I am looking for an external hard drive that is purely USB powered. Most of the 2.5" drives in the 60GB-160GB range offered by major vendors seem to consume more than 500mA. Most of them don't tell exactly but some admit that they need 1A for initial spin up. The USB 2.0 specification, however, only allows 500mA per USB port.
Here are my questions:
- did anyone find drives that actually consume max. 500mA?
- do you know drives that are designed to work with only one USB port even though they violate the 500mA specification? Do you have user experience in that case with Laptops?  Do they provide a cable for combining the power of two USB ports, just in case the spec violation actually causes a problem?
- I am interested in user experience with "Western Digital Passport USB 2.0 Harddrive 80GB-160GB" and "Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 100GB-160GB"

thank you for any help

Martin

Some drives work in these encloses and some others don't its very odd, I've personally had good luck with the USB 2.5 drive enclosures that have 2 USB connections on them one is for power only and the other is for power + data. of course the downside is that some older computers only have 1 or 2 USB ports to begin with.. and if you use a hub with one of these it must be a powered USB hub. this is the type of enclosure I'm referring to: http://www.usbgear.com/SS-CGS-25K1.html or this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817714011

As far as ready made kits from toshiba/ibm/WD or other manufacturers I have no experience with them. 

mat42:

I am looking for an external hard drive that is purely USB powered. Most of the 2.5" drives in the 60GB-160GB range offered by major vendors seem to consume more than 500mA. Most of them don't tell exactly but some admit that they need 1A for initial spin up. The USB 2.0 specification, however, only allows 500mA per USB port.
Here are my questions:
- did anyone find drives that actually consume max. 500mA?
- do you know drives that are designed to work with only one USB port even though they violate the 500mA specification? Do you have user experience in that case with Laptops?  Do they provide a cable for combining the power of two USB ports, just in case the spec violation actually causes a problem?
- I am interested in user experience with "Western Digital Passport USB 2.0 Harddrive 80GB-160GB" and "Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 100GB-160GB"

thank you for any help

Martin

 I bought a WD 120gb Passport for my laptop...I like it and it works perfectly.  I haven't had a problem with power.  They offer a dual usb cable for computer with a limited bus (it's called a booster, $10).