Advise...what external hard drive to buy....ASAP!!

I have an iMac and I have over 15,000 pictures that I want to store on an external hard drive in case something happens to my Mac. I want a hard drive that is already formatted for a Mac (snow Leopard) but I can't spend a fortune. Any advise would be helpful. Thank you in advance!!

There are three I'd recommend:
OWC Mercury Elite Pro series
Lacie Quadra d2 series
G-Tech G-Drive series
All are great drives, personally I use the Lacie but wouldn't hesitate with the other 2. All have great build quality & feature set. For your needs I'd recommend getting a drive with Firewire 800 for it's speed.
Roger

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What External Hard Drive to Buy, any Suggestions.

Hi all, i need an external hard drive. Easily answered i hear you say, here's where it gets harder. I dont want to buy a case and a drive and then build it, i want to buy it off the shelf. I need....................
Firewire
Oxford chipset
300-500 GB
and most importantly not going to cause me grief as im going to be using it with ProTools LE
Thanks in advance guys.

I just bought my second Vantek NexStar 2 enclosure model NST-355UF. It is the firewire case my usual source recommends because they have been reliable. I am getting a Seagate 320G drive to go in the case. It's 7200 RPM with 16 MB of buffers. The extra buffers should help with smooth streaming. And right now it seems to be the best buy in capacity and speed per dollar.
I don't know if Vantek uses the Oxford chip set. Neither System Profiler nor Disk Utility appears to report the remote chip set and there is no mention in the manual. If you know any easy way to check, I'd like to find out.
I can say that it works well with Final Cut Express, using firewire passthrough to my camera for both video capture and display during editing. That's a fairly demanding use, so there's a good chance that it will be OK for audio.
Two advantages of the case: it has an efficient switching power supply, and an internal fan. The fan can be important with a 7200 rpm drive. The down side is that it tends to transmit vibration to the desk it is sitting on despite having rubber "vibration dampers". I ended up putting it on a piece of flat cardboard with a layer of foam underneath.

Going to upgrade to Lion. First have to back up computer. What external hard drive should I buy to back up computer using "time machine". Have 320 gb hard drive.

I am going to upgrade to Lion. First have to back up computer. What external hard drives should I buy in order to use time machine. I have a 320 GB hard drive. Don't have too much on computer.

patmc102 wrote:
I am going to upgrade to Lion. First have to back up computer. What external hard drives should I buy in order to use time machine. I have a 320 GB hard drive. Don't have too much on computer.
Buy an external drive 320G or larger (much larger is preferable). I do not recommend you use TM for this, instead download a copy of Carbon Copy Cloner and make a clone of your drive. Once this is done you have 2 choices, you can download and install Lion on your internal drive just as you planned or download and install Lion to the external clone, the 2nd method allows you to test the Lion install before committing to it. If the clone with Lion is to your liking then just clone it back to the internal.

I recently purchased a Mac Book Air and wanted to know what would be the best external hard drive to buy as far as the brand and GB or TB are concerned? I will basically just be storing music, papers, and a lot of pictures.

I recently purchased a Mac Book Air and wanted to know what would be the best external hard drive to buy as far as the brand and GB or TB are concerned? I will basically just be storing music, papers, and a lot of pictures. Also, how should I go about charging my computer? Should I wait until it is close to dying and then charge it?

I have had good success with HGST and Seagate HDDs. I suggest a HDD that is powered by the MBA eliminating the need for an AC cord. They now come up to 1.5 TB in capacity. In my opinion, one cannot have too much storage. If necessary, let your bank account be your guide.
Ciao.

What external hard drive to you recommend to free up space on an old Macbook Pro?

My Macbook Pro is approx. 5 years old. I have since gotten an imac, however would like to use my old Creative Suite 2 on the macbook. When I updated it to "Lion" - it denied access to my creative suite apps. I have since contacted Adobe, and they have given me a solution to get it up and running again, however, my startup disk is just about FULL. Therefore I can't upgrade or really even open more than one app without getting the warning pop up about getting rid of some files asap or risk malfunction of the laptop.
What external hard drive do you recommend to get the most bang for my buck in terms of offloading a massive amount of photos to in order to be able to use the laptop again?

Your picture folder would have to be 10 times larger and then it would be close to 1 TB in size. I have an aphorism, 'one cannot have too much storage'. If the bank account can afford it, follow Ralph's advice and do go for the larger storage drive. Given enough time, you might just grow into it..
Now there is an issue that you should consider. Since these pictures will no longer be on your MBP, do you want to have them backed up? If so, you then are going to need an additional HDD to store the backups. All HDDs will eventually fail, you just do not know when.
Ciao.

Have old MacBook Pro running tiger 10.4 want to save date to external hard drive and buy newer MacBook and still use same drive. Any suggestions, most WD drives say nothing about os tiger 10.4.

Have old MacBook Pro running tiger 10.4 want to save date to external hard drive and buy newer MacBook and still use same drive. Any suggestions, most WD drives say nothing about os tiger 10.4. The OS compatibility is much newer on the data. Totally confused. Not a computer person.

I haven't checked reviews recently but there's a difference between bare drives and drives with enclosures. Western Digital made some of the most reliable drives last time I checked, though the enclosures weren't all that great. It is convenient to get both in one package but I usually buy a highly rated enclosure and then put a highly rated drive in it myself. OWC sells some good enclosures but if they put a so-so drive inside of it then the package is only as good as its weakest component. If you get a package from them, ask them what drive is inside (some vendors have no idea what's inside - went to an Apple Store recently and they couldn't tell me what was inside some of their Apple brand enclosures). My first thought if buying a new drive would be to buy a OWC enclosure with a WD drive, but chek around because I may be out of date.
10 years ago Seagate was one of the best drives. Now they rate poorly in reviews.

What external Hard drive should I use for Final Cut Pro?

Hi:
I have a Mac Pro and I'm planning to work with HD. What external hard drive should I use?
PD: I have a NVIDIA on a PCI Express graphic slot.
Thanks,
Cabezon

You'll need to be much more specific; there are 20 or 60 different kinds of high definition. Some require nothing, some require superfast RAID, some require specialized hardware support.
bogiesan

What external hard drives are compatible w/ lion, snow leopard and time machine?

I am looking to buy an external hard drive to back up all data on my Macbook Pro that is currently running Snow Leopard, then upgrading to Lion. I want an external hard drive that is compatible with BOTH Snow Leopard (for use of creating a backup prior to my upgrade) and Lion (for daily use once I've upgraded). I also don't want to spend more than $100 if possible. Any suggestions? Thanks!

There is currently a shortage of drives due to flooding in one of the countries in which they are manufactured.
Getting one for under $100 at this point might be difficult. You didn't mention how full your current hard drive is, but for Time Machine, you should plan on two to three times the data you currently have (or expect to have).
I looked through Newegg's selection and didn't see more than a couple 1TB drives for less than $100. I recently bought a 3TB drive for $150. They're in the $200-$300 range, now.
I always buy bare drives and put them in an enclosure I buy separately. All the name-brand, ready-to-use drives come with a bunch of software you don't need and some of their software causes problems.
I had some bad luck/bad customer service with Seagate, so I've been buying Western Digital. Though, my replacement drives from Seagate have been going fine.
I've used Icy Dock and MacAlly enclosures. Both have worked well. If you do decide to go that route, you must make sure the enclosure can support the size of drive you buy (both physical--2.5" or 3.5", and storage size--1TB, 2TB, 3TB). The controllers in the cases may not be able to handle a 3TB drive, for example.
No matter how you go, you have to decide what kind of interface you want to use. USB is cheaper, but Firewire is faster. Firewire 800 is even faster, but costs more. All of that depends on what ports you have on the computer. OS X doesn't currently support USB 3.

Types of external hard drives to buy.

Hi,
can anyone provide me with some advice on purchasing external hard drives. What I'm looking for is a high capacity drive around 1-2 TB that will allow two users to access the same files at once. In other words mount on two seperate computers at once. I believe the answer is found in RAID drives but I'm not that clued up on RAID drives and need a bit of help. The external hard drives I've looked at so far are ones from Western Digital and G-Raid.
If its not possible to obtain a drive that will allow me to mount it onto to seperate computers at once and read the same files then I would settle for a solid external drive that can:
- handle large HD files
- store data reliably
Thanks

USB 2.0 is the connection that is natively supported on the T400, no eSATA or Firewire port i think, you can get these ports by buying an expansion card for the card slot (i think it is the expresscard one) on the T400.
Regarding a 1TB drive, most of the large drive manufacturers have one out, but i suggest you unless you need the large capacity, i would stick with a smaller drives like 750 gig or 500 gig since the cost gigabyte is lower. Also i would stay away for storing all your important files solely in these drive, because if these things start to fail it would be on a moment's notice, you probably won't even have time to backup the files, before the harddrive gives up on you.

What external hard drives work well with time machine?

I'm a new mac user - trying to decide what to buy for an external hard drive. Thoughts on features to look for?

yes, there are compatibility issues. TM drive has to be formatted Mac os extended journaled with GUID partition scheme for use with intel macs. you'll need to reformat the drive for that as most new drives are formatted FAT with MBR partition scheme. also, Mac os extended format is not readable by windows without special software. so what you need to do is reformat the drive on your mac for TM and make a partition on it which you can format FAT. you can use that partition to get stuff from windows and the other partition for TM.

What external Hard drive can I get to use w/ my iMac and Macbook pro w/ Lion software? I have never used one. I need to back up my photos, iTunes, documenta, etc., Im a nursing student and very worried about losing my stuff. Any suggestions?

I have had my macbook pro and desktop since 2008 now. I have never had time to just sit down and learn about time machine and external hard drives. I am in nursing school and barely have time to breathe, so when I try to read the threads, all the tech terms run together. I have been referred to LaCIe, but I read some things saying problems with Lion (which I am highly disapointed in so far-but like I said, I have not had a lot of time to sit down and try to figure out out the kinks), Is there a good external harddrive anyone reccommends that will be easy/simple (not because I am lazy- I literally have no time w/ all my school work to figure out something complicated) , and go with my desk top and lap top?
My laptop started messing up in class the other day, and it has a lot of memory left, so I don't understand. It kept freezing up like a PC. Ever since I downloaded Lion, it seems my computers have gotten slower. ;( I have MacKeeper downloaded on both of them. I cleaned stuff off, it seems to be working better right now. But I am still soooo scared that something will happen and I will lose all of my info.
I would be grateful of any advice/suggestions that anyone can give me.
Thanks

the BEST that exists (fact, not opinion) are Hitachi
best options for the price, and high quality HD:
Quality 1TB drives are $50 per TB on 3.5" or $65 per TB on 2.5"
Perfect 1TB for $68
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005J7YA3W/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379452568&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+toshiba
Nice 500gig for $50. ultraslim perfect for use with a notebook
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B009F1CXI2/ref=s r_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377642728&sr=1-1&keywords=toshiba+slim+500gb
BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba "tiny giant" 15mm thick 2TB drive (have several of them, lots of storage in tiny package) $100
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Connect-Portable-HDTC720XK3C1/dp/B00CGUMS48 /ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1379182740&sr=1-4&keywords=2tb+toshiba
*This one is the BEST portable external HD available that money can buy:
HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $88
http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Mobile-Portable-External-0S03559/dp/B009GE6JI8/ref=sr _1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383238934&sr=8-1&keywords=HGST+Touro+Mobile+Pro+1TB+USB+3.0+7 2 00+RPM
Most storage experts agree on the Hitachi 2.5"
Hitachi is the winner in hard drive reliability survey:
Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study. Of the hundreds of Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors. Adding the highest average lifespans and the best relationship between failures and market share, Hitachi can be regarded as the winner.

What external hard drive should I get?

First off, I hope I'm asking this in the right place; apologies otherwise.
So, I need a new external hard drive for my machine, but there are some constraints that are making it difficult for me.
- I'm on a G5 mac (power PC)
- I'm using OS X 10.4.11
- I'd like a firewire connection (800 preferably).
I've been all over town shopping and all over the net, and everything is either USB, or requires OS 10.5+. Does anyone have any good suggestions? Thanks!

On some issues such as chipset incompatibility it is a given that a problem will occur. On others such as the power source with LaCie, it's a matter of chance. I have a LaCie backup drive. Read the reviews from other owners and they are about 5/10. Personally I never had a problem with it in 5 years of using it. I took the WD drive out of it about a year ago and put it into my computer and it runs fine. With some it's a matter of chance and you can get a winner or lemon with any brand.
Another thing is, drive ratings change a lot. As I said before, Seagate used to be tops. I have several seagate drives >10 years old. 2 years ago I went shopping for new drives and people were warning against seagate at all costs. I'm not talking their enclosures but the drives themselves. Complete reversal.
Best thing to do is, spot a few models that interest you, then check online reviews from other owners. Read them to get a feel for the issues. All drives can have problems so don't let one or two lemon reviews sway you, nor people giving bad ratings because the vendor is not so great (go to a different vendor with good ratings). What are the issues? A drive may be rated as slow but if you aren't using it to boot then that's not an issue for you, especially if it is an archive drive (one you unplug and don't use for weeks at a time).
Post on the hardware forum too. Some knowledgeable people frequent there who never go to an OS forum. I bought my WDs based largely upon initial recommendations I read on the PowerMac forum and then substantiated with reading reviews on big online vendors (but bought from OWC in the end).

I want to move my music and photos to an external hard drive from my iMac. What external hard drive should I get?

I want to move my music and photos to an external hard drive from my iMac. What kind of hard drive should I get? Will it remove it from iMac and only be on external hard drive?

How to correctly move your media:
iTunes: How to move the library to an EHD
iPhoto: How to move the Library to an EHD
It is important that the External Hard Drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled).
And also make sure that all is working to your Satisfaction before Deleting anything Off your Mac.

What external hard drives for backup are compatible with Yosemite?

I have an early 2013 MBP Retina 15" and have installed Yosemite. I want to purchase an external hard drive for backup via Time Machine. I have read that Western Digital drives were associated with data loss with Mavericks; I do not know if that has been corrected. Has anyone backuped successfully on an external hard drive with Yosemite installed, and if so, can you let me and others know the brand and model. Many thanks.

Understood.
I don't receive any compensation for promoting any product from any computer, hard drive or computer peripheral manufacturer. I don't receive any compensation from any of those manufacturers or sellers for any reason. In fact I was not promoting any product, I was responding to the poster's query and was stating that I have observed the drives in use and working with the Mac OS.
My workplace is a consumer of these items and we buy and use thousands of PCs, Macs, WD and non-WD drives, and so forth. I was providing information about whether WD drives work with Macs running various operating systems. I don't promote any particular brand, we use many different ones here.

What External hard drive is compatible with Mac OS 10.4.11 tiger

Trying to find an external hard drive compatible with tiger 10.4.11. Have heard that G-Tech slim 1tb slim might be ok or 500GB but not sure. Any thoughts?
Thanks :)

Pollypj wrote:
I'm in the uk ill look for OWC. Ta
Me too, but I still buy from OWC regardless of the extra delivery costs. It is a company whose advice and products you can trust.
This is the one I use (G5 iMac running Leopard):
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB

Advise...what external hard drive to buy....ASAP!!

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