External Hard drive

[Palustris]

I need to save a lot of pictures and Word processing files. so thinking of External D.D. BUT my machine has only USB 1. Now I know this is slow, but will an External DD actually work? Are they backwards compatable? Time taken to save is not a problem as long as it will do it eventually.

[LeMarchand]

I've used USB2 HDDs on USB1 ports without any problems - the data transfer rate is a lot slower, though.

[fo3nix]

It'll work fine. Just be slow.

[ACtheTROLL]

if you're going for one of the BIG >132Gb hdds ... you might be as well taking the machine down with you to confirm you can see the whole disc

depends how old the machine is ... but some legacy BIOSs can't see some of the bigger discs
some of the better HDDs have an interface to compensate
(int13, lba48 and all that).... some don't