144 gig Note 2 ;)

[NeoGrandizer]

Unfortunately, SSDs are still a premium to get ($/GB is still high; storage wise). The Samsung 512GB SSD is ~$700 around here. I don't have the funds for that.

According to specs the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB:

Avg idle power: 0.8W
Avg operating power: 1.1-2.2W

I consider that to be pretty power efficient for the $$ I put in (~$90). It was great in the notebook. But the notebook is toast, so I stripped the HDD out and using it as an external drive now. Nice compact size with good transfer speeds (around 20-30MB/s) on USB 2.0.

Edit: I use a powered usb hub to use the drive and keyboard attached to the Note 10.1 sometimes when working. Though I need the special USB split cable (data+power) to get the drive to work.

 

[NeoGrandizer]

Just an update. The Note 10.1 will not recognize partitions on a single drive. So that experiment failed. It will only recognize the first partition.

On an interesting note, the external HDD can be powered by an external battery with a special USB data+power split cable. I used an external 5000mAh battery and was able to hook it up without any issues. No need to look for a wall outlet plug now. I can hook up using a USB hub with keyboard and HDD without a power adapter. I don't know how long the 5000mAh battery will last in this particular situation, but at least that seems to be a mobile option provided it can last.

 

[Deleted User]

Good news on the external battery. Those days when I sit in an Army air terminal for hours, it will be good to access my HD.

 

[NeoGrandizer]

Update: another failed experiment.

Since the 10.1 was able to work with the external HDD with an external battery supply, I thought the Note 2 would be more than able to handle it as well. I WAS WRONG. The Note 2 will pop a device error hdd corrupt needs reformat message. It would also crash the Note 2's USB driver at times and require a reboot.

Unfortunately, the Note 2 will require a power supply plugged into an outlet to work. The external battery trick will not work with the Note 2. Although, I'm not sure if a higher mAh battery would have handled it better. I am using a 5000mAh external battery with the external HDD.

Though, if that was the case, I would have expected a high powered device error and not a corrupt drive error. So it looks like it won't play nice with an external battery powering an external HDD.

Another side note, I plugged in a powered 7-port USB hub. I was only able to get a mouse, keyboard and 3 USB sticks to work at the same time. It failed upon inserting a fourth USB stick. It would exhibit strange inconsistent behaviour when the fourth stick is placed in. In the extreme case, it hard crashed the Note 2 which required a press and hold of 8 secs on the power button. The Note 10.1 on the other hand handled it all pretty well.

I'll probably play around with the powered hub later on just for the heck of it. Just curious as to what the Note 2 is capable of. Definitely not as strong as the Note 10.1, that's for certain. Maybe Sammy was a little more stringent with regulating power draw/drain on the Note 2. I have a wired xbox 360 controller I'm dying to see work with keyboard and mouse. LOL.