I want a 2nd hd that contains only Poser, Terragen and Photoshop programs and I wasn't sure if an external hd would be good enough to use while working with these files. The only thing I've ever installed in my computer is my video card and not sure about slave/master settings stuff. I have IDE hd now. PC 2.4ghz 1gbDDR ram. Any advice? Sorry if this is in the wrong forum but I wanted Poser people to respond because of the huge files in Poser.

Hmm I have Poser on it's own HD. Only other thing there is Daz Studio. It works fine. It's a normal, internal disk though, I don't know if it means anything. In theory, a USB2 harddisk should be ok. If you have USB2 on your computer of course.

I have an external hard drive connected via firewire (which avoids the master/slave problem nicely, it's just like installing a new card). I used to have all my Poser stuff on that drive and it worked fine. Then I bought a new internal drive that was twice the size, so moved my runtimes again. That's set up as a slave to the main HD, and also works fine with Poser and all my other graphics software installed there. The only difficulty I encountered, which is still an issue with my external drive, is because of a power problem in my house. We're prone to brief power interruptions (like, half a second). When that happens, the PC reboots itself, and I've found the external drive frequently vanishes when this happens. I have to power down and leave it for a while before rebooting in order to "see" the drive again.

I have never tried it personally but would imagine as long as you have a fast enough interface (USB2 or ideally Firewire2) it should work fine

Yeah I was curious also as to whether the transfer rate would be sufficient for poser. I was thinking of putting Poser on an external drive so that I could take it back and forth between work and home. Dave

I recommend a UPS if you use an external drive. Heck, I recommend a UPS anyway. If you only have a surge protector, you're only half protected. Computers can be fried by voltage that's too low as well as voltage that's too high.

UPS?

UPS? Uninterruptable Power Supply. Keeps you from pulling your hair out after the power suddenly goes away. :)

I use a 120g external drive for all my 3d apps. Works fine. Programs seem to load slightly faster from my external drive. It might be faster than my internal drive or maybe just not as fragmented. I dunno. I didn't have to fool with any slave/master stuff. Just plugged it in, XP recognized it and away I went.

Hi, I have Poser5 on an external USB2 WD 160 Gb Hard Drive and have no problems at all with it. The only things on the USB drive, are Poser5, my Poser Runtimes and ALL the Poser stuff I have purchased/downloaded over the past 4 years. I can take the drive to work and plug into my 'puter there and run Poser with minimal slowdown. Hope this helps. Robin

Where does one buy a UPS? I had my power blip last night, killing a piece of work that had been going on the better half of a day using Tailor. Dave

Where does one buy a UPS? I had my power >> blip last night, killing a piece of work >> that had been going on the better half of >> a day using Tailor. The two I've gotten I got at Best Buy; I would imagine that you could get a pretty good deal at any number of on-line electronic stores.

Okay found a Western Digital 160GB External on pricewatch for $202.00 free shipping and no tax :) Thx for all the help. One more question, can I just transfer everything over to this drive or will have to transfer and then reload poser, photoshop..etc on it? But thx again :)

[Where does one buy a UPS? I had my power blip last night, killing a piece of work that had been going on the better half of a day using Tailor. Dave ] Holy Moly those things aren't cheap.

I just copied my entire Curious Labs directory, ditto for my other apps (8 or 9 apps total). So far everything works fine. I was surprised it apparently wasn't necessary to 'reinstall' anything. But, who knows. Maybe I'll find out next week that something does something strange because I didn't do a regular install on the external drive ;)

Yes, they are expensive, but think of the expense in time and possibly money when the power goes out (and you computer turns off) in the middle of some important work! It not only provides time to save work and shut down properly, but can also protect hardware - though a surge protector is better for spikes and brown outs.

Amen. Lost a day's worth of work because the power decided to blip during a thunderstorm here yesterday. Dave

I have an external USB hard Drive (iomega 80GB) and contains only Poser stuff. it works fine and very stable i think.

UPS's range in price from $30 to thousands. Generally, more money will get you more power (and it will also be larger). But if all you want is something that will keep your computer from rebooting if the power blips, a cheap one is fine.

Read the back of the boxes. (Or the descriptions, if you're buying online.) Generally, the UPS is rated for certain systems. ("This unit will run a Pentium IV with 19" monitor for 15 minutes.") More money will get you longer times. (If you have an LCD screen, you don't need as much power.)

I have an internal 120GB hard drive reserved for Poser. Works great. I'm thinking of getting an external hard drive eventually, just because my other hard drives are fasting filling up.... and I have no more internal connections for hard drives. I've had a UPS for 10 years, and it's well worth the investment. You can get them almost anywhere these days. Staples, OfficeMax, and Office Depot are examples. Plus you can shop online.

Great THANKS A LOT FOR BRINGING UP THAT UPS THINGY, NOW I AM GOING TO BUY ONE........guess they are worth it and if I can get one for around $125.00 then that will be good.

You might want to check out Amazon.com. The prices aren't bad, but even if you buy somewhere else, the reviews can be useful. Take them with a grain of salt - sometimes it's the company's employees, or their rival's employees, who are posting the reviews. Still, they are helpful, and can help you pick the model that provides the best bang for the buck.

Attached Link: UPS at TigerDirect

I use a Storix 30 Gb external HDD for all my graphic work. Transfer rate is fine using USB 2.0, which also powers the thing, avoiding the need for external transformer, power wire, etc. It also has a firewire connector that I haven't used, and a power transformer if needed. It's about the size of a slim pocket book and has performed flawlessly for a year now. Both my work computer (W2K) and home (WXP) recognize it as just another HDD and assign it the next letter in sequence. (I also back it up to an internal HDD at home, just in case...)

I bought both of my APS battery backups at Office Depot and got them for a very good price. One even had a $60 rebate at the time. What I like about that brand is when one of the models I had purchased was updated they sent a brand new one and I only had to return the old one in the box provided, no cost to me. I wouldn't be without one because we also have those power flickers here in Fla. A good investment for anyone.

We live in an old house, with wiring that isn't totally updated. Sometimes when the microwave is used, it trips the circuit breaker that handles that kitchen outlet and the outlet that handles one of my computers. The UPS gives me a chance to shut down the computer gracefully. I'm also protected from the surge as the power comes back on.

I paid 68 for a case and a 80GB drive, the case works on Firewire and USB2 though i use the firewire as i had a few provlems with the usb on an older drive.....i did look at a site that had done some tests, i can't recall the address but it ended up that the firewires was about 98% as fast as an internal and usb2 was about 96% so nothing we'd notice in use.....previous drives i've used have been smaller ones used to back up, whereas this one is to run poser on, i've only been using it a short while but so far i'm very happy.......the catches, just one, its noisy it has fan on the back and the old alloy cased one seemed to echo the nois of the hd it was an old drive though......Steve

I've been running Poser5 mainly from an external USB 220G hard drive. I had to leave the actual Poser5 file and a base Runtime folder with the V3, M3, etc. figures' Delta files on my C:/ drive. Otherwise, my "inject" files don't work. I'm upgrading to Windows XP, Firewire connection and from 128 MB to 512 MB memory so I'll really be happy to get my PC back. When considering what size external hard drive to buy, please keep in mind that I only have runtimes and saved works on mine. I bought a 180G (?) hard drive last winter and switched to the 220 G this springs. The drive is already half full!

I run poser from my 30gb Ipod at work since I can't install it on my work computer. Firewire conection works great.

If I were to get an external hard drive, the goal would be to install Poser and all the runtimes on that same drive. That way you could literally run Poser from any computer.

Well I think I'll just do a reinstall of Poser so I can clean up my runtime which is a total mess. I ended up buying a UPS from Staples today too.

I have a USB2 Buslink 40 gig external HD running only poser and am getting ready to buy another to stack on top.. I have had mine well over a year and no problems. I am running a P4 2.6 with just under 400 Ram. Win xp pro with my main drive being a NTFS and the one running Poser being FATS.

I just set up my HD and am wondering if I should just reinstall all the programs I want to use on that drive or is there a way to copy them over to use then safely deleting them from my C drive? Retrospect back up came with the HD. Only thing I'm afraid of is when copying the stuff over to the external hd that the programs won't work once I delete them off of C because of the registry and all that stuff. Yeah, I'm a bright guy when it comes to this :) Just back up and delete ok? Or reinstall? Thx again for all the help.

I'd reinstall for the main reason you give: registry entries. Also, you'll end up with a lot of broken links otherwise, including all of your application icons not finding their respective application executables. If you know that an application doesn't create registry entries and maybe it doesn't have a shortcut icon for launch, you might be able to copy it without ill effects - this is usually only possible for those applications that you just extract from a zip into a folder and don't "install" anything when run.