PC/Mac compatible external hard drives

Hello all,

Newbie to this board, so I apologize if this is a repetitive thread, but I've scoured the forum lookin for my answer and was unsuccessful.

I recently upgraded to a MacBook Pro (btw THOROUGHLY satisfied ), and I'm interested in a 500 GB external hard drive. Its primary use will be storage and backup for the MBP, but I want to transfer all of my old files (documents, video, music, etc.) from my old Dell laptop. I'm also into recording my own music via Logic Pro 7, so the drive has to be able to handle high definition audio easily.

My questions are:

1) Western Digital MyBook Pro 500GB vs. LaCie d2 Quadra 500 GB vs. another brand I'm unaware of? I'm talkin in terms of not failing aka losing all my precious data and songs, and which is best suited for high definition audio a la Logic?

2) How should I format whichever drive I end up getting? Again, the primary use is for the MacBook Pro, but I do want to be able to transfer all my old data off of the Dell without having to burn it all to CDs. FAT32, NTFS, NAS, I'm not very well versed in what these all mean.


Thank you very very much in advance to anyone who answers these questions.

Either of the drives you mentioned are fine. As for formatting and partitioning the drive, how much space do you need for your files from the Dell? Ideally, the partition for the MBP backup should be at least the same size as its internal hard drive.

In order to use a partition on an external drive to backup your MBP it should be formatted as HFS+. The partition for the Windows files - as long as you have none larger than around 4 Gb - can be FAT-32. Your MBP can read and write to FAT-32. If the Windows files are 4 Gb or larger, use NTFS. Mac OS X can read NTFS but without third party software can not write to it.

Regards.