09-26-2007, 03:14 PM

I am quite new to the Mac and loving it. I have the new 20" iMac with the new Airport Extreme Base Station. I am thinking of getting an external hard drive for backup and storage. I dont need to share it. Obviously, I would like to get the fastest and best. I understand that eSata is the one that meets that criteria, but does the iMac have an eSata connection? I think you have to get an adaptor?

I dont do large media files or really heavy stuff, so am I ok just getting one that has USB/Firewire, or Ethernet that would be connected directly to the AEBS? The WD Mybook series seems to be a good fit?

Thanks

09-26-2007, 03:22 PM

If its just backups that you want, then even USB should be fine. That is, if you let backups take place at night when time is not of the essense. But otherwise, get a Firewire400 drive cause you don't want to waste precious USB ports on the Mac.

As for eSATA, there's no port on the Mac so it will be useless. WD MyBook is perfect.

09-26-2007, 05:18 PM

I came across this new one from LaCie, sounds interesting

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10994

So, either this one, or the myBook Studio Edition which has Firewire 800
http://www.wdmybook.com/en/editions/

Originally Posted by goobimama

If its just backups that you want, then even USB should be fine. That is, if you let backups take place at night when time is not of the essense. But otherwise, get a Firewire400 drive cause you don't want to waste precious USB ports on the Mac.

As for eSATA, there's no port on the Mac so it will be useless. WD MyBook is perfect.

09-26-2007, 05:38 PM

You can also go in for the MyBook Home edition which also has all the interfaces. The studio edition is simply overpriced 'cause its for mac'. Btw, FW800 and eSATA will both give the same performance. You will need some crazy RAID setup to utilize the eSATA speeds...