Building an external Hardrive

[AMAN8951]

I have a new 2.2GHz Intel MacBook, and I'm running out of room with all the movies and music I store. A friend was telling me that I could easily, and cheaply build an external hardrive. He recommended I get a SATA enclosure for it. Is SATA compatible with mac? And if so is there an enclosure you recommend. (if it matters, I'm thinking of getting a 500gig HD.)

I am also not sure if it is smarter to use firewire or USB to connect to the external, I could do either right?

 

[Noels]

AMAN8951,

I'd suggest you buy a new hard drive larger than than one that came with your Macbook and put IT in your Macbbook, use your present internal hard drive as an external (put it in an enclosure). Look for a 2.5" SATA 320GB Western Digital Scorpio (as an example) from Newegg or similar on the web... Here's info on putting a new drive in your Macbook : http://macinstruct.com/node/130

Then get used to your new Mac and go from there with future changes, like getting a larger external if you think you really need it...

You can use either USB or firewire to connect an external.

My opinion, Noel

 

[hughvane]

I agree with Noel about swapping the drives, but if cost is a consideration, you can avoid using an external enclosure by using instead a SATA-USB adaptor kit. About US$18, it is a very useful peripheral, and can be connected to both SATA and ATA drives, also optical drives. I have two of them, and am regularly hooking up 'bare' drives of one sort or another to my Macs.

If you do go the way of an external enclosure, try to locate one with the Oxford chipset, as they seem to give far fewer firewire problems. If it's just USB, almost any 2.5" enclosure will do.

My plug goes with Hitachi drives - very reliable.

 

[jah]

seagate
i just bought a 500g sata 3gig hardrive for $80 from newegg.com

 

[AMAN8951]

Thanks for all the help everyone. Sounds like great advise. I am going to replace my internal and then use that drive as backup. The process doesn't seem too difficult. Sweet!