not sure if any of my USB ports are USB2, how do I tell? I'm running a Dell Dimension 4500 on XP which I bought in 2002.

Spooky - I'd clocked the same thing and was about to ask the same question.

[sjg]

4500 has USB2.0 ports.