Wanted: external hard drive (+1 TB)

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Hello,

This is my first post in here so please let me know if I have posted this in the wrong sub forum or something. I originally posted this in a Danish mac forum but I could not get any answers there.

The thing is that I am looking for an external hard drive to all kinds of storage. It will be used with my 15'' MBP from early/mid 2009. Since it is a little old it has USB 1.0 technology. Therefore I am looking for an external hard drive with USB 2.0 technology due to the compatibly working one step backwards.

My budget is somewhere in the range of $200 - +/- 25%.

As you can see in the title it must be at least 1 TB. To be honest I do not know which brands to look for but I have one from Western Digital that has been working well. And they look nice too.

What would you guys suggest?

On Western Digital Hard Drives, Network Drives, Media Players I have been searching under the following:

1) Desktop for Mac
2) Portable for Mac

Due to my demand regarding size it will probably be the first category that I must look closer into. It would be nice to have a smaller one that I can carry around with me sometimes.

So I have been looking at this: External Portable Hard Drives for Mac Overview

My rather old MBP should function with that, and the size and USB technology are as they should. I would like to know if I should be looking elsewhere...

And would you guys pick a desktop model or a portable one if the size and USB technology is the same? And what is the difference between USB and Firewire? I do not know if I shall pick one with Firewire 800 of if it does not matter.

Final question: Can I use the Western Digitals in Lion?

Thanks in advantage.

/Mikkel
 

bobtomay

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Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
There is nothing "rather old" about an '09 MBP. Computers aren't aging the way they were in the '90s. I just replaced an '06 model after spending 15 years buying a new one every year.

Your USB ports are all USB 2. I don't believe any computer has had USB 1 since sometime around 2002, maybe '03. What you're seeing in the System Profiler listed as USB 1 is probably the keyboard and/or trackpad - not your ports. When you see "USB High-Speed Bus", that's USB 2.

Both, FW800 and FW400 are going to provide almost doubt the real world speed when moving data than USB. Whether you need the speed or not is another question. If all you're doing is using the drives for backup, probably not. IF you're moving data back and forth, especially large amounts of it - 2 to 4 GB and more at a time, quite often, then FW is the only way to go, imho.

Whether to go with a portable or desktop depends on whether you require a portable or desktop. You need to answer that.

A WD is fine. For a single external drive, I really only look at the available connectors and the warranty and how easy is it to use the warranty if you need to. WD service in this respect has been excellent in my experience.
 
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Hello,

This is my first post in here so please let me know if I have posted this in the wrong sub forum or something. I originally posted this in a Danish mac forum but I could not get any answers there.

The thing is that I am looking for an external hard drive to all kinds of storage. It will be used with my 15'' MBP from early/mid 2009. Since it is a little old it has USB 1.0 technology. Therefore I am looking for an external hard drive with USB 2.0 technology due to the compatibly working one step backwards.

My budget is somewhere in the range of $200 - +/- 25%.

As you can see in the title it must be at least 1 TB. To be honest I do not know which brands to look for but I have one from Western Digital that has been working well. And they look nice too.

What would you guys suggest?

On Western Digital Hard Drives, Network Drives, Media Players I have been searching under the following:

1) Desktop for Mac
2) Portable for Mac

Due to my demand regarding size it will probably be the first category that I must look closer into. It would be nice to have a smaller one that I can carry around with me sometimes.

So I have been looking at this: External Portable Hard Drives for Mac Overview

My rather old MBP should function with that, and the size and USB technology are as they should. I would like to know if I should be looking elsewhere...

And would you guys pick a desktop model or a portable one if the size and USB technology is the same? And what is the difference between USB and Firewire? I do not know if I shall pick one with Firewire 800 of if it does not matter.

Final question: Can I use the Western Digitals in Lion?

Thanks in advantage.

/Mikkel

It sounds like you'll need to do a little research so that you can narrow down your choices.

Desktop vs portable is like laptop vs desktop. You'll get the conveinence of mobility by getting the portable hd but the value for the same amount of storage space is not there. For example, you may pay $150 for 750gb for a portable whereas you may pay $150 for 2tb for a desktop. What you prucahse will depend on your need and your budget.

Firewire vs usb 2.0. Firewire is faster than usb 2.0 and you can also daisychain firewire components together. Keep in mind that firewire is a dying breed if future considerations may be a concern. I believe Mac has removed firewire from some of their products. I like firewire because it frees up my usb ports for usb only items. Typically, if you buy a firewire capable product, it will come with a usb port as well.

This is what I picked up this weekend and it's awesome.

edit... I tired adding a link but apparently it's not working. Anyways, I bought an Iomega Mac Companion ext hd drive this weekend. It's a 3tb drive that I'll be using to import AVCHD video files into to edit in iMovie. Looks great and so far works great. I connect it via firewire and it also spins at 7200 rpm.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
15" MB Pro, 2.66 i7 ; 11” MBA 1.8GZ i7; 13"MBA 2GZ i7 8 GB mem 512GB SSD, 2 iPad3s, 1 iPad Mini
I use both WD and Seagate

1 Tb drives and neither cost more than $100. In fact you can get 2 TB for around $100.
 

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