Advice on an external HD?

Looking for advice on which external HD to buy.  I have an iMac which is beginning to run slow.  My belief is that by saving music, photos, etc onto an external HD, the machine will speed up.  I also want the same HD to work with Time Machine.  Any recommendations on options?  I am looking at Seagate Back Up Plus for Mac, plus WD My Book for Mac.  What isn't clear is whether they will act as 'normal' visible HD as well as working with Time Machines.
Advice appreciated.

Most drives can work as both a normal drive and Time Machine backup. If you're not looking for something particularly portable, the LaCie drives are very reliable, though they seem to have discontinued the best looking ones...
Anyway, hope you found that useful,
J

Similar Messages

  • Advice needed RE: External hard drives?

    Hey Everyone,
    I'm relatively new to the world of Macs and Final Cut, i've been editng on an iMac for about a year now and have never invested in any external media storage.
    I've just got quite e big job that will require me to capture a lot more media than I have ever done before, so think I need to invest in an external hard drive.
    I was speaking to a lad I know and he was saying when I do get one I should connect it via a usb 2.0 connection, yet i've read in a book I have that I should connect via the firewire connection. I'm a bit confused so thought i'd put it to you guys, what do you think is best?
    Also any recommendations on a decent/reliable hard drive (preferably the cheaper the better as i'm fairly skint).
    Any advice would be greatly appreciated,
    Scott

    Purchase a 7200rpm Firewire drive. It's OK if it also has USB connections, you just won't be using that method. Once the drive is connected to your Mac with a Firewire cable, start up your Mac. Go to Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility. When Disk Utility has opened, locate the drive on the left side and highlight it. Select the Erase tab and then select Mac OS Extended as the formatting for the drive. You do not need to have Journaling turned on. Give the drive a name if you wish. Once the drive has been formatted it will be ready for use with your Mac.
    Open FCE and in preferences, set the new drive as the Capture/Scratch volume for FCE. See the FCE help files for details.
    -DH

  • Advice request - which external HDD for Adobe Lightroom?

    Hi,
    I'm going to buy myself an external hdd this week, and I would be very grateful for your advice.
    1) I'm shooting with Nikon D70, Canon A520, and my mobile(;]).
    2) After over 1 year of shooting I have ~130GB of photos taken with these cameras + I have some negative from analog times, which I'm going to scan (I estimate them to be next ~20GB)
    3) I would like to keep all of above photos on external hdd and import them into Abobe Lightroom (tagging + developing), and and of course apply retouching to some of them in PS CS2.
    4) My computers are : old PC desktop with XP, on which I will be only viewing these pictures, and IBM T43 with Vista on which I'm going to do all the developing. [Yes, I know that Apple is better, and I love Apple, but I can'tafford one yet].
    Given above assumptions, which external hdd from the ones I've preselected should I choose ? I'm on the budget here, and the ones that I can afford are :
    WD My Book Pro 250GB USB 2.0/FireWire400/FireWire800 16MB Cache
    WD My Book Premium 320GB USB 2.0/FireWire400 8MB Cache
    WD My Book Essential 500GB USB2.0 8MB Cache
    LaCie Porsche 500GB USB 2.0 8MB Cache
    I'm asking mainly because I don't have any idea about how fast should a drive be to work with Lightroom with decent speed.
    Also : should I buy FireWire controller for my T43 laptop, or will USB 2.0 be enough for my purposes ?
    Thanks in advance for sharing your experience.
    Chris

    >Yes, I know that Apple is better, and I love Apple, but I can't afford one yet
    Either a PC or MAC is fine, but you've entered a field where affordability is proportional to the number of photos you manage, the type of processing you perform and the level of security you are comfortable with. This is entirely separate of your budget.
    USB2 and/or Firewire Drives work fine. From your list, I've owned both the LaCie Porsche and a WD MyBook. They both failed for different reasons. All hard drives will eventually fail. If you can't afford to lose your photo library you need some sort of redundency. The reliability of that redundency (RAID) and or speed of retrieval determines what technology is the minimum you need to afford. Or, if you have more time than budget, you can archive on DVDs. Keep in mind that even DVD's will fail over time.
    The faster the drive, the faster the backup (redundency), the faster the throughput, and the faster you have access to managing and processing your image library.
    Did I answer your question: No. However, whatever you get, and assuming you value your photos, make sure you get two of them so you can build some redundency into your budget. If you're feeling lucky, get the largest drive you can afford and make sure you leave yourself a lot of time for those backups.
    Welcome to "photo shoebox management" of the new millenium! It ain't cheap ... :-)

  • Advice about a external RAID system for my iMac

    OK, so I have a few questions and bare with me because while I'd say I'm rather tech-literate I know very little about RAID arrays.
    I need to expand my external storage and right now I'm looking at getting a RAID enclosure and populating it with disks. The other alternative is a Drobo, but I'll get to that in a second.
    Let's say I got a RAID enclosure which was filled with four 2TB HDDs. I've been looking into my options and for what I'm looking for it would be either RAID5 or RAID10. From what I gather, RAID10 is faster but RAID5 is higher capacity? Are there any other differences in terms of reliability that would make RAID10 better than RAID5?
    I hear that RAID10 repairs faster than RAID5 but for my purposes that's not mission critical as long as the rest of my data isn't inaccessible while the repair is going on.
    My real concern is what's the process of repairing and expanding RAID5 and RAID10 arrays? Let's say I had some extra money and wanted to add two 3TB HDDs to my array. Would it be more difficult with RAID5 or RAID10, or would there be no real practical difference?
    Now, the other reason I ask all of this is because a Drobo requires no management at all for any of these tasks. I basically drop in the drives and let it do it's thing. Are RAIDs so much trouble that there's a real benefit to this or is that really only for people who are just that tech-illiterate?
    I don't know, and that's why I'm asking. I'd really appreciate any advice you guys could give me at this time.
    What I basically want is a drive I can use for file storage that's fast enough that I can pull HD content from it and have it run smooth as glass (which I imagine any FireWire system would be able to). I'm not using it for video editing, I'm probably not going to use it for backups unless you can partition a RAID array in such a way as I can section off 1TB of it just for backups (not necessary, I do have a drive for that).

    I did some research and, from the sound of it, the way I'd increase a RAID5 array is to just swap out drives for higher-capacity drives and let it repair itself and once I had upgraded them all form 2TB to 3TB I'd have the increased space.
    The problem is the RAID enclosure I was looking at didn't support the ability to do that, for some reason.
    Still no idea about RAID10 but I think after researching it a bit more I'm going with a Drobo S. It'll cost me more (no surprise there) but the lack of any required management on my end really makes up for that. Plus, instead of having to buy four 3TB drives when I decide to increase capacity, I can just buy them one at a time.

  • Advice about an external DVD drive

    Hi there,
    Pardon the basic questions, a computer genius I am not.
    I have a rather elderly iMac G4 running 10.4.11 and it has never been able to even see DVDs. I am facing necessary software upgrades which come in a DVD format. Is an external DVD drive what I get? Will my poor iMac see a DVD coming from an external drive? I have always found it annoying that I have the DVD player software but I can't use it.
    Note: if a solution contains advice about replacing my hard drive, please know that particular drama happened this summer when the original hard drive died. After much angst, my iMac is working well; I just need to be able to load software in a DVD format.
    thank you!
    suzy

    Yes an external DVD optical drive will work. The cost needs to be considered, is it worth it.
    You could opt to go the cheapest way possible; search Ebay on the PC side(since a high % are not as overall savvy as Mac users) look for the older Sony CDR burners, these were blue external enclosures which housed CDR burners. You can purchase modern DVDR player/burners cheaply now a days and install the optical drive into one of those Sony enclosures. The reason I suggest Sony is way back when they were expensive but well made and work to this day all the way to Leopard. You should be able to pick one up for $25.00 plus a good optical drive for less than $50.00
    BTW "necessary software upgrades" if you don't mind what are the upgrades and why only on DVD media? There are other ways to skin this cat.

  • Advice on usb external drives

    let me start by saying i love my new intel imac i bought in march. its doing what i need it to do and much much more.im going to need backup space soon for photos,video clips,audio ect. i was hoping for any advice on what are my best options for usb external drives.
    p.s.im waiting till i can back up all my OSX stuff before i install bootcamp
    looking foward to playing around with that !
    thanks............

    My advice is to not bother with USB. Get a USB/FireWire drive instead. It is more flexible - meaning you can use it on older Macs and PCs without USB - without sacrificing the speed and reliablility of FW.
    The USB/FW drives do not cost that much more than a plain USB drive. Be sure to get a drive with the Oxford 911 chipset as they are the most stable and reliable chipset out there. Avoid the Prolific chipset.
    I like the Mercury Elite Pro drives from OWC. Mine has never let me down and I plan to get another one soon. You can also buy the enclosure and add your own drive. It is very easy to do.
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  • Advice on 2TB external storage for 1080 DVCPRO HD footage

    I'm trying to find the best external storage for editing on a 17" Macbook Pro.
    I'll be working on a feature shot with the HVX-200 at 1080i/24pa. I'm figuring we'll need approximately 2TB of storage.
    Are FW800 drives fast enough to edit 1080?
    Is it possible to run a 2TB SATA raid off the ExpressCard?
    And as a side question, is the Macbook Pro fast enough to handle 1080? (we haven't purchased the system yet). It sounds to me like it will be, but wanted to see if anyone had any real world experience with it.
    To be honest, I know just enough about the brave new world of the HVX-200 to get myself in trouble, so bear with me.
    Any advice on the drives, and even good vendors to get them from, is much appreciated.
    17" Macbook Pro   Mac OS X (10.4.7)  

    Why are you shooting 1080? This camera does best at
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    small at 720p24...just 22GB/hour. And since the
    chips are really ideal for 720p...I see no gain in
    shooting 1080i.
    But that is me.
    I just finished a show that was a mix of Varicam and
    HVX and I edited 720p, and output to 1080p, and it
    looked great. Airing on TV this Friday. Sadly, in
    Standard Def...
    Shane
    That's a good question. lol.
    The director wants 1080 because there's potentially going to be a 35mm blowup at the end of all this. Depending on who you ask, I've heard 720 may lose anywhere from 10-30% resolution on blowup compared to 1080.
    Though it's been a back and forth decision. He's not 100% sold on 1080 (especially because we're finding few people have done it with the HVX-200) and 720 sure makes the workflow much easier.
    That's been a question we've been unable to find a good answer to, is shooting 1080i really that much better (to justify all the extra work in the process) than just shooting 720/24pn and doing an upres at the end?
    how exactly are the chips ideal for 720p?
    By the way, I've been reading your blog. It's one of the best sources I've found out on the net for this stuff... Keep up the good work.
    17" Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)
    17" Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)

  • Buying advice - use as external hard drive

    I have a 250GB MacBook Pro, and - perhaps because it's a laptop with no fixed location - I just don't get round to backing up as much as I should. Also, the hard drive is not that far off full already. I'm wondering whether Time Capsule might be the way to solve both issues. I have a few questions:
    - am I right in thinking that Time Capsule, as well as backing up wirelessly, can act as a normal external hard drive (i.e. visible in Finder when connected wirelessly)? If so, I could - for example - save large iMovie projects to it? Or would working off Time Capsule be prohibitively slow? And I guess I'd then have the same issue of backup, although I suppose i could attach another hard drive to the time capsule!
    - I already have a wireless router through my ISP, and I only have one computer in the house, so I'm not sure i'm going to benefit from the networking aspects of Time Capsule. Are there any other advantages to having Time Capsule that I'm missing? For example, could i connect a fairly bog standard printer to it and then print wirelessly?
    - I've looked into it a bit online, and the summary seems to be 'nice idea but doesn't really work that well at the moment'. Am i best off waiting to see if the technology improves?
    Cheers
    Jon

    If you are using the time capsule only for a print server and as network storage, it's a good tool - too expensive a solution, but a good solution.
    However, don't expect to use it for automatic backups at all. It's perhaps the most flawed piece of hardware ever produced by Apple, at least as regards its intended use.
    I've had one for six months. I use it for network storage and it's great. They don't tell you, but you can't mix network storage with automatic backup. The disk is supposed to be one or the other, but not both. If you want to partition it, forget that, unless you want to crack it open, which is a ridiculous solution given what the thing costs.
    I really wanted it for time machine backups - it is an unmitigated failure, and after trying extensively to get it to work over the six months I've had it, I have yet to get one successful time machine backup to the time capsule. I keep expecting Apple to call and apologize and refund my money, but I haven't heard from them yet.
    My advice - use a directly connected external drive (firewire 800). Partition it and do time machine backups and external storage. Buy a network print server for about $60 bucks. You can do all that for less than $200, and not waste the money on this entirely failed appliance.

  • Advice sought on external hard drives

    Could somebody please suggest a good quality external hard drive to use with a Mac PowerBook G4, which would be compatible with OSX 10.3.9 and 10.5 (which I will be installing shortly)?
    Thanks!

    Welcome to the Apple discussions.
    For something different, I've built my own drives. I buy a case then add a 3.5" hard drive, the benefit is that it is warranteed by the manufacturer for longer than the pre-built drives. The longest warranty is Seagate at 5 years, and I like to use Western Digital, whose drives come with a 3 year warranty (some of theirs come with 1 year, too).
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  • Files Disappeared on Wall Street , Need Advice, And on External Hard Drives

    My memory was low so I was in the process of archiving files when some of the folders in my Desktop documents folder disappeared. I had begun transferring files into Toast when it happened. The computer had previously been in sleep mode during the night.
    When I searched for the contents using Find File. it listed them in the same place or as unavailable. I restarted, turned off extensions I didn't need, transferred some of the files still showing on my HD onto my USB JumpDrive for temp storage and rebuilt the desktop. When I ran Norton Disk Doctor, it found problems with the Catalog B-tree, which makes sense since it's the "data structure where files are stored on your disk." Norton was able to fix some of the issues, but not all, and was not able to finish scanning the disk. I ran it again, with the same results and also checked out UnErase.
    When I rebooted without the Norton Disk, some of the missing files reappeared, with the exception of the folder I was trying to copy at the time. My tech repair guy says that due to corruption, I should wipe my HD to zero and reinstall everything, with additional GB hard drive space, of course. What do you guys think? Is this the best course of action? And if so, how pressing is it to do so immediately, since my computer had been running for quite some time without trouble on less than optimum memory space. Any tips on external hard drives that are compatible with the Wall Street?
    I currently have 247 MB available. Luckily, I had previously made a backup of everything except my Outlook Express identity folder, for my e-mail, which is too large to back up to CD. So I'm hoping this will not crash in the interim!
    Your replies are much appreciated!

    Hi Leslie,
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    Norton Utilities receives some bad rap on this forum, but sometimes it's all you have (Diskwarrior and TechTool are usually recommended). With NU you particularly have to be careful to use versions that are at least the same generation as the OS you are using. I usually go with Disk First Aid as a first shot since it's made by the people who made the computer.
    Assuming you're okay with the situation about the recovered files then I'd say starting with a clean drive would be good. Keep in mind though that the files will be gone for good. I don't know if you need to really zero the drive, just reinitialize ("erase") it. I'd also run some utility to check the integrity of the drive to see whether the problem was due to the drive starting to fail. You might be able to continue to work with it as-is but it would be nice to know why your drive got corrupted in the first place. At least clear up some room. You might also want to check on the fragmentation status and at least do a clean OS install just in case some of those files are on their way out too.
    I don't know the Wall Street model myself, but I see it is a G3 powerbook. If it has USB or Firewire capability then I'd get an external Firewire drive (USB would be very slow but would still work). My backup procedure is to have an external HD the same size as my internal one. Then I can just drag the internal to the external once a week and let it copy overnight. That way I don't have to be bothered with copying select files and if the OS files get messed up I don't have to re-customize my preferences, control panels and extensions (I'm still an OS 9 man!)
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  • Purchasing Advice: Internal vs External/Firewire vs USB

    My parents have a late 2006 iMac (17-inch, 2.0GHz) that has a 160 GB hard drive. Their iTunes library is becoming quite large with lots of music and movies and the hard drive is close to full these days. So I was wondering if it would be good enough to keep the iTunes library on an external hard drive or would you guys advise to run it from an upgraded internal drive? Personally I don't think the hard drive upgrade is too difficult but I'd rather not do it if I don't have to. Also if external is good enough, is it better to use Firewire (in this case 400) or USB, when iTunes is being used for several hours a day? Also what are the recommended brands of external drives?

    I have to agree with Barbara on this. In fact I keep most of my large data files (photos and music) on external FW 800 drives. The only thing I keep on my internal drive is smaller data files, apps and OS X. As it turns out I also use Lacie drives, I have 3 one for Time Machine, another for a bootable backup using SuperDuper and the last for my iTunes library and growing Aperture library. All three are daisy chained together which has been dead reliable. From what I've been able to gather the following seem to be the most popular choices. All have similar features and build quality.
    OWC Mercury Pro series
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    G-Tech G Drive series
    Regards,
    Roger

  • Need advice on what external hard drive to purchase-

    hello everyone-
    i couldn't find a similar topic so i thought i'd post this.
    i'm looking to buy a hard drive to support my laptop but as usual trying to buy something can be quite a fuss with all the choices and reviews.
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    If you don't need the portability of having the data remotely with you, I'd suggest you get an external firewire drive (you'll want FW if you want to boot from an external drive). Further, I'd recommend you assemble your own. Here are some considerations using a 320gb drive as an example:
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  • Advice on connecting external drive with all of my media

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    My old computer stopped working and I took out the drive that contained all of my photos and videos that I use with LR and I am now using the drive as a bare bones drive connected to a docking station to another Mac.
    The Lightroom folder was on another drive of the broken computer, so I copied that entire folder to the desktop of the new Mac. Everything seemed to open on its own when I opened Lightroom on the new Mac.
    I want to add LOTS of new photos to LR, and I just want to check to make sure that this workflow will not cause any problems before I begin.
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    2. The Lightroom folder containing the catalog is currently on my desktop, it was previously stored on the other Mac inside the Pictures folder. I might keep it on the desktop for now, though I might move it somewhere else later. Are there any issues with moving it around like this?
    Thanks.

  • Advice sought for external display for old mac book pro

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    I've had a look on the web and can see there is a lot of choice - but I would rather go on the opinion of fellow macophiles!
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    If it's a PowerBook G4:
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  • Need advice on purchasing an external hard drive for video editing

    Hi,
    I looking for advice on which external hard drive to get. The main purpose for the hard drive will be storing video files on for use with Final Cut Pro. I have the 12 inch powerbook G4 so I plan to use the FireWire (400) port to connect the drive. I'm interested in getting comment from others who use their external hard drives for video editing.
    Thanks!

    Firstly your decision to use FireWire is a good one, as not only will it free up the USB it performs much better on sustained transfers.
    That said you're still limited by the FireWire interface, so opt for a drive with a big cache (16MB would be good) and fast spindle speed (7200rpm+).
    Some of the newer enclosures are compatible with SATA drives. While these are easier to install and theoretically will perform better, I'm not sure that the performance would justify the extra cost.
    Matt

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