From: ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld.invalid   
      
   On Thu, 10 Jan 2013, in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva, in article   
   <8YCdnaxZn5Sy5XLNnZ2dnUVZ_rGdnZ2d@posted.lerostechnologies>, Jim Beard wrote:   
      
   >Moe Trin wrote:   
      
   >> external drives with enormous capacity are small and cheap. and can   
   >> fit into the small safe-deposit box at a nearby bank or similar.   
      
   >You (?someone?) mentioned a small external.  Any suggestions?   
   >Quirks I should be aware of?   
      
   My wife actually handled it, and didn't report anything unusual.   
   You'll have to "format" the drives as they come with a windoze   
   file-system, but that's no different than a "normal" internal drive.   
   We're using WD Touro 750GB and 1 TB drives, which were under $100.   
      
   >My WDC external HD is about 5 x 7 x 2 (inches) and a bit big for   
   >a safe deposit box, but the "passport" externals likely would fit   
   >easily.   
      
   The Touro is about 3 1/8 x 5 x 5/8 inch, but there are larger (1, 2   
   and 3 TB) models called the Touro Desk - and they're 5 x 7.25 x 2.5   
   and have an external wall-wart for power.  Seagate and Toshiba also   
   build somewhat comparable units in both form-factors.   
      
   >My newest computer has an "Intel 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset   
   >USB2 Enhanced Host Controller" and the other an ATI 7x0/8x0/9x0   
   >USB [EO]HCI controller.  That looks to me like USB 3.0 would not   
   >be supported.   
      
   You pay the "10:1" speed differential using the slower 2.0, but the   
   Touro models accept either 2.0 or 3.0.   At this point, I understand   
   that the Seagate and Toshiba units are similar.   In fact, the speeds   
   will be less if you're accessing your slow-poke internal drives.   
      
   >I would expect to use Mandriva's tools to delete partition(s) and   
   >create/format ext4 partitions, ignoring the manufacturers   
   >Winlows/iMac software.   
      
   Color me (and my wife) old-fashioned:   
      
   [fermi ~]$ whatis fdisk mke2fs   
   fdisk             (8)  - Partition table manipulator for Linux   
   mke2fs            (8)  - create an ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem   
   mke2fs.conf       (5)  - Configuration file for mke2fs   
   [fermi ~]$   
      
   but the distribution-specific helper tools should work equally well.   
      
           Old guy   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)