External HDD casing help

[raz0r]

Hi, I recently bought a Seagate Barracuda 320Gb 7200 16Mb cache SATA 2 Hard Disk and i'm not that knowledgeable about these things. But I own a laptop so I'd like to get an external casing for it.

When shopping for one, is there anything I have to look out for?
And does anyone know where I can find one cheap?
And would my HDD be 3.5 inch?

Thanks

[lozza92]

The cases are available at EYO on the following link. http://www.eyo.com.au/items_CatID_3_SubCatID_136_Storage_External_Enclos ure.html

Make sure you get one with an external power supply as the ones that are USB powered seem a lot slower and use up a lot more power from the computer.

[freddyfartbox]

And would my HDD be 3.5 inch?

Yes, 3.5 inch, 2.5 inch are laptop hard drives.

[raz0r]

Wow, I didn't know they would cost so much.

[BiggyRat]

Wow, I didn't know they would cost so much.
$48.62 is too much? :confused: How much were you expecting to pay, 5 bux? :confused:

[GLO]

I remember in the past month reading about a review, but cant remember which magazine it is, anyone know?:confused:

[RANDOID]

I remember in the past month reading about a review, but cant remember which magazine it is, anyone know?:confused:Yes, I do...

I've got the magazine...

[GLO]

which mag and issue is it please

[BiggyRat]

Yes, I do...

I've got the magazine...
Oh God!!!!!! :rolling::mad:

[Grim]

Oh God!!!!!! :rolling::mad:
.....
:D

Hey Biggy, is this guy from Aus?

(maybe he's from the US - that why the $$ sounds a lil on the expensive side?)

[tazwegion]

Yes, I do...

I've got the magazine...

MAD magazine doesn't count :p

Make sure it supports your SATA drive, some externals can only utilise the IDE interface ;)

[raz0r]

A couple of weeks ago I bought a 320GB external SATA drive, and when I hooked it up, i saw that only 298GB of space was available.

So i'm wondering, how do I free up that chunk of space? I want to be able to do this without deleting everything on the HDD because I already have a lot of stuff on it.

Thanks

[RANDOID]

A couple of weeks ago I bought a 320GB external SATA drive, and when I hooked it up, i saw that only 298GB of space was available.

So i'm wondering, how do I free up that chunk of space? I want to be able to do this without deleting everything on the HDD because I already have a lot of stuff on it.

ThanksThe extra space doesn't exist.

Both software manufacturers and hardware manufacturers blame each other for the discrepancy

Its caused by a difference in byte numbering.

Software manufacturers naturally refer to the size of the disk in binary format. (just like every other computing method) where one kilobyte refers to 1024 bytes.

In an effort to advertise more space than you get, disk manufacturers use a "metric" format rounding down 1024 bytes per kilobyte to 1000 bytes per kilobyte.

while this means that you only loose 24 bytes, it adds up.

1 Kb(metric) = 1024 bytes(binary)
1 Mb(metric) = 1048576 bytes(binary)
1 Gb(metric) = 1073741824 bytes(binary)

so, when your drive advertises that its 320 Gb, windows only sees total binary bytes, windows sees;
320,000,000,000 / 1073741824 = 298Gb