USB HD attached to Z! Options

[stevevw]

lwong,

In using the Archos 20GB HDD do you use it without any external power? I plug mine in and dmesg complains of errors saying that maybe i have a bad cable. If it plug it into a powered hub then I am able to use it without problems.

This drive isn't much use as a portable media if I have to have external power for it all the time.

[mitchrl]

I have a 40gb Toshiba drive in a drive enclosure I bought from computer geeks for about $10. It has two usb connectors with one for power. I must either use a powered hub or plug it into an available usb port to supply sufficient power for the 6000 to properly recognize the drive.

I'm thinking about trying one of the following:

Lil Sync Battery Adaptor
Boxwave Minisync Battery Adapter

Another benefit of using this is with a usb sync cable, you can also power and charge the zaurus.

Robert

[lwong]

lwong,

In using the Archos 20GB HDD do you use it without any external power? I plug mine in and dmesg complains of errors saying that maybe i have a bad cable. If it plug it into a powered hub then I am able to use it without problems.

This drive isn't much use as a portable media if I have to have external power for it all the time.

The drive is powered purely by the Z. That's the beauty of it.

BTW, I think I saw it on sale this week in Circuit City for $149. The price is coming down...

Frank W

[stevevw]

I wonder if my Goldx cable is faulty not letting enough power to the hdd. I am getting a usb mini a to mini b cable and going to try that out.

I'd love it to be powered by the zaurus.

[jacksonchan]

For anyone who has this hard drive, I have a couple of questions because I am considering getting one. I was wondering how much it affects the battery and if it is possible to copy from a compact flash card to the hard drive. I would love to be able to copy pictures from my digital camera's compact flash card. Thanks!

[akpoff]

I'm doing just that this week with a 6000L and an external 10gb laptop hard drive I put into an enclosure. The enclosure/drive draw too much power for the Zaurus to power by itself so I have a power adapter I'm taking along. I'm wondering whether I could use my iPod since it has it's own power source but haven't played with it yet to see whether I can convert it to fat32 without ruining it.

I've tried a test transfer from CF to the USB drive and it worked very well. I was then able to go to the files tab and browse it just fine and view the pictures. I'll post more about my success (or lack thereof) when I get back.

--Aaron

[hubcapboy]

has anyone located a source for a mini-a to mini-b cable? I have a 5gig mp3 player that I can mount from fedora, so I don't see why I shouldn't be able to use it as a hd as long as I can find a cable... (also has it's own power source)

[aki]

It would be great to have the capability to hook up a USB web cam. There is an active project here that does just that for Linux, with a kernel module. Perhaps one of our more capable members can take a crack at getting it working with sl-6000????

[roue]

Hi Folks,

Just bought the goldex usb pack and tried hooking up my Z to an iBook thinking it would recognize it as an external drive. Seems I was mistaken in that idea. Is this only a feature on the 860? There's a package on the zsi that's ported the feature over to the 5500/5600 and I've looked at that. Seems all the kernel modules are already present on my 6000, just not an obvious utility to turn it on. Am I just missing something obvious. I seem to have misplaced my manual so I'm not sure if it covers this. Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks,
roue

[technojunkie]

give the ported package a try, the 6000 and 5600 are similar enough that it should work.

[lardman]

I'm surprised there's not an option somewhere for the C6000 to act as a USB mass storage device.

Assuming it works the same way (as the other devices), you'll need to rmmod all of the usb related modules, then insmod storage_fd and the support modules.

See my last post in this thread for the script: http://www.oesf.org/forums/inde...e_fd,and,pxa_bi


Si

[guylhem]

I have that on the custom kernel on externe.net/zaurus/kernel, with /dev/mmcda2 special partition where I put the windows drivers (so that every time I go to some unknown computer, I start usb storage, the computer can fetch the driver and use the zaurus in usb net)

however for some reason it just kills qtopia time to time when I plug the device on the windows machine in usb-storage mode. Weird.

[polito]

I just bought an ez bus mini 40GB drive by Apricorn at the local Fry's electronics here in Phoenix, AZ. It uses USB 2.0 but is also USB 1.1 compatible and even boasts that it's the World's first USB-IF _certified_ usb-powered hard drive. They say you'll never need an AC adapter. I bugged the salesman about it for a few minutes and then plunked my credit card down to purchase it, telling the salesman I better not be coming back to stand in the long Fry's lines... lol. This lil' baby cost $229.99.

Anyway, the drive is tiny 4" long by 3" wide and 0.60" high. It's got a nifty short USB connector that hides right into the underside of the drive when not in use and comes with an extender as well as a nice neoprene snug-fit pouch that holds the drive. It weights only 4.3 oz.

When first connecting the drive, it is instantly recognized by the 6000L via dmesg and when mounting the drive the system sits for about 30 seconds as it figures out what to do. After that it just works. I mounted it under /usr/mnt.rom/usbstorage as vfat and I was able to view it via the File Manager.

I did a cp -R from about 40MB of files on my 4GB Hitachi Microdrive in my main CF slot (I have the expansion adapter as well so I have two CF slots) to copy the files to the external drive and that took about 3 minutes (didn't really count so good) and I opened the Calendar application which ran a little slower but still functioned while the terminal was still open doing the cp -R.

I'm happy with the drive, it's lightning-fast with USB 2.0 off of my laptop which would be great for loading data that you want accessible via the zaurus.

Manufacturer's website is listed as http://www.apricorn.com and they say they've been in business since 1983. The drive comes with a FULL 3-year parts and labor warranty which I thought was nice.

My thoughts are that since it uses a 1.8" HD (by Hitachi) that it's able to run from the USB 1.1 bus-power. I'm thinking that drives that use the traditional 2.5" laptop HD's are the ones that need USB 2.0 power which the Zaurus 6000L is unable to handle as it's got the On-The-Go (OTG 1.1) USB 1.1 port and not a USB 2.0 port.

All in all, I like it Seems battery drain can happen if you do some really disk intensive stuff (like copying tons of files from a CF drive to a hard drive) but I don't think it should be too bad (especially for me since I have the expansion adapter with it's battery and ANOTHER battery which I bought, thinking the expansion adapter only had support for another battery instead of actually coming with one dohhh).

Here's a site that gives a good overall description and pictures of the 20GB version of this drive (which is cheaper, but still a little pricey):

http://www.everythingusb.com/hardware/inde...s_Mini_20GB.htm

Here's the C-Net Review of the 20GB version:
http://reviews.cnet.com/Apricorn_EZ_Bus_Mi...7-30922055.html

Hey and what do ya know, I found the C-Net Review of the 40GB version too:
http://reviews.cnet.com/Apricorn_EZ_Bus_Mi...7-30922037.html

[stevevw]

OH, I may have to try one of those out. If it works I'll be ebaying my archos.

Hubcapboy I purchased my mini a to mini b cable from blackbox.com. It works well.

[dwchapin]

I'd be interested to see someone reincarnate Toshiba's abortive "Bluetooth Pocket Server" (do a google search) idea from a couple of years ago -- one of these 5-10-20GB Toshiba HDDs with a small rechargeable battery, and Bluetooth. I think they actually marketed a batch of these, but it flopped fairly quickly. In principle it seems like a nice storage solution for a Bluetooth-equipped Z. Then you just keep the thing in your backpack and presto -- lots of available storage.

There's a rumor that Apple (or one of it's competitors) is going to build something like this into the next version of the IPod, with stereo Bluetooth wireless headphones. (Though don't hold your breath.) Obviously the throughput would not be great, but probably good enough for reading audio (though not video, which would be part of the attraction).

Anybody know of such a device? Seems like a natural extension to e.g. a digital camera (too slow to write directly, but camera could slowly migrate data from its primary storage card onto the remote HDD) but if Toshiba's experience is indicative it seems to be a product category that has already failed.