I'm an iMac G5 user and need to purchase an external hard drive to permanently house my iTunes library (ideally via Firewire). Can you recommend any product?
I would like to keep it permanently plugged into my computer so that listening to music from iTunes will be as seamless as it is now whilst hosted on my computer. Having to unplug and replug cables every time is too difficult.
I've been reading about the WD My Book Studio Edition Firewire 400/800 & eSATA drive. There were some posts on Amazon from Mac users that concerned me, including:
- when computer goes to sleep and is awakened again, it doesn't immediately recognise the HD (this would be a major issue for me)
- it cannot act as a start up disc (not sure what this means but if I can't start up iTunes from the HD every time I power on computer then it would be a problem)
- have to power HD on before you connect cable or Mac might not recognise it (not just if this is just the first time you use it or every time -- if it's the latter than that would be an issue)
- there were posts that questioned the software compatibility that comes with the HD for Mac users + potential extended license fee after a 30-day trial (ideally I don't want to pay for anything more than the HD)
- there were some suggestions that firmware upgrades could solve some of the above (I'm a bit of a novice and don't understand what that means so if anyone could explain further, that would be great)
- there were several posts about partitioning that I didn't understand (please explain why this is necessary, and is it easy to do? if it is necessary to access software included on HD before you do this, please explain how and why.)
Apologies for the long post but thanks in advice for sharing any knowledge and experiences you have!
I would like to keep it permanently plugged into my computer so that listening to music from iTunes will be as seamless as it is now whilst hosted on my computer. Having to unplug and replug cables every time is too difficult.
I've been reading about the WD My Book Studio Edition Firewire 400/800 & eSATA drive. There were some posts on Amazon from Mac users that concerned me, including:
- when computer goes to sleep and is awakened again, it doesn't immediately recognise the HD (this would be a major issue for me)
- it cannot act as a start up disc (not sure what this means but if I can't start up iTunes from the HD every time I power on computer then it would be a problem)
- have to power HD on before you connect cable or Mac might not recognise it (not just if this is just the first time you use it or every time -- if it's the latter than that would be an issue)
- there were posts that questioned the software compatibility that comes with the HD for Mac users + potential extended license fee after a 30-day trial (ideally I don't want to pay for anything more than the HD)
- there were some suggestions that firmware upgrades could solve some of the above (I'm a bit of a novice and don't understand what that means so if anyone could explain further, that would be great)
- there were several posts about partitioning that I didn't understand (please explain why this is necessary, and is it easy to do? if it is necessary to access software included on HD before you do this, please explain how and why.)
Apologies for the long post but thanks in advice for sharing any knowledge and experiences you have!