06-03-2016, 03:12 PM
(05-02-2016, 09:31 AM)tmontero65 Wrote: Ok, thanks for the links and suggestions. I think for the moment, I'll look at either getting a powered external hard drive, or a powered USB hub. I did try plugging in my hard drive over the weekend, and while its light came on, it was making a clicking sound every few seconds, which I assume was from not enough power being available when it was trying to spin. It didn't crash the board at least, so that was nice.
Even when connecting an external HD to a computer, this is such a common problem that there are combo cables with a USB plug and a wall-wart power plug specifically for it. A possible problem with powered USB hubs is that they may limit the power output to each port (which is possibly the intent of the USB spec) and you could have the same under-powering problem. Of course there are also cases for bare HDs that have a separate power plug rather than are powered from USB.