Which External Hard Drive should I buy/Do you suggest?

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cwa107


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Iomega is a crap shoot - G-Tech will score you a Hitachi drive, which I am a big fan of (recently).
 
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Glad to hear that feedback CWA. I will go with the G-tech.

I wonder if the Apple.ca store will have any boxing day/week sales?
 
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Can I Use Ext HD as a Main HD? Western Digital?

I'm a bit of a novice at this. I just had my iMac HD die yesterday and am functioning at the moment off a 2 year old SimpleTech-Simple Drive back-up External HD that I had last backed up on Dec 12 with SuperDuper. I am running Tiger and am in no position to get a whole new system forcing an upgrade to Lion (and thus all my other software, plus learning curve for everything new!)

I'm thinking that rather than spring for a new iMac and have to upgrade all my software, that it would be cheaper and just as well for now to get 2 new Western Digital MyBook for Mac External HDs, copy over all my data from the current SimpleTech and use one as a new Back-Up and use the other as my actual "new HD."

Is this possible? What is the difference between a HD that is being used as an "external back-up" and an internal one? I had this same HD failure happen 2 years ago, and the only Mac guy we have in my small town installed an internal Seagate 500MB HD (which cost $100), while he charged me $500-600 to do this and transfer the data. Then he had me go to Best Buy and get the SimpleTech $100 external 500MB HD to use as the backup (which is what I'm running off of this moment.)

In speaking with him yesterday, he wants me to buy a new iMac and pay him to transfer all my stuff into the upgraded Lion (plus I'd of course have to buy all new software, etc.)

I do not see what the difference is between a $100 internal and a $100 external - it just seems like a racket to scare me into paying unnecessarily for all this work to have the HD sitting inside my iMac.

I realize eventually I will have to upgrade, but I'm in no position to do that this moment and need to understand if I can indeed just use a new WesternDigital External HD as my "main" HD while backing up to another one as a safety.

Am I wrong? Can my idea work?

Thanks in advance for your input & advice!
 

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After reading your post, all I can say is "WOW!". Where to start... well, I guess I'll address each one of my concerns below...

I'm a bit of a novice at this. I just had my iMac HD die yesterday and am functioning at the moment off a 2 year old SimpleTech-Simple Drive back-up External HD that I had last backed up on Dec 12 with SuperDuper. I am running Tiger and am in no position to get a whole new system forcing an upgrade to Lion (and thus all my other software, plus learning curve for everything new!)

How do you know the drive is dead? Just because the machine doesn't boot from the drive doesn't mean that it's failed (physically). A Seagate drive from 2 years ago should have a 3-5 year warranty. So, you definitely don't need to buy a new one.

And if it hasn't truly failed, there may be some simple processes you can run to recover your data and/or repair the issue.

I'm thinking that rather than spring for a new iMac and have to upgrade all my software, that it would be cheaper and just as well for now to get 2 new Western Digital MyBook for Mac External HDs, copy over all my data from the current SimpleTech and use one as a new Back-Up and use the other as my actual "new HD."

Is this possible? What is the difference between a HD that is being used as an "external back-up" and an internal one?

The difference is that the external drive is in a plastic box with a USB-to-SATA adapter built into it. Otherwise, the two drives are mostly the same.

I had this same HD failure happen 2 years ago, and the only Mac guy we have in my small town installed an internal Seagate 500MB HD (which cost $100), while he charged me $500-600 to do this and transfer the data.

Still trying to stop choking over this. He charged you HOW much?

He is unquestionably fleecing you. For half of what he charged you, you could have packed it up and shipped it to a repair company and had it back to your doorstep in a couple of days.

This is a 1 hour job for someone who isn't particularly handy. If he truly is a "Mac guy", then it should have been 30 minutes, tops. The drive costs between $50-75 from most online retailers (at the time). So, if you paid $500, then $425 was for an hour's worth of his time (max). The cost for the data transfer should have been nominal since all he needed to do was run the right tool and watched it do its thing.

Then he had me go to Best Buy and get the SimpleTech $100 external 500MB HD to use as the backup (which is what I'm running off of this moment.)

So, he couldn't even bundle a $100 external hard drive in at his rate of $500-600? And he sent you to (gulp) Best Buy so that you could pay FULL RETAIL for what you could have gotten anywhere else on the web at 50% of the cost.

I know it seems harsh, but this guy saw you coming and took FULL advantage.

In speaking with him yesterday, he wants me to buy a new iMac and pay him to transfer all my stuff into the upgraded Lion (plus I'd of course have to buy all new software, etc.)

Please, if you take nothing else away from this post, PLEASE just don't ever speak to this thief again. And make sure that all of your friends and family know that this guy is a complete con artist.

Guys like this make those of us who are true professionals look bad.

I do not see what the difference is between a $100 internal and a $100 external - it just seems like a racket to scare me into paying unnecessarily for all this work to have the HD sitting inside my iMac.

Although they are just hard drives, one being inside of a plastic box and the other being inside your Mac, there is a functional difference. Because the speed of the connection is much slower connected via USB, you're going to take a huge performance hit overall on your iMac.

I realize eventually I will have to upgrade, but I'm in no position to do that this moment and need to understand if I can indeed just use a new WesternDigital External HD as my "main" HD while backing up to another one as a safety.

Am I wrong? Can my idea work?

Thanks in advance for your input & advice!

It can, but I wouldn't be so quick to write off the internal drive. Run this tool:

Volitans Software- Makers of SMART Utility for the Mac

...to get an accurate assessment of what's going on with the drive. If it has truly failed, you should be able to file a warranty claim with Seagate and get it replaced. But don't be so quick to write it off.

As far as cracking open the iMac to swap it, that's going to be more complicated since you don't have someone you can trust.

How handy are you with a screw driver?
 

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I 100000% agree with CWA. That person is a THIEF and Crook and even Liar. DO NOT every call them for service again!

If you try to install the drive yourself and need help just let us know. I can link you to a take apart site.
 
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CWA & dtravis - Men (I presume) after my own heart! LOL!

Welcome to what happens for 99% of us who live in small towns and/or do not have access to IT folks who you can ask questions of (esp Mac people!) If it were not for the Mac online community I could not function!

Firstly I feel validated by your comments that I'm not crazy and that this is massively overpriced "help," taking advantage of those who are not tech savvy enough to understand what we can or cannot do. I understand enough to be annoying - ;D

I am also EXTREMELY handy with a screwdriver (I live on a farm, rebuilt my 200 year old farmhouse myself, have a workshop, make my own ceramic tiles, cups, bowls, and stained glass, yadda yadda yadda.) O:)

Here's what happened yesterday with (I assume) the HD:

Note - since he replaced it 2 years ago, it has always made all sorts of annoying noise, clicks and whatnot that I've never experienced with any of my other older Macs. The first one he replaced it with was supposedly a Seagate and it made so much noise I could hear it all over the house! So I made him replace it with a quieter one and always assumed he replaced it with the same brand. It still was annoyingly noisy but less so. So I've always been suspicious of this HD because of noise and wouldn't be surprised if it had some issue. In looking at the MAC info it is NOT a Seagate but Hitachi Deskstar HDP725050GLA360.

Got up yesterday morning screen saver on, went to wake the Mac and screen saver froze. I shut down, booted and it made totally weird successive clicking noises that sound like a ratchet. Sounds like its "trying" - but the screen remains gray. At one point I got the blinking "?"

I got the original start-up CD and held down the D and ran the simple Hardware test: no trouble found; the Extended Test: no trouble found. Ran DiskUtility FirstAid Repair Disk: IHFS volume checked - no repairs necessary.

I shut down, unplugged and tried again - same ratchet.

This time when you go to look for the HD to tell the Utility to choose to boot up from it is not there - only my SuperDuper HD (the backup), the internal DVD drive, the inserted Apple CD and something else that I have no idea what it is - it just shows a serial number which is whatever is listed as my "Serial-ATA" (clueless as to what that is).

Ergo, I chose to run from my SuperDuper to get up and running and called our trusty "only Mac person known in our town" to do this. Being a college town, I have no doubt there must be zillions of Mac people somewhere but none in our phonebook and we have no Mac Store and our local stores do not carry ANY Mac products or Mac versions. People have to drive to the "big city" for that.

But I digress....

I will run the Smart Utility from the link you provided and report back in a bit.

THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME!!!!!!

xxx:*
 

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Do report back with your findings.

A brand new Seagate clicking like that? Makes me wonder if he sold you a used drive! :D
 
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My thoughts exactly - I always felt this was a used or damaged HD - it was truly so loud you could hear it down the hall....

The only gift so far in this current episode is that my backup HD is quiet! LOL!!!!
 
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Even more confusing:

Smart Utility ran, HD made same ratcheting sound, SU says PASSED and show the drive model as the same serial that is listed in my Serial ATA. It says 'capacity: not found" and everything else is blank. If I click on the triangle in the left hand corner next to the words "/dev/disk1 [PASSED]" nothing appears. In other words there is nothing inside it. I wish I could attach an MP3 so you could hear the noise!

When I look on the details, this says its a Seagate Barracuda so I am assuming this is my SimpleTech BackUp HD which is nice to know has no problems. But apparently there is no other item found.... my main HD has disappeared.... how do I find it to test it?
 

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Not good. What this means is that the drive has a severe failure and isn't being recognized on the bus.

You're pretty much going to need to pull that drive and get the serial number. Once you have it, you should be able to file a warranty claim, assuming it was new when installed. You should be able to find the manufacturer's date on the drive's own label. From that, you should be able to determine whether it was new when it was installed.

And if it wasn't... well, I would personally be filing something in small claims court.

Can you tell me the specific model of your iMac? You should be able to get specifics in Apple Menu => About this Mac.
 
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what's weird is that yesterday when this first happened I was able to "see" it in the choices - in Disk Utility with my Apple CD - that's how I ran the "repair" that said there were no problems. At that time I wrote down the basic info (but not the serial #) - that's how I know it is: Hitachi Deskstar HDP725050GLA360 Media 465.8 GB. Is there any possibility I could "find" it again that way? What does "Serial ATA" mean? I'm assuming that's my Backup that I'm currently running on now?

The specs on this model say:

iMac5,1
Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GHz
4MB L2 cache
1 GB memory
bus speed 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version IM51.0090.B09
then a serial number - but I think that's to the computer not the HD

In the meantime, warranty claim or no, can I just get another external Backup HD and copy my data from my current backup via SuperDuper so at least I can remain up and running with a backup? To be honest, I'm noticing no difference in speed or performance.
 

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what's weird is that yesterday when this first happened I was able to "see" it in the choices - in Disk Utility with my Apple CD - that's how I ran the "repair" that said there were no problems. At that time I wrote down the basic info (but not the serial #) - that's how I know it is: Hitachi Deskstar HDP725050GLA360 Media 465.8 GB. Is there any possibility I could "find" it again that way? What does "Serial ATA" mean? I'm assuming that's my Backup that I'm currently running on now?

The specs on this model say:

iMac5,1
Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GHz
4MB L2 cache
1 GB memory
bus speed 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version IM51.0090.B09
then a serial number - but I think that's to the computer not the HD

In the meantime, warranty claim or no, can I just get another external Backup HD and copy my data from my current backup via SuperDuper so at least I can remain up and running with a backup? To be honest, I'm noticing no difference in speed or performance.

Yeah, you can certainly do that. But honestly, if your machine is not dragging (or at least the speed doesn't seem unusual) you probably have some issues you're not even aware of.
 
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Anything you recommend I try to see if I can "find" it again so I can run the test?
 
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I just want to be sure I'm telling you the right info - I'm very confused as to what the 2 HDs are that I have that were showing in the Mac info:

When I Google the number that shows under "Serial-ATA" (ST3750528AS), up comes a Seagate Barracuda HD where the photos show an internal HD. If so that this is what is inside my iMac and what is failed and/or seeming to be unfindable - even though I can see this in the Serial-ATA of "about this Mac."

The Google search for the SimpleTech Simple Drive (outdated link removed) brings up photos of the external backup HD that I'm currently running now. When you click on one of these it's Hitachi.

So I am confused as to which of these is what is failed inside my iMac and which is the external by looking at the "about this Mac info."

I look forward to whatever info you might suggest I do tomorrow.

Thank you soo so much for helping me!
 

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I just want to be sure I'm telling you the right info - I'm very confused as to what the 2 HDs are that I have that were showing in the Mac info:

When I Google the number that shows under "Serial-ATA" (ST3750528AS), up comes a Seagate Barracuda HD where the photos show an internal HD. If so that this is what is inside my iMac and what is failed and/or seeming to be unfindable - even though I can see this in the Serial-ATA of "about this Mac."

The Google search for the SimpleTech Simple Drive (outdated link removed) brings up photos of the external backup HD that I'm currently running now. When you click on one of these it's Hitachi.

So I am confused as to which of these is what is failed inside my iMac and which is the external by looking at the "about this Mac info."

I look forward to whatever info you might suggest I do tomorrow.

Thank you soo so much for helping me!

The Seagate on 'Serial-ATA' is the internal drive. It won't respond to the SMART query, which is why you're having trouble getting diagnostics on it. Regardless, if it's clunking, you can bet you have a mechanical failure and the drive is toast. Being that you can see the drive in System Profiler, you should be able to see the serial number there. That's a good thing - that means that you should be able to do a warranty check. Here's the site that you'll need to kick off the process:

Test with SeaTools and Submit Return | Seagate

The Hitachi is what is inside of the external.

Replacing the hard drive on that model (iMac 5,1) isn't terribly difficult. The hardest part in my opinion is removing the aluminum tape around the outside of the LCD panel. Apple's service manuals tell you to peel it back, but that's neigh impossible (and likely, your Mac guy has already cut it and probably didn't bother to reseal it). If you want to, you can purchase a roll of aluminum tape at your local hardware store (or Home Depot) and use that to patch it up.

Aside from that, it's a pretty straightforward swap. Unfortunately, drive prices are really high right now due to massive flooding in Thailand, where many drives are manufactured. So, I would definitely see if you can get a warranty replacement for that drive.

Here is a tutorial on replacing your hard drive. There are also MANY YouTube videos that detail the process. Hopefully this helps a bit...

iMac Intel 20" EMC 2105 and 2118 Hard Drive Replacement - iFixit
 
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I can indeed see the serial # to the Seagate :)

I will check all the links you kindly gave me tomorrow. I'll have to see if I can get a receipt of some sort since I didn't buy the Seagate - it was installed by the Mac guy - so he would have the proof - unless they will take my sending them the overall receipt I have from when I paid him for the entire replacement of the crashed HD 2 years ago.

Meanwhile, if I do have to get my own again, wouldn't it be somewhere around $100? My biggest concern is that as time has passed I don't see many drives that say they will use Tiger - unless that makes no difference.

Thank you!
 
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I'm just following up on this - before I do a Seagate return, I would really like to back-up my existing backup that I am running on, to have a second source of my data - just in case something goes wrong in the meantime.

It is making me very nervous running with no backup at all.

When I look at my existing Hitachi SimpleTech drive, it only has 1 port - which is what is connected via USB to my iMac. If I run get another external drive at BestBuy (or wherever) and connect that to my iMac in another USB (or Firewire) port, will I be able to "see" both separate HDs? Will I be able to tell SuperDuper to copy the data from my current Hitachi onto the new external?

Or do these externals have to be connected directly to each other?

Also, does it matter whether the new one specifies that Tiger will run on it? Most of these I see online are for newer versions of OSX, or they don't say anything, nor do they say they are bootable - isn't it SuperDuper and/or my Apple CD Utility that's telling it to "boot" and making it "bootable?"

Doesn't the data just copy & run whether its Tiger or Lion? Or is the Lion specs for the externals' own software they come with (as opposed to using SuperDuper?)

Is this possible for me to do?

Thank you in advance for your kind help.
 
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It's me again hoping you can help me. Bought a new Ext HD to use as backup to the Ext HD I'm currently running on so my system is backed up before I attempt replacing the internal HD.

Ran the SuperDuper all last night (10+ hours) only to get to the last couple of GiBs and have an error - apparently caused by something called AIR.

I have no idea what this is or does, but have spent the entire day today trying to get help from Adobe on how to uninstall whatever this is.

Being that I'm on OS 10.4.11 this is what I see inside my Finder:

/Applications/Utilities/Adobe AIR Application Installer

and

/Applications/Utilities/Adobe AIR Uninstaller

If I click on the Uninstaller, it gives me a message that says "An error occurred while uninstalling Adobe AIR. Uninstallation may not be allowed by your administrator. Please contact your administrator."

I am the only user/owner/administrator

The Adobe Chat person had no clue and told me to go post my question in their Forums (where it looks like many people get no answers.)

I found one area in their Troubleshooting (but don't know if this is for newer Macs) that has to do with typing things in Terminal, which I am completely clueless about and afraid to try without asking you guys if I should do this.

They say to type this in Terminal:

Follow these steps for the manual solution:
1. Using Finder, navigate to your Applications folder and look for a file (not a folder) named "Adobe".* If one exists, rename or delete it.
2. Open the Terminal application in your Applications/Utilities folder.* Run the following commands:
3. sudo chmod -R ug=rwx,o=rx /Applications/Adobe
4. sudo chmod -R ug=rwx,o=rx ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/
5. sudo chmod -R ug=rwx,o=rx ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/AIR/
6. sudo chmod -R ug=rwx,o=rx /Users/Shared/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/
Next, adjust the ownership of a particular folder. Run the following two commands in Terminal, noting the user name response of the "whoami" command.* Replace username with your username in the next command:
1. whoami
2. sudo chown -R username:staff ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/AIR/
Close the Terminal application and rerun the Adobe AIR *installer.*



Should I do this???? Am I going to cause more headaches?

Can I just not trash these and try to backup again?:

/Library/Frameworks/Adobe AIR.framework
/Applications/Utilities/Adobe AIR Application Installer.app
/Applications/Utilities/Adobe AIR Uninstaller.app


Any help you can give me would be hugely appreciated!

Thank you...
 
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I would highly recommend the Seagate GoFlex line with the Thunderbolt adaptor. Fastest connectivity available, and the cheapest Thunderbolt option yet. Although the drive speed is still a bottleneck to the theoretical speed that Thunderbolt should be able to achieve.
 
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Backing Up my Mac

This thread seems to be a great place to ask a question or two:

I have been a PC owner and happily now am a MAC.

1. Why do I want to backup a mac?
2. If I do what do I want to back up?
3. How often do I backup?
4. I have Snow Leopard, should I back up before going to Mountain Lion?
5. My Mac is a 500 GB, I am only using 60 GB what type of an external drive should I purchase?

Any other informatioon would be helpful.

I Love my Mac and want to keep it "safe".

SweetPea
 
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