External Hard Drive Power

[maxximilian]

Hiya,

Looking to add an external hard drive to my Windows 7 PC, and install Ubuntu on it to be able to dual boot without messing with the PC existing hard drive. The connection will be USB and since the machine is older, I will be relying on the backwards compatibility of USB 3.0 (to 2.0), which most of the drives are now. My question concerns power. I have seen both USB and AC powered and need to determine which I should get. Portability is not an issue...it will be rather permanent. Can a USB 2.0 port not only power the unit properly while transferring data, but also be able to run an OS like Ubuntu at the same time?

[Midknyte]

Looking to add an external hard drive to my Windows 7 PC, and install Ubuntu on it to be able to dual boot without messing with the PC existing hard drive.

You can still mess up Win7 if you overwrite the bootloader.

USB2.0 is going to be really slow to boot.

If there is enough power to transfer data, there should be enough power to boot.

Why do you want to dual boot? Are you just taking Ubuntu for a test drive? Did you consider a VM (Virtual Machine) instead?

[maxximilian]

I had a dual boot XP/Ubuntu (GNU GRUB) machine in the past. I liked tinkering in Ubuntu occasionally. That machine has been retired and was looking to do it again. But this time I wanted them on separate drives. I was going to just install another internal drive, but this off-the-shelf HP doesn't have enough power supply hookups.

[maxximilian]

BTW...I also had a Flash drive version of Ubuntu running once, but very, very slow.

[Midknyte]

Ah ok. The hard drive on USB 2.0 would probably be a bit faster, but still pretty slow.

You could buy a molex power splitter if you need to add another drive.

[maxximilian]

Hmmmm....Never thought about a splitter. It's a 300 watt Power supply, which is pretty weak, I know....but it's not like both drives would be running at once...right? And the DVD drive hardly ever runs.

[Midknyte]

You could probably get away with adding another drive. You can calculate it out if you want.

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/p...ulatorlite.jsp

[maxximilian]

OK...thanks.

[SpywareDr]

I agree with Midknyte, I think you're going to find USB 2.0 to be too s-l-o-w.

[bugspop1]

I'd definitely go with the Molex Splitter and an Internal Hard Drive over a USB 2.0 connection.

[Derp]

Another option is running Ubuntu off of a live DVD. It's fairly quick after it loads into RAM.

[Train]

I use a Bootable USB with AntiX-15 even using USB 2.0 it is fast enough.

inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: antix15 Kernel: 4.0.5-antix.1-486-smp i686 (32 bit gcc: 4.9.2)
           Desktop: IceWM 1.3.8
           Distro: antiX-15-V_386-full Killah P 30 June 2015
Machine:   System: Dell product: Latitude D630
           Mobo: Dell model: 0WM416 Bios: Dell v: A07 date: 01/30/2008
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core2 Duo T9300 (-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
           flags: (lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 9972
           clock speeds: max: 2501 MHz 1: 1600 MHz 2: 2000 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA G86M [Quadro NVS 135M] bus-ID: 01:00.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.16.4 drivers: nouveau (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: [email protected]
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on NV86
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.3.2 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.0.5-antix.1-486-smp
Network:   Card-1: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
           driver: tg3 v: 3.137 bus-ID: 09:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection
           driver: iwl3945 v: in-tree:s bus-ID: 0c:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 120.0GB (4.4% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: TOSHIBA_MK1234GS size: 120.0GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 108G used: 3.0G (3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.17GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 41.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 62.0
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 125 Uptime: 42 min Memory: 283.9/1003.7MB
           Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 4.9.2
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.301) inxi: 2.2.25

AntiX-15
http://antix.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5697