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

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External Hard Drive

Hi, I have an iMac and I am into video editing so need more storage for my mac.

I have been looking for an external hard drive for quite a while now but can't find one right for me.

I need one that is firewire and transfers data as quick as possible and I need it to be at least 500GB.

What external hard drives do you own and/or would you recommend?


Thanks in advance!

Jon


PS. Anyone know what dual firewire does?
 
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IIRC Dual Firewire simply means it has 2 Firewire ports so you can daisy chain Firewire devices off of it.

If you're smart, you'll go out and buy an empty case that you like and then buy a drive to put in it. You get more bang for your buck this way. This way you get to decide what you want and can take advantage of sales on drives and empty cases. Any goo computer store (FRY's, CompUSA, BestBuy etc) will have this stuff, or you can look on-line and probably get even better deals.
 
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I bought a 500GB WD Mybook premiem. It has a USB2.0 and Firewire400. It was only $179CAD at Costco. It would have cost me that or more to buy a 500GB HD then buy a firewire enclosure.
 
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Similar situation

How did it go?

I have a similar problem, I have a La Cie External NAS drive.

I smelled something funny inside the unit so I immediately shut it down and extracted the hard drive.

I'm going to buy an external USB enclosure to access the data via that route.

Where you sucessful?
 
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Maxtor Vs Seagate

Today I went out and bought a Maxtor Onetouch III for my iMac and when I got home I saw alot of online reviews saying that Maxtor is rubbish etc.

I am now really worried that my drive will not last long and I may lose important data.

Seagate FreeAgents seam to be the most popular option but on the description for them it says (Read Only) next to OS X. What does this mean?


What do you think? Should I return my Maxtor asap and spend a little more on a Seagate?

Thanks In Advance.
 
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I have a Seagate 500 gig and it seems alright. It comes formatted in NTFS which means that OSX can only read it and not write to it. For the Mac to be able to write to the drive it must be formatted as a FAT32 volume or with HFS+ which is the Mac file format.
 
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External Hard-Disk

I have a Macbook and want to buy an external hard-disk to save my edited movies. Can I use this same hard-disk on both the PC and the Mac?
 
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Yes you can. You have the option of a variety of shared file systems. If you are just going to put movies on it, Windows FAT32 will likely work just fine, and is supported natively by both Mac OS X and Windows.
 
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I was told at PC World that the Mac requires NTFS and would NOT be compatible with the PC. I would like to keep a hard-disk to save BOTH my Mac and my PC vids.
 
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I was told at PC World that the Mac requires NTFS and would NOT be compatible with the PC. I would like to keep a hard-disk to save BOTH my Mac and my PC vids.

Mac is in THEORY compatible with FAT32, which Windows is too. However, there have been problems for many since the Mac OS 10.4.10 "update". Many of us, including myself, can no longer access our FAT32 drives. I do not know if that is everyone or not. So you might like to check with the specific computer you are looking to buy.

I hope they fix that terrible update soon!
Justin
 
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Mac is in THEORY compatible with FAT32, which Windows is too. However, there have been problems for many since the Mac OS 10.4.10 "update". Many of us, including myself, can no longer access our FAT32 drives. I do not know if that is everyone or not. So you might like to check with the specific computer you are looking to buy.

I hope they fix that terrible update soon!
Justin

Hi
Sorry I just read the answers to an inquiry I posted. It seems most people with Macbooks are actually having no problems with their FAT32 drives. So perhaps the proportion of people who suffered this from the 10.4.10 update are small. (Perhaps that's why they didn't fix it!)
Justin
 
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I have a brand new MacBook. Does that mean I would be ok to buy any external hard-disk and then use it with the XP PC? The box of a Seagate HD definitely said requires re-formatting for Mac?
 
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I have a brand new MacBook. Does that mean I would be ok to buy any external hard-disk and then use it with the XP PC? The box of a Seagate HD definitely said requires re-formatting for Mac in NTFS is required?
 

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I think you may have mis-read the box.

Basically, a hard drive can be formatted using three different file systems:

- NTFS: This is a Windows file system. Your Mac will be able to read files that are saved on the drive, but will not be able to write to the drive (i.e., you won't be able to save documents on there from your Mac)

- HFS+: This is the Mac file system. If the drive is formatted to HFS+ your Windows computer won't be able to recognise it

- FAT32: This is an old Windows file system. If you format your drive to FAT32 you can use it (read & write to it) on both your Windows computer and your Mac

It's probably best for you to format it to FAT32 if you want to use the external drive on both Windows and Mac. There are some limitations of FAT32 that you should be aware of, however. The main limitation is that the maximum file size you can save on a FAT32 drive is 4GB (you mentioned that you will be using this drive for movies - this might pose a problem if your movie files are bigger than 4BG)

If FAT32 isn't going to work, you do have other options. For example, you could consider:

- Partitioning the drive and having the different partitions formatted in different file systems.
- Formatting it as HFS+ and buy a program called "MacDrive" for your windows computer that will enable Windows to use HFS+ drives
- Looking into other file systems (E.g., ext2)
 
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My Books

Has anyone have any experience with the Western Digital My Book external hard drives, the Pro edition in particular. I was looking at the 320 GB version as a complement to my MBP, since it's twice what i have in the computer. I wanted to get one with the Firewire 800 since it's faster than USB. This is where i'll be getting it from: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=WishList.jsp&A=details&Q=&sku=494442&is=REG. Does anyone have any opinions or reviews on it?
 
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I think the idea of two different partitions sounds like the best way to proceed? Is this is a complex procedure?
 
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I would argue that it is simpler and better to stay with a single partition; much easier to manage the overall space then. Here is my oft posted run down on the options you have available for that single partition:

Both Mac and PC now support four common file systems:

1/ FAT32 - The older, lesser Windows standard file system
2/ NTFS - Win NT, 2000, XP and Vista all default to this
3/ ext2/3 - Mac, Win and Linux all share this format
4/ HFS+ - this is the native Mac OS X format.

Here is how to do each one:

1/ FAT32 - this is supported natively by both Windows and Mac. Just format your drive for it and both Win and Mac can read and write. Drawbacks? It has no file permission model, making it somewhat insecure, plus causing the loss of Mac OS X's carefully crafted per file permissions as you transfer things back and forth. FAT32 is "cheap and cheerful", but not recommended.

2/ NTFS - This has been supported by Windows for a long time, and has just very, very recently become available in full read/write mode for Macs. See the following thread, by Paragon Software, advertising beta availability of their NTFS for Mac:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76246&highlight=Paragon

This *is* beta, and it will be shareware, but first reports are that it works very well. Previous file system offerings from Paragon seem very well regarded. They have been in the file system driver business for a lot of years.

NTFS does have a more mature permissions model than FAT32 and is generally more secure. This option is better than the first one.

3/ ext2/3 - this is the standard Linux file system. Both Windows and Mac have installable file system drivers for it. For the Mac, see this:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx

and for the PC, see this:

http://www.fs-driver.org

ext2/3 is an extremely mature, fast and very well regarded file system. It supports pretty much the same full file permissions model that HFS+ does (both, after all, are *nix based file systems), making it a recommended solution. Both the Mac and PC drivers are free, so that is attractive too.

4/ HFS+. This is the Mac standard system. To enable this for the PC, you need to get MacDrive. This mature and well regarded piece of software adds seamless support for HFS+ to your PC. If you are willing to spend the money, it may be the best solution of all.

So, there you have it. LOTS of ways to share your hard drive between your PC and your Mac.
 
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I have a 250 and 500GB and I really like them. I don't know if other externals do this, but they shut down after a few minutes of idle, which is nice since I always have them plugged in via a USB hub and I don't want them running constantly. Plus, they're pretty nice-looking to have sitting on a desk or shelf. The new ones are even nicer! WD is a big name drive maker and pretty reliable, so you shouldn't have to worry about reliability issues.
 
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I give mine an A++++ :)
 
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I noticed it has an 8 mb buffer, what does that do, like is that better or worse than a 16 mb buffer?
 
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