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Hmmm... I'm wondering if the "wall warts" were required because of one of the following: 1. Interference issues of having power and data running on the same USB cable. 2. The external device either exceeded the 100ma spec or used enough power that the manufacturer didn't want to overtax the PC power supply with their external device (think either old PC's or notebooks). 3. They didn't think they could depend on the quality of power from the USB cable. USB was a bit flaky when it was first introduced. 4. The cost to handle devices exceeding the 100ma spec far exceeded the cost of using an external power supply. I know that I've heard of external power supplies being used instead of internal ones because if it were internal then the whole device would have to conform to FCC or UL standards, or something to that effect. When the power supply is external then only the power supply has to conform. About 5 years ago I bought a USB drive cage that I really liked. It took a standard PC power cable and had an internal power supply to transform the 120 volts AC to 12 volts DC. It was real handy to take places. A year later I bought another one and they had changed the design to use an external power supply which was a bit more cumbersome. That one stayed parked and hasn't really been moved since. That was the last one of those that I bought. A USB-powered one would be even better. Dave Parnin -- Nishikawa Standard Company Topeka, IN 46571 daparnin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxx To: PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users om> <pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent by: cc: pctech-bounces@mi Subject: Re: [PCTECH] USB power? drange.com 12/29/2005 12:16 AM Please respond to PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users Here is a link that discusses the choices of power: http://tinyurl.com/9arab David Gibbs wrote: > Folks: > > Anyone know why some external USB hard drive chassis need external power > and some don't? > > A few months ago I bought a USB 2 drive chassis for a 2.5" laptop drive. > I was quite disappointed when I found out it required either two USB > connections or a power brick (larger than the drive itself). I returned it. > > The other day I found a similar drive chassis that didn't have a power > plug. It took it's power directly from the USB bus. I picked it up > ($25 at compusa) and it works fine. > > So my question is ... why did the first one require extra power and the > second one doesn't? They were both driving the same hard drive. > > Thanks! > > david > > > -- ----------------------------------- Booth Martin http://martinvt.com ----------------------------------- -- This is the PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users (PcTech) mailing list To post a message email: PcTech@xxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options, visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/pctech or email: PcTech-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives at http://archive.midrange.com/pctech.
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