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External Hard disk

M

microfox

Lurker
Hi

My first post. I have searched but did not find any answer to my question, so here I go.

I bought the Transformer and the docking station and I'm very happy with it. Instead of buying a $50+ 32Gb SD card or USB key, what if I get a WD Digital Passport for $69 ? How should it be formatted to work with my Transformer ? Or, would it not work at all ?

Thanks for your input.
 
FAT32 is the supported file system type. I've heard some people have got NTFS to work, but I think they may have been rooted. I use an ancient seagate 120GB FAT32 with mine no problem.
 
kampfwolf09 said:
FAT32 is the supported file system type. I've heard some people have got NTFS to work, but I think they may have been rooted. I use an ancient seagate 120GB FAT32 with mine no problem.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your answer.

So if I get the Passport, I would have to format it with my Mac (as long as Macs can do that) or find some Windows PC to format it in FAT 32 ?
 
microfox said:
Thanks for your answer.

So if I get the Passport, I would have to format it with my Mac (as long as Macs can do that) or find some Windows PC to format it in FAT 32 ?
Click to expand...

never thought of that, my WD book thing was sraight FAT32 and so is my portable samsung hard drive, but both works brilliantly.
 
I'm pretty sure a Mac will be able to format it to FAT32, since that is used by the majority of thumb drives and such. My Win7 comp, however, will only format NTFS or exFAT, so I use another tool to format with.

Note: I just checked with some buddies, and the TF does support NTFS on the USB ports and SD slot (no micro). I haven't plugged up one to check, but should be good to go.
 
I've tried various harddrives/thumbdrives and they all work fine.

The only issue is that you can NOT use the cool "security" programs with external drives. They need installed programs to work, and so far there's nothing I've found that works on Android and windows..
 
AutobahnSHO said:
I've tried various harddrives/thumbdrives and they all work fine.

The only issue is that you can NOT use the cool "security" programs with external drives. They need installed programs to work, and so far there's nothing I've found that works on Android and windows..
Click to expand...

I'll second that, unfortuately I've got some PGP encrypted USB fob keys that requires .exe's to open up to then enter your password to access the contents. Andy tablets certainly doesnt recognises this at the moment.
 
kampfwolf09 said:
FAT32 is the supported file system type. I've heard some people have got NTFS to work, but I think they may have been rooted. I use an ancient seagate 120GB FAT32 with mine no problem.
Click to expand...
I'm using Seagate FreeAgent GO 500GB with NTFS system, and it's recognized by TF (no rooted).
 
Can I ask you guys something else kind of along this same topic? Is there a trick to getting the TF to recognize an external USB multi-card reader? Mine's a Targus 2539.
 
Gardenwife said:
Can I ask you guys something else kind of along this same topic? Is there a trick to getting the TF to recognize an external USB multi-card reader? Mine's a Targus 2539.
Click to expand...

All USB devices have to have "drivers" to run.

Android has a lot of generic USB harddrive/ storagedrive drivers, and mice/ gamepad drivers, but not any of the more specialized ones.

You might look for a Linux driver for that device and see if there's any way it would work on the tablet. (Android is Linux-based)
 
So it sounds like I should be in good shape if I need to transfer video files from an SD card to an external drive. I got the TF to be a business* netbook to take on the road with me. The GPS and the crazy long battery with the dock made my decision pretty easy.

Part of my work involves shooting video on a cam that takes SD cards. I need to be able to dump the files to a drive and reformat the SD cards when I'm out on longer trips where I'll fill up my available cards.

* Who am I kidding -- I've been wanting one for months because it's so stinking cool.
 
haha
I used the "built in Office software" to justify mine. :)

I tried using it for taking notes, looking at spreadsheets, but more than anything I use mine for email, movies, surfing, games, not in that order. ;-)
 
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