USB2 Ext HD compatible with my USB1 PC??

Oh Yes it will

Yes Way.

I have a USB2.0 external HDD which I run on my Windows 98 USB1.0 port and on my Laptop XP USB2.0 port.

OK, it's a lot slower on 1.0 than 2.0, but you still can't beat it if you only have 1.0 and you want to back up/transport a lot of data.
 
Tim Cullis said:
No way. A USB 1 device works with a USB 2 hub, but not vice versa. Even if it connected it would be so slow as to be unusable.

Tim
Click to expand...

do a google for the usb 2 spec, its backwards compatible - and unless the device requires high speed, hard drives generally don't, plug in a usb2 device into a usb 1 controller it will run at usb 1 speeds - around 11 mb /s , with usb 2 although the interface speed is 480mb /s i'll be suprised if your actual data transfer exceeds 36 mb /s - usability will depend on your use and of course necessity - i have used it in the passed and it has not been too painful
 
I *think* some usb 2.0 disk devices aren't strictly backwards compatible. I worked on a problem with this a while ago.

Windows 2000/3 (and probably xp) will warn you with a bubble if you connect 2.0 devs to a 1.1 ROOT hub, when there's a better alternative.

However if it works it works, but be very careful with surprise removal as it's easy to damage the filesystem on these sorts of disks, always shut the OS down, or eject them if in the removable storage class before unplugging them.
 
USB 1

It'll be dog slow with USB1, buy a USB pci card for about £8 and then you will have USB 1 and 2, use the USB2 for high speed devices,like the external HDD, job done.
 
Thanks for the advice. I've decided to go down the usb2 card route to give me the full functionality of the HD.

Cheers
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
You must log in or register to reply here.


Back
Top Bottom