Who produces USB external drives compatible with Windows 98SE?

Kenn Caesius wrote recently in alt.windows98:

I suppose that in more detail I know about external hard drives
and flash drive that are compatible with windows 98SE - either
specific products you recommend or the manufacturers that still
offer drivers but devoid of personal experience.

You might want to read this thread:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/1463...-under-win-me/

There's a lot of pages. Maybe start at the end and work your way
backwards.

I highly recommend that unless you need drive portability, that you
instead install a new hard drive inside your computer on your existing
IDE or SATA controller. It will be MUCH faster and no worries about
software incompatibility.

The win-98 system that I'm using to type this message has an 80 gb IDE
hard drive in addition to a 400 gb and 750 gb SATA hard drives. I have
other win-98 systems using a 1.5 tb SATA hard drive.

Otherwise, what you need is to install one of several different
universal USB drivers for win-98 - some of which are also mentioned in
that thread. But be aware that the performance of USB hard drives is
far inferior to IDE or SATA.

I also recommend that you post (or cross post) your win-98 questions to
microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion because it seems to be used by
more people than alt.windows98.

wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2011 10:12:18 -0400, 98 Guy wrote:

Kenn Caesius wrote recently in alt.windows98:

I suppose that in more detail I know about external hard drives
and flash drive that are compatible with windows 98SE - either
specific products you recommend or the manufacturers that still
offer drivers but devoid of personal experience.

You might want to read this thread:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/1463...-under-win-me/

There's a lot of pages. Maybe start at the end and work your way
backwards.

I highly recommend that unless you need drive portability, that you
instead install a new hard drive inside your computer on your existing
IDE or SATA controller. It will be MUCH faster and no worries about
software incompatibility.

I think so too!

The win-98 system that I'm using to type this message has an 80 gb IDE
hard drive in addition to a 400 gb and 750 gb SATA hard drives. I have
other win-98 systems using a 1.5 tb SATA hard drive.

How the heck do you run those huge drives on 98? Then again, why does
anyone need a drive that big?

(It seems he's downloading and saving a slew of movies :-)

I have nearly 6000 MP3 files and 22gigs
of Photos, plus 8 gigs of videos and another 5 gigs of downloads
(yeah, I have all the old versions of freeware and shareware programs
saved, going back to the mid 80's). I also have Win98 and Win2000
installed, and I'm only using 70gigs. I had tow 40gb drives but was
lacking space to download or modify stuff, so I installed a 120gb PLUS
kept one of my 40gb drives. I doubled my space, that should last me
years before I fill it.

Otherwise, what you need is to install one of several different
universal USB drivers for win-98 - some of which are also mentioned in
that thread. But be aware that the performance of USB hard drives is
far inferior to IDE or SATA.

The performance is only slow in Win98, boot to Win2000 or XP and it's
as fast as any internal drive, except that those USB drives take a
minute to get "started". My guess about the speed is because Win98
cant use USB2. That's why I also have Win2000 installed as a dual
boot. I do all my USB work from Win2000. 2000 is much more like 98
than XP.

No, there is a significant speed difference between USB2, IDE, and SATA.
I just checked the specs at Wiki, and found this:

USB2: 480 Mb/s theoretical (= 60MB/s) for just the interface, BUT
for external USB2 hard drives, the speed is in practice around 40 Mb/s = 5
MB/sec), due to overhead for this type of device interface. See the Wiki
article under USB2 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB2

Here is a copy of the relevant part of that page:

"Originally conceived and still used today for optical storage devices
(CD-RW drives, DVD drives, etc.), several manufacturers offer external
portable USB hard drives, or empty enclosures for disk drives, which offer
performance comparable to internal drives, limited by the current number and
type of attached USB devices and by the upper limit of the USB interface (in
practice about 40 Mbit/s for USB 2.0)" (etc)

So, thus we have:

USB2 5 MB/sec (for external USB2 hard drives)
IDE 133 MB/sec (about 20+ times faster)
SATA1 150 MB/sec
SATA2 300 MB/sec (assuming the HD can reach this)

I also recommend that you post (or cross post) your win-98 questions to
microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion because it seems to be used by
more people than alt.windows98.

Huh? I'm reading this on microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion ....

I think he's refering to the fact that this got crossposted to BOTH
newsgroups, but I've removed the alt.windows98 one.

Bill in Co wrote:

No, there is a significant speed difference between USB2, IDE, and
SATA. I just checked the specs at Wiki, and found this:

USB2 5 MB/sec (for external USB2 hard drives)
IDE 133 MB/sec (about 20+ times faster)
SATA1 150 MB/sec
SATA2 300 MB/sec (assuming the HD can reach this)

Just to be clear - those are mega-bytes per second. But the number
listed above for USB2 speed is (I suspect) more likely for flash thumb
drives and not for hard drives.

You will frequently see SATA speeds listed in terms of both giga-bits
per second (1.5, 3.0, etc) as well as mega-bytes per second.

The top-end for IDE is 133 MB/sec, but older motherboards will usually
have a limit of either 66 or 100 MB/sec.

Based on the numbers I've seen, the write-speed for USB thumb drives are
proportional to their cost. A large number of them will only do 3 to 4
MB/SEC, and the vast majority will do 3 to 7 MB/sec (write speed). Some
will do in the range of 10 to 15 MB/sec. Read speed is uniformly
faster, usually about 10 to 20 MB/sec in most cases, but many can do up
to 30 MB/sec.

The numbers I've seen for USB hard drives have their read speeds start
around 10 MB/sec but more commonly you can expect 15 to 20 MB/sec, with
some drives reaching 30 to 40 MB/sec. Write speeds range from 10 to 30
MB/sec.

I also recommend that you post (or cross post) your win-98
questions to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion because
it seems to be used by more people than alt.windows98.

Huh? I'm reading this on microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion ...

I think he's refering to the fact that this got crossposted to BOTH
newsgroups, but I've removed the alt.windows98 one.

My first post in this thread was a response to a post made by Kenn
Caesius in alt.windows98 (that should have been clearly seen if you look
back at how I referenced his post in my reply). I added m.p.w.g_d to
the distribution when I replied.

I have re-added alt.windows98 to this response, for the benefit of Kenn
Caesius (who doesn't seem to read m.p.w.g_d for some reason).

wrote in
:

On Wed, 11 May 2011 09:31:28 -0400, 98 Guy
wrote:

Based on the numbers I've seen, the write-speed for USB
thumb drives are proportional to their cost. A large
number of them will only do 3 to 4 MB/SEC, and the vast
majority will do 3 to 7 MB/sec (write speed). Some will do
in the range of 10 to 15 MB/sec. Read speed is uniformly
faster, usually about 10 to 20 MB/sec in most cases, but
many can do up to 30 MB/sec.

Oh well, I remember when it took a whole minute or more to
write 1.4 megs to a floppy, so I'm satisfied with the speed
of any USB devices. Seems some people feel they need to go
faster and faster with everything on their computers. I
say "What's the big rush?". It reminds me of the assholes
who tailgate me on the highway, because they cant get
anywhere fast enough. Frick em' I'll take my time, enjoy
the scenery, and arrive at my destination safely, even if
it takes a few more minutes. When copying data to a USB
drive, take some time to enjoy the scenery. In other
words, go make a cup of coffee, pet the dog, talk to the
kids or spouse, or just do all the copying while you are
asleep if it's a complete backup or large number of files.
Haste makes Waste!

Apart from the fact - referring to an earlier post - that USB2
DOES work on 98SE (Lite!), I have a theory that if you compress
the data you are copying (unless they're pretty large files and
not four hundred or four thousand 200KB files); compress NOT to
make it smaller, but to have the system have *LESS FILES* to
work with, it might make the process noticeably faster.

Perhaps someone who actually knows something about computers
file copying can comment on that theory.

98 Guy wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:

No, there is a significant speed difference between USB2, IDE, and
SATA. I just checked the specs at Wiki, and found this:

USB2 5 MB/sec (for external USB2 hard drives)
IDE 133 MB/sec (about 20+ times faster)
SATA1 150 MB/sec
SATA2 300 MB/sec (assuming the HD can reach this)

Just to be clear - those are mega-bytes per second. But the number
listed above for USB2 speed is (I suspect) more likely for flash thumb
drives and not for hard drives.

Don't think so. I just looked up one kinda randomly (Western Digital 500GB
My Book Home Edition) reviewed on www.about.com and the reviewer said he got
15 MB/sec using the USB2 connection (and 20 MB/sec using Firewire), which is
still in the same ballpark, and MUCH slower than IDE or SATA.

The 480 Mb/sec (= 60 MB/sec) spec for USB2 is JUST for the USB2 interface,
and that clearly is not the limiting factor here (for using a mass storage
device like an external USB2 connected hard drive)

You will frequently see SATA speeds listed in terms of both giga-bits
per second (1.5, 3.0, etc) as well as mega-bytes per second.

The top-end for IDE is 133 MB/sec, but older motherboards will usually
have a limit of either 66 or 100 MB/sec.

Yes, I was using the top end. The ATA 66 is pretty old!

Based on the numbers I've seen, the write-speed for USB thumb drives are
proportional to their cost. A large number of them will only do 3 to 4
MB/SEC, and the vast majority will do 3 to 7 MB/sec (write speed). Some
will do in the range of 10 to 15 MB/sec. Read speed is uniformly
faster, usually about 10 to 20 MB/sec in most cases, but many can do up
to 30 MB/sec.

Yup, the solid state thumb drives are relatively slow when written to, and
significantly faster when read from.

The numbers I've seen for USB hard drives have their read speeds start
around 10 MB/sec but more commonly you can expect 15 to 20 MB/sec, with
some drives reaching 30 to 40 MB/sec. Write speeds range from 10 to 30
MB/sec.

And I believe those are for the mechanical hard drives, not solid state
drives.

I also recommend that you post (or cross post) your win-98
questions to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion because
it seems to be used by more people than alt.windows98.

Huh? I'm reading this on microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion ...

I think he's refering to the fact that this got crossposted to BOTH
newsgroups, but I've removed the alt.windows98 one.

My first post in this thread was a response to a post made by Kenn
Caesius in alt.windows98 (that should have been clearly seen if you look
back at how I referenced his post in my reply). I added m.p.w.g_d to
the distribution when I replied.

I have re-added alt.windows98 to this response, for the benefit of Kenn
Caesius (who doesn't seem to read m.p.w.g_d for some reason).

thanatoid wrote in
:

Apart from the fact - referring to an earlier post - that USB2
DOES work on 98SE (Lite!), I have a theory that if you compress
the data you are copying (unless they're pretty large files and
not four hundred or four thousand 200KB files); compress NOT to
make it smaller, but to have the system have *LESS FILES* to
work with, it might make the process noticeably faster.

Perhaps someone who actually knows something about computers
file copying can comment on that theory.


You're right, because reading the file records takes time too. If you send
stuff between machines on a LAN via FTP it REALLY pays to use the 'store'
option on a RAR file, send that, then unpack at the far end. It beats waiting
for each file record to be read, and a separate transfer initiated for each.
The time difference won't be so obvious on local disk copies but per volume
of total data, I'm sure it would be measurable.

On UNIX based systems, it's common practise to do TAR and GZIP. The tar bit
means tarball, they don't compress (the GZip bit does that), they just bind
the small together for speed and integrity during transfers, and also to save
space on disks by avoiding slack space waste.

Ghost has an option for 'fast' compression, that uses a compromise between
disk space and speed. I'm not sure, but there migh tbe an optimal point that
is faster than either method alone. I mean if there is no compression, it's
all disk and buss speeds, if you compress a LITTLE, maybe you can reduce that
time by more than the CPU takes to do the compression... Obviously if you
compress hard, the CPU will make it slow, never mind how good the storage
systems are.

About 98-Lite and USB2, right again, I notived someone has said not, and it
bugged me for the two days since I firgot who and where. Another nice system
not mentioned here yet is FireWire. For some reason, maybe th ecurrent device
I have that is supposed to use it, it fails, only USB2 works, but about three
years ago I had an external drive that used it right. With no fuss, no extra
installs, I just plugged it in, and it ran fast enough to feel like an
intenral disk. Those were at UDMA4 or 5, but FireWire is no slouch. Even in
the older form it is faster on sustained rates than USB2.

Bill in Co wrote:

USB2 5 MB/sec (for external USB2 hard drives)
IDE 133 MB/sec (about 20+ times faster)
SATA1 150 MB/sec
SATA2 300 MB/sec (assuming the HD can reach this)

I wrote:

Just to be clear - those are mega-bytes per second. But the
number listed above for USB2 speed is (I suspect) more
likely for flash thumb drives and not for hard drives.

Bill in Co responded:

Don't think so.

You don't think - what?

The number you posted above for USB2 was 5 MB/sec.

I said no, that's too slow for a USB-connected hard drive (and by hard
drive, I mean rotating platter, not flash ram). I said that 5 MB/sec
was typical of a flash thumb-drive, and that the numbers for a hard
drive are more like 20 to 40 mb/sec.

Then you say:

I just looked up one kinda randomly (Western Digital 500GB
My Book Home Edition) reviewed on www.about.com and the
reviewer said he got 15 MB/sec using the USB2 connection

So you agree with me that 5 MB/sec (your number from way above) is NOT
the usual speed for a USB-connected hard drive, but is actually more in
line with a USB thumb (flash) drive.

But we both agree that a USB-connected hard drive is nowhere near as
fast as an IDE or SATA - connected hard drive.

Now I don't have a hard-drive test program, but here's a real-world SATA
read/write performance test:

I took a directory containing 14 files with a total size of
4,990,795,776 bytes that was located on my 400 gb SATA drive and copied
it to my 750 GB sata drive. This folder represents the contents of a
DVD music video disk that I downloaded last night. 4 of the files are 1
gb VOB files, and 1 is about 500 mb VOB, the rest of the files being
smaller BUP, VOB and IFO files.

This was done in plain ordinary Windows 98se.

The copy process took 2 minutes and 5 seconds (125 seconds). When you
divide 4,990,795,776 bytes by 125 seconds you get 39,926,366 bytes per
second - which is either 40 or 38 MB/sec depending on how you define a
mega-byte.

For a simultaneous read/write operation, with all the over-head of the
OS, I think that's a pretty respectable data transfer rate.

98 Guy wrote:
Bill in Co wrote:

USB2 5 MB/sec (for external USB2 hard drives)
IDE 133 MB/sec (about 20+ times faster)
SATA1 150 MB/sec
SATA2 300 MB/sec (assuming the HD can reach this)

I wrote:

Just to be clear - those are mega-bytes per second. But the
number listed above for USB2 speed is (I suspect) more
likely for flash thumb drives and not for hard drives.

Bill in Co responded:

Don't think so.

You don't think - what?

That the value quoted above was for *flash* drives (reread the context) -
but rather was for the mechanical ones.

The number you posted above for USB2 was 5 MB/sec.

And that particular "in practice" value came from the Wiki link I posted.
Did you check it? I even quoted part of it. It was just quoted as a
typically found "in practice" value (as to whenever that article was
written).

I said no, that's too slow for a USB-connected hard drive (and by hard
drive, I mean rotating platter, not flash ram). I said that 5 MB/sec
was typical of a flash thumb-drive, and that the numbers for a hard
drive are more like 20 to 40 mb/sec.

Then you say:

I just looked up one kinda randomly (Western Digital 500GB
My Book Home Edition) reviewed on www.about.com and the
reviewer said he got 15 MB/sec using the USB2 connection

So you agree with me that 5 MB/sec (your number from way above) is NOT
the usual speed for a USB-connected hard drive, but is actually more in
line with a USB thumb (flash) drive.

No, I do NOT agree with that. The 5 MB/sec is evidently for a slower
mechanical drive than that newer Western Digital model I mentioned, which
got 15 MB/sec. USB external flash drives are even slower (in writing, at
least)

But we both agree that a USB-connected hard drive is nowhere near as
fast as an IDE or SATA - connected hard drive.

Now I don't have a hard-drive test program, but here's a real-world SATA
read/write performance test:

The article mentioning that Western Digital drive had a real world test.
(But we were mostly talking about USB2 external drives here).

I took a directory containing 14 files with a total size of
4,990,795,776 bytes that was located on my 400 gb SATA drive and copied
it to my 750 GB sata drive. This folder represents the contents of a
DVD music video disk that I downloaded last night. 4 of the files are 1
gb VOB files, and 1 is about 500 mb VOB, the rest of the files being
smaller BUP, VOB and IFO files.

This was done in plain ordinary Windows 98se.

The copy process took 2 minutes and 5 seconds (125 seconds). When you
divide 4,990,795,776 bytes by 125 seconds you get 39,926,366 bytes per
second - which is either 40 or 38 MB/sec depending on how you define a
mega-byte.

For a simultaneous read/write operation, with all the over-head of the
OS, I think that's a pretty respectable data transfer rate.

The 150 MB/sec figure may be a bit on the high end, in practice. I don't
know how many SATA1 drives get closer to that than yours in practice and
haven't looked at the drive spec sheets, although my expectation is there
are some that do a lot better than your 40 MB/sec in practice.

Lostgallifreyan wrote in
:

snip

About 98-Lite and USB2, right again, I notived someone has
said not, and it bugged me for the two days since I firgot
who and where. Another nice system not mentioned here yet
is FireWire. For some reason, maybe th ecurrent device I
have that is supposed to use it, it fails, only USB2 works,
but about three years ago I had an external drive that used
it right. With no fuss, no extra installs, I just plugged
it in, and it ran fast enough to feel like an intenral
disk. Those were at UDMA4 or 5, but FireWire is no slouch.
Even in the older form it is faster on sustained rates than
USB2.

Yeah, FireWire is cool, the p[problem is that the only FireWire
devices I have seen are SoundBlaster Audigy sound cards - I have
a connector on one of mine (I have 3 old computers ranging from
about 18 to 7 years old - but I have never plugged anything into
it. There certainly had to have been SOME devices using FireWire
connection for a while around the turn of the century, but the
timing was unfortunate since USB was a lot easier and basically,
universal, no pun intended. I have not seen the term FireWire
mentioned in YEARS, let alone seen a device. But then again, I
don't get out much.

And if the specs for USB3 are as claimed, well...

BTW, thank you for confirming my exact line of thought on file
transfers.

thanatoid wrote in
:

Yeah, FireWire is cool, the p[problem is that the only FireWire
devices I have seen are SoundBlaster Audigy sound cards - I have
a connector on one of mine (I have 3 old computers ranging from
about 18 to 7 years old - but I have never plugged anything into
it. There certainly had to have been SOME devices using FireWire
connection for a while around the turn of the century, but the
timing was unfortunate since USB was a lot easier and basically,
universal, no pun intended. I have not seen the term FireWire
mentioned in YEARS, let alone seen a device. But then again, I
don't get out much.


Nopr does FireWire. Well, it costs royalties every time anyone wants to
make a plug. Mostly, it;s used for audio engineering I think, but also on
industrial embedded boards like the ITX ones I use. There's a software called
FireNet or some such, that can network two machines if they have ports. I
haven't tried that yet though. I always use Ethernet and TCP/IP for that.

I don't know the USB3 spec, but I bet the later FireWires will match it, and
likely more. The lowliest FireWire beats the best USB2. I intend to find out
what stopped it working on my later installs because it's either the external
hardware, or a software error. When I first tried it, it was as simple and
primal as hooking up a loudspeaker with a bti of bellwire. It just worked
without me having to give it any more thought than I would a piece of string!
I never saw any other interface except MIDI work that easily.