Usable with USB 2 and USB 3 without reformat? Could I, for example, write contents onto the drive using USB 3.0 and give it to someone with a USB 2.0 and would he be able to read/write then could we pass it back and forth using such procedures? Second question - using NTFS under WIN7 Ultimate both sides in example above?Thanks! Usable with USB 2 and USB 3 without reformat? Could I, for example, write contents onto the drive using USB 3.0 and give it to someone with a USB 2.0 and would he be able to read/write then could... » Read More Usable with USB 2 and USB 3 without reformat? Could I, for example, write contents onto the drive using USB 3.0 and give it to someone with a USB 2.0 and would he be able to read/write then could we pass it back and forth using such procedures? Second question - using NTFS under WIN7 Ultimate both sides in example above?Thanks! « Show Less
301144
Yes, it comes with a (short) cable. Well, the computer end of the cable is the same for USB 2.0 and 3.0
301145
Does this come with a USB 3.0 cable or do we have to purchase that separately?
301146
Should work. As I do the same thing within my own house with flash drives. My desktop is win7 / USB 2.0, my Laptop is win7 / USB 3.0. I've never needed to re-format my flash drives and I do get the speed increase from the USB 3.0 Laptop. I can imagine, with the proper operating systems involved: Portable HDDs should't be any different.
121412
you certainly can use both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0; the only difference is transfer speed.
1548110
Yes you can. It would need to be reformatted in order to work with both systems. It's default format is NTFS (Windows friendly, not Mac OS). Using a Windows PC and possibly the Mac you can reformat it to exFAT which will allow read/write on both platforms.
36840
Usb 3 is backwardly compatible with usb 2. You can use the usb 2 cable to connect to the drive but your data transfer rate will only be that of usb 2. This is variable depending on the hardware software, cable, file size but for example usb 2 of 30 mbps and 3 of 100 mbps (note the actual specifications of both standards are much higher)
184662
I think it does it's own format. I use NTFS Windows 7 Pro. It works great with drag & drop, ftp, and it's proprietary filesystem. I love it!
8084
I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit with a 3.0 PCI add-on card connected to the 7 Port USB hub. I have a Seagate 2TB, 3TB and 4TB 3.0 drives attached as well as 320GB and 500GB USB 2.0 drives and have no problems. Just remember any USB 2.0 drive is still limited to 2.0 speeds. Some of the drives are network shares and still I have had no problems. The 7 Port USB Hub works great for me.
1205891
My old USB 1.0 machines wouldn't recognize the drive. A USB 2.0 card in an XP box worked. Reformatted drive to NTFS. Drive also works in Kubuntu 9.04 via USB 2.0 using the ntfs-3g utility that comes with most linux distros.
922421
Yes. You can do all of those things without any problems. This pc has a lot of power and the 4 USB slots are USB 3.0, so data transfer will be very fast with a USB 3.0 drive. If you are asking if you can put windows 7 on the external drive and boot from it, I'm not sure but I believe so. However u will have to use the back USB ports.
747881
Format to PC is easy just plug to a windows machine and use disk manager tool; but you may consider buy the windows ready version since is cheaper; USB 2.0 compatibility is with same original cable
148834
No. I tried hooking up a 3 TB drive and you have to format it NTSF which doesn't go up to 3 TB.Tech support said you can format the drive with two partitions. But that didn't work for me.
2054818
It can be formatted with FAT32. When you receive the drive it's pre formatted with either NTFS or exFAT (Don't remember but it's one of the two). That being said the Windows format tool will not format any drive larger 32GB with FAT32. It will only allow you to use NTFS or exFAT. Third party tools can be used to format drives larger than 32GB with FAT32. Google "FAT32 Format by Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd." This tool works, is free and is very simply. Or you can use Windows diskpart to manually create the partition and format FAT32. I have this drive and have it formatted with FAT32 for use in my car to play MP3's. Also, please note that the behavior above is not specific to any particular manufacturer. It applies to any USB/HDD/SSD drive larger than 32GB being formatted in Windows.
1243982
I myself used it to salvage, format both a 300GB and a 250GB WD disk drives without any problems.Also used it to migrate Windows 7 Pro from a 120GB SSD to a 512GB SSD. Worked without a hitch.Reformatted the 120GB SSD in it afterwards, and now use it as an external disk drive in the unit.Device was tried on both esata and usb3 worked fine on both interfaces.
594130
I bought one and I use it. Windows 7 Backup doesn't work with it, so I use a 3rd party backup. It has a USB 3 interface, but I have only USB 2. The disk works fine.
900003
Edward, if you format the drive as NTFS, you would only be able to view its contents on a Mac. Writing to the drive would not be possible.
1669122
Yes, it works fine in USB 2.0 ports, usually faster than a 2.0 flash drive in the same port. You won't get the screaming speeds of a 3.0 flash drive in a 3.0 port, but it's definitely an improvement over the 2.0 flash drive.
1077459
yes...ofcourse I did... format FAT32 to NTFS...PERFECT...LIKE THIS...I USE ...
796104
You can, but windows doesn't support it due to software limitations. I am having issues assigning a drive letter to my second partition on Win7, unfortunately... https://superuser.com/questions/436539/how-to-access-both-partitions-on-a-bootable-usb-flash-drive-in-windows http://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/cannot-assign-a-drive-letter-to-a-usb-flash-stick-partition.319500/ The first link actually mentions it's a common issue with ALL windows OS.
516599
Yes you can use it if the drive is formatted using FAT32. However doing so has a limitation because FAT32 FS cannot support individual files greater than 4GB. Also you will see a degraded performance regardless of which hard disk you buy.