01-14-2012, 06:16 PM

Hello All,
Hoping someone out there can recommend a descent external hard drive for me. I am not very computer literte, but I just made my first I movie, and used quite a bit of the editing features. (Thanks to The missing manual series, book)

Anyways , I have it figured out on transfering all of our old VHS movies, the problem I will obviously have is storage. I want to save them on the computer and I thought the best way to do that was an external hard drive.

I have an Imac 10.6.8 , with a processor 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 duo, Memory 4GB 1067 Mhz DDr3 (I dont know what all that means?) I know I have 1 terabite of storage.

But, obviously want a stand alone hard drive unit to save all the movies to.
I looked online and it is very overwhelming, I just have no idea which one to choose. I am thinking 2TB size would be fine for this? And I was hoping to spend no more than $200.00-$250.00.

Hope one of you more experienced users out there can point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance for your help.

Jim

01-14-2012, 07:24 PM

Just about any good quality external hard drive of large capacity will be OK. I would look around locally in stores that carry computer accessories such as Best Buy, Fry's, Staples, etc. Try to find a 2 TB drive that has a firewire 800 connector in addition to USB. That will be faster. Your iMac has a firewire 800 port.

01-15-2012, 04:29 AM

You can expect the FW800 equipped HDs to be a bit more expensive than the USB 2.0 only ones, but I **promise** you the vastly faster speed will be worth the change.

01-15-2012, 07:26 AM

Thank you, i will definetley make sure what ever one I get has the Firewire output.
But what about a trustworthy dependable model and manufacturer? Western Digital, and Iomega brands fall in line with my budget, but there are some pretty sketchy reviews on them out there. I just dont want all my hard work of transfering these old VHS home movies lost because I bought an inferior brand Ext. drive.
Thanks .
Jim

01-16-2012, 06:06 PM

I've always like Hitachi best, but really there is no drive manufacturer out there making junk. There's just an ever-changing "consensus" on which ones are "the best" until the next round of mergers, acquisitions and startups changes the rules of "what's best."

Buy a name-brand drive with a good warranty and BACK IT UP. That's your only real insurance policy.