Back up options

How's it goin everyone? I don't have much room left on my mac, so I need to either get an external HD or a DVD burner to put some files on to make room and to as back up. But at the moment, I can only get a HD or burner, so if you had to, which would be the better option for now? Also, if you get a HD, once you load things onto it, mp3's for example, could you run iTunes from it, if I didn't want the files on my mac? I'm just curious because I don't know if the HDs are like storage or if it's basically the same as having an internal drive. Of course I won't do that til I eventually get my DVD burner to make back ups of the mp3's.

get an external firewire hard drive. you dont have to worry about finding disks you backed up, scratching them, and the general pain of having to make them.

yes you can move all your stuff over there that you want although i suggest you keep some stuff on your computer.

what computer do you use right now?

Well, I don't know much about this stuff, so is firewire another way to connect mac to HD, as opposed to USB, or is it just with transferring data? In the time I've been searching, I haven't found one that says anything about firewire, so I'll look around some more, since I only started looking today Here is one HD that I came across, so can someone tell me if this is a good deal and if the specs are ok? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144381 If you know of a better site/brand/deal, let me know. Btw coach z, you were asking, I have the original mac mini.

If you want the option of booting from an external drive (a life saver if you do regular imaging to it), you'll need a firewire drive. I have a Lacie, a Samsung PATA drive in a Mad Dog Multimedia enclosure, and a Maxtor in an iRock external enclosure. Firewire is definitely the way to go, whether you buy the external drive as a whole, or whether you put your own drive in an external enclosure.

A few suggestions:

Mad Dog 3.5" USB/Firewire Mega Vault Enclosure

LaCie 250 GB External Firewire Drive

If you decide on an enclosure like the Mad Dog, make sure you confirm whether it accepts PATA or SATA drives, and purchase your hard drive accordingly.

Shop around, often you can put it together yourself, and end up saving money, while still having a great performing external firewire drive (the Samsung OEM drives in the Mad Dog enclosure for example).

Mark

firewire is constantly faster than usb2.0. even if you dont ever plan to boot off the drive getting files there much faster when doing things is a great feature.

i just sold my old drive to a guy on the forums and i put it together myself a while ago and it basically cost me a lot less than buying a premade drive.

if assembling a drive sounds scary to you at all it is as simple as this:
it will come with 2 or 3 wires, plug similar wires into eachother, screw together, plug into computer, turn on drive.

ill post what i might suggest later
-chris

edit: i asked what computer you had so that we could recommend different drives for different situations, some may be more convienent to haul around, others are shock resistant, and some just fit nice on a desk.