External Hard Drive - Not Enough Power

[MattYC157]

I am using an external hard-drive both for my computer and for storage of Games for a Nintendo Wii (running them through a USB-Loader).
I have noticed that when using the front USB ports on my PC as well as reading files on the Nintendo Wii the Drive tends to spin down and often struggles loading.

The drive itself works perfectly fine when running from the back USB ports on my computer and is fully readable from the front, but seems to lack power. When i do high-intensity tasks like running games from the drive it tends to slow down and some games freeze due to this. This leads me to believe that the drive is not receiving enough power, this was also a problem on my old laptop.

TL;DR
My question is would a cable like this cause any problems or surge the external HDD?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nexons-USB-2-0-Cable-Mini-B/dp/B003N8HVQC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425498410&sr=8-1&keywords=mini+usb+to+double+usb
In-case the link doesn't work, this is a mini-bus to Double USB.

I do not want to cause a surge in power for the hard-drive and break it. The Hard-drive is Lacie Rikki 2.5inch 500GB.

 

[kanewolf]

I would recommend a powered USB hub. It has an independent power source which will provide power for the disk drive.

 

[sora]

A cable like that should definitely work and a powered USB hub would definitely be the safest option for your HDD OP.

 

[Paperdoc]

You do not give us any info on which version of USB you have in the front and back ports. There is a significant difference between USB2 and USB3 regarding power supplied to attached devices.

The USB2 standard specified that its ports should provide a 5 VDC supply to an attached device up to 0.5 amps. Some external drives specifically designed for use with laptop units can operate properly on that supply. Others require more than 0.5 amp, and came with a double-headed cable such as your link shows so they could draw current from two ports. Did your external unit come with one of those? If so, you should always use it.

The USB3 standard increased the power available to 0.9 amps, which is fully sufficient to power a laptop-style external HDD. It may NOT, however, be sufficient for an external drive designed for use with a desktop computer and its own power supply module.

So, maybe your system is such that it has USB3 ports on the back that work well with your external drive, but USB2 ports on the front that can't supply the power required.

By the way, a powered USB2 hub is unlikely to solve your problem. Such a device is certainly better than an unpowered hub when more than one device is connected to it. However, powered or not, if it truly conforms to the USB2 spec of max 0.5 amps, that is not any better than a USB2 port on your computer.