USB is used to connect devices such as scanners, digital cameras, printers, external hard drives, and many other peripherals to a computer. For many devices such as scanners and printers, USB has become the standard connection method. Because USB is "plug and play " you can connect and disconnect devices while your computer is turned on. Up to 128 USB devices can be connected to a computer using multiple USB ports or USB Hubs.
A USB hub is a device that allows multiple USB devices to be connected to a computer. A USB Hub connects to a USB port and provides multiple additional USB connections. Many USB devices such as keyboards have built-in hubs. This allows the user to connect a mouse or other USB device to it.
A non-powered hub is a hub that does not use a power supply but instead gets its power from the computer's USB port. Most external drives require more power than this method can provide, and therefore will not be compatible with this type of hub.
A powered hub uses an external power supply (AC adapter) and can therefore provide full power to the USB devices that are connected to it. External hard drives are only compatible with powered USB hubs.
USB supports the following three transfer speeds:
- USB 1.0 (low speed) supports a speed of 1.5 Mbit/s (183 KB/s) and is used for devices such as keyboards, mice, and joysticks.
- USB 1.1 (full speed) supports a speed of 12 Mbit/s (1.5 MB/s) and was the fastest rate before the release of USB 2.0.
- USB 2.0 ( high speed) supports a rate of 480 Mbit/s (57 MB/s) and is available on the majority of computers manufactured after 2003.
The USB cable included with the 2.5" portable drives has two USB Type A connectors; a main connector and a secondary connector. The main connector connects to a computer's USB port to receive both power and data from this single connection. The secondary connector connects to a second USB port and allows for the drive to receive additional power from this port. This ensures that the drive receives adequate power to operate correctly.
The 2.5” portable drives require that you connect both USB connectors to two available USB ports on your computer. If you do not have two adjacent USB ports, but instead have ports on the opposite side of your computer, you may use a USB extension cable. Please contact us for details.
If you only have one USB port , you may need to add USB ports to your computer so that you can use the drive. For desktop computers, you can add a USB powered hub or a USB PCI card. For notebook or portable computers, you can add a PCMCIA to USB adapter card.
The drive is shipped formatted as FAT32, so it should be recognized by any operating system. If, for whatever reason, your operating system is not recognizing the drive, it may need to be reformatted. Please refer to user guide shipped with the drive or questions 7 or 9 in this FAQ section.
To format the drive for Mac OS X
- Connect both of the USB connectors to two USB ports directly on your computer or powered USB HUB. Connect the other end of the USB cable to the hard drive. The green led should illuminate.
- Open Disk Utility. (Applications folder > Utilities folder > Disk Utility). Select the hard drive in the left hand column and click on the Erase tab.
- In the Volume Format drop-down menu, select Mac OS Extended if you plan to use the drive as a media or data backup drive. If you plan to use the drive on both MAC & PC, format it as MS-DOS.
- Once you have selected the format and have named the drive, click on Erase. You will be presented with a 'Are you Sure' dialog.
- The drive will format and upon completion will be available for use.
Note: For the best performance, we recommend using Mac OS Extended format. However, if you will be transferring files between a Windows system and a Macintosh, format the drive as MS-DOS (FAT32).
If you intend to share files beteen a Windows and MAC computer, the easiest option is to format the drive a MS-DOS using the MAC computer. This will create a FAT32 partition, which is compatible with both Windows and MAC.
The best option may be to use a 3rd party software product that allows hard drives formatted in the Macintosh file system (Mac OS Extended, HFS+) to be used on Windows computers. The following are two programs that allow this capability:
To format the drive for Windows 98 SE
- Download the Windows USB driver at the following location: http://www.oyendigital.com/tech/drivers/usb/USBDrivers.exe
- After saving the file to your desktop, double click on the file. The USB mass storage driver will install. Restart your computer.
- After the computer restarts, connect the drive to your computer as explained in the user guide.
- Enter Control Panel>System>Device Manager>Disk Drives. The external drive should be present. Right click on the external drive and select 'Properities.' Click on the Settings tab. Under 'Options' select 'Removable.' Assign a start drive letter by selecting a drive letter from the drop down box. Click OK.
- Restart your computer. After Windows restarts, open Windows Explorer. The newly created drive letter will be displayed. Double click on it and Windows will display a 'Disk is not Formatted' dialog. Click Yes to format the drive; enter a label (name), click Full (format type), and click Start. Click OK to format the disk.
- Click Close after the format process is over. The drive is now ready for use.
To format the drive for Windows XP/2000/ME/2003
- Connect the drive to your computer as explained in the user guide.
- Right-click on My Computer and select Manage. Click Disk Management in the left menu under Storage. The new drive will appear as Unallocated in the display window on the right.
- Right-click the Unallocated drive and select 'New Partition' to start the New Partition Wizard. If the drive is already formatted, you will first need to click on 'Delete Parition.' If 'New Partition' or 'Delete Partition' is unavailable, you will first need to right-click on the disk name and select 'Initialize Disk' (XP) or 'Write Signature' (2000).
- Click Next and select Primary partition and click Next. If you want to use the entire hard disk for one or more logical drives, click Next without specifying a size, and the entire free space will be converted into a single drive letter.
- By default, Windows assigns the next available drive letter; click Next to accept it, or use the pull-down menu to choose a different drive letter and then click Next.
- Select a format option. It is recommended to use the defaults of NTFS and default size. Change New Volume to a name you prefer.
- Click Finish to perform the listed operations. The format operation can take several minutes to complete depending on the drive size and speed of the computer.
- When the format process is completed, the drive is identified with a drive letter and its status should be displayed as Healthy. Exit Computer Management. You can now use the new drive.
To format the drive for Windows Vista
- Connect the drive to your computer as explained in the user guide.
- Open Computer Management by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking System and Maintenance, clicking Administrative Tools, and then double-clicking Computer Management. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation..
- Click Disk Management in the left menu under Storage.
- Right-click the Unallocated drive and select 'New Simple Volume' to start the New Partition Wizard. If the drive is already formatted, you will first need to click 'Delete Parition.'
- In the New Simple Volume Wizard, click Next.
- Type the size of the volume you want to create in megabytes (MB) or accept the maximum default size, and then click Next.
- Accept the default drive letter or choose a different drive letter to identify the partition, and then click Next.
- In the Format Partition dialog box, do one of the following: a) If you don't want to format the volume right now, click 'Do not format this volume,' and then click Next. b) To format the volume with the default settings, click Next.
- Review your choices, and then click Finish. The format operation can take several minutes to complete depending on the drive size and speed of the computer.
- When the format process is completed, the drive is identified with a drive letter and its status should be displayed as Healthy. Exit Computer Management. You can now use the new drive.
The unformatted capacity of any hard drive will always be greater than the formatted capacity. In the hard drive industry the partitioned size will be less than the printed capacity on the label. This is consistent whether it is Western Digital, Seagate, Samsung, etc. A 160GB hard drive will have a formatted capacity of approximately 149-150GB. This is due to the fact that computers calculate capacity based on 1024 bytes/kilobyte, while the hard drive calculation is based on 1000 instead of 1024. Hard drive manufacturers define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes, which is a decimal (base 10) measurement. Computers define a megabyte as 1,048,576 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes. These are binary (base 2) measurements. This is why the two different industries will report different capacities for the same drive. The number of bytes is the same, but a different number of bytes is used to make a megabyte and a gigabyte.
For more information, we recommend the following resources:
Wikipedia
Acronis