Anoneh's Blog

underpowered USB hardisk with Nokia charger

USB hardisk has brought about many conveniences to portable storage. it can transport amount larger than any thumbdrive or CF card out there.  However,  they require a bit of power to run the disk. Some machines, especially laptops may not be giving enough power and hence the disk fail at times when we needed them most. Most big disks like my 1 TB Maxtor USB/Firewire hardisk has their own separate power but small ones normally do not require any, or so it may seems.

Unfortunately, that is not true and I do have intermittent problems. This is solved when I discovered a power socket option on one of the portable hardisk I have. It’s actually the power socket for e-Sata option but my laptop does not have e-Sata. It says 5v. Coincidently, I have an old unused Nokia charger of 3v. I took the chance as the socket matches. Now, my laptop has no difficulty discovering and mounting the USB hardisk and has been running it reliably too during long data transfers. I have less fear of the disk losing connection now.