Battery Life with Macbook Pro and External Drive

I have a mid 2010 macbook pro with a 7200 rpm 500 gig internal drive and then a 1 terabyte external drive that I believe runs at 5400 rpm. I will be going on a trip tomorrow and I plan on watching some movies that I have made backups of while traveling. Will my battery last longer if the movies are stored on my internal or external drive? This may be an easy question but I know very little when it comes to power consumption. If I had enough time I would try them both on my own but I would like some input from others. Thanks! Also not sure if it matters but I am running lion the screen is 15 inches and it has the 2.8 processor with 8 gigs of ram.

Does the external disk have it's own power supply?
If it does it will not affect your MBP battery run time.

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How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Click Time Machine
Click Options
Be default, the hard drive will be Excluded from backups. Click the drive to highlight it, then click the "-" (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from Excluded items.
The drive will be backed up on the next Time Machine pass
Everything above assumes that the hard drive has been formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as Time Machine will only backup drives in that format.

BATTERY LIFE WITH MACBOOK PRO/LOGIC

wondering who is using a Macbook Pro while running Logic?
i posted in an Apple Forum a few days ago, and some people have said that they can get up to 4 hours of life from their battery. i just bought my machine in January, so i find it hard to believe that my battery could need replacing already?
if im using this computer strictly for Logic and audio production, can anyone recommend which battery setting in my preferences i should select?

With battery life, you either optimise for time (low performance), or high performance (less time).
Logic is a performance based app, and so if you are using plugins and so on, you are working your CPU hard and therefore going to run the battery down quicker.
Really, for Logic, I really recommend running on the power supply for the most part.

Battery Life with MacBook Pro 13" 2011

Hi there,
I have a question here that I would like to ask all experienced Mac users as I'm a total newbie to the Mac world. I just bought my MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz i5 model and realised that the battery is not functioning as promised/advertised. I drained the battery and got it charged again as per advised but still, it didn't seem to work. My battery could barely last me 3 hours, and it deteriorates like crazy, on normal surfing via wifi without playing music, etc. Take for example, my battery was left with 2 hours 30 mins when I first started typing this thread (with only this window and no other app running), it went down to 2 hours 06 mins within the short span of 10 mins. May I know is there any problem with the battery? Anyone out there faces this problem too? Can anyone please do advise? Your advice is very much appreciated.
Thank you!

eve08 wrote:
woodmeister50, I just checked the process monitor and it seems that the dock is using up 100% of my CPU, which I'm not really sure why it's happening. Sorry for my stupidity as this is my first time using a Mac and it's just so different from PC.
If you use the pop-up at the top right of Activity Monitor to change the view to "All Processes, Hierarchically" you will discover that the Dock process actually runs a bunch of sub-processes, like Dashboard widgets. If the Dock is using 100% CPU (which will definitely shorten battery run time), chances are it isn't exactly the Dock but one of the sub-processes that is chewing up the CPU. If you can find out which one it is, quit that one, and if it's a widget you downloaded that you don't need, uninstall it.

Emptying trash isn't freeing up any space on MacBook Pro or external drive. Time Machine is OFF.

Yesterday, while using Final Cut Pro X, I noticed the program/my computer was starting to run slow--and then I was totally caught off guard by a warning that my startup disk was full. I checked Storage and Finder and both my MacBook Pro and external drive had less than 1gb of space each! I usually use Secure Empty Trash and have no problems...but for my drives to be full, it clearly hasn't been working for a few days, possibly weeks.
I'm using a MacBook Pro (early 2011) and a LaCie Thunderbolt external drive. I'm running Mavericks (10.9.2)
I am not using Time Machine. When I look at Storage under About This Mac, my Backups on my MBP and LaCie drive are both at zero KB.
I read through the forums and tried going into Terminal and entering sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash ...but all that did was free up about 10gb on my external drive (I'd emptied upwards of 90gb from my trash).
Right now I'm basically stuck with a slow laptop and very little storage space, which has slowed my work to a halt. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Some space suggestions.
Disk Space - Free Up
Disk Space – Free Up (2)
Disk Space Filling Up – OmniDiskSweeper
Disk Space Filling Up - WhatSize

Screen stuck on gray, used shift key and my screen appears with MacBook Pro and not the recovery option. Please help

Screen stuck on gray, used shift key and my screen appears with MacBook Pro and not the recovery option. Please help!

Hi ..
Shift key boots into Safe Mode, not Recovery.
This only works on a Mac running v10.7 Lion or later.
Startup your Mac while holding down the Command + R keys. From there you should be able to access the built in utilities to repair the startup disk and restore OS X using OS X Recovery
If you can't boot into Recovery Mode, help here > Mac OS X: Gray screen appears during startup

Hearing conflicting reports. What camcorders work best with macbook pro and imovie

I am looking to purchase a new HD Camcorder, but Im told some of them dont work well with macbook pro and Imovie.
Im in the process of buying a new iMac and want to make sure I will be able to load the movies direrct to imovie.
Thanks.

This forum is for mobile iMovie (iPads & iPhones).
you may need the iMovie Mac forum:
https://discussions.apple.com/community/ilife/imovie

MacBook Pro And External Hard Drives

My only Apple computer is a MacBook Pro. I've just got a new camera that stores both RAW and JPEG for each shot so my internal drive is filling up fast. I need to get an external hard drive and move my Aperture library to that.
When I travel, I wish to continue to use Aperture with the internal drive of the MacBook Pro. I'm not sure if I understand the workflow. Please would someone help me understand the best way to do this properly?
I think what I need to do is this:
Let's call the existing library on the internal disk home. After moving home from the internal to the new external drive, I must create a new library on the internal drive - let's call it travel. When on the road, I should use the travel library and, when I get back, merge it with the home library.
How do I do that though?
The documentation on merging libraries describes the scenario where you have two computers instead of my scenario. I'm guessing that you open the home library and import the travel library. If that's right, do you just then delete the travel library and start again on your next trip?
Also, what do you do about vaults? Have a second external drive and put them on there?
Thanks in advance for your help.

There are two things you could do:
Turn your Aperture Library into a referenced library and relocate the master image files to your external drive. You will be able to browse, grade, and tag your images even if the external drive is not connected, but you can only edit those images whose masters are managed. Sp perhaps you could keep the masters of the most recent projects managed. while you are on the road import the new images into the library and relocate them to your external drive when you get back.
To relocate to an external drive: Select the images and use
File -> Relocate Masters
What I sometimes do when on vacation: create a new, second Aperture Library on my travel MacBook Pro and import my new pictures from the trip into this library. When I return I import the new Library from the trip into my main Aperture LIbraryFile -> Import -> Library/Project
Regards
Léonie

Need help setting up Macbook Pro and external hard drive(s)

I apologize for the vague title but I was limited to so many characters.
Here's my situation (sorry for being verbose, I just want to be thorough)
Right now I have a Macbook Pro and a 500 GB external hard drive (Western Digital using USB 2.0 connection). I've outgrown the external hard drive and am ready to upgrade my external memory.
Here's my issues right now:
My iTunes library and music reside on the external hard drive. Using iTunes is painfully, I mean brutally, slow for some reason. For example: if I were to just change the genre of an average album, it takes upwards of 4 or 5 minutes to change the data. Compared to the POS Dell computer I used to run iTunes with (using the same external hard drive), the same task would take 5 seconds at the most. Likewise, if I try to watch a video that resides on that external hard drive right now, it skips and eventually stops because (presumably) the data is transferring extremely slowly. I have no idea, and haven't gotten any real answers, as to why this is happening with the Macbook and/or if using a Firewire connection would improve the speed.
Taking that into consideration, here's what I would like to do (and ask). I see myself having one 1T external hard drive for all my music and one 1T external hard drive for all my movies and videos. Ideally I would like to be able to access these two hard drives wirelessly with my Macbook and have it transfer the data very quickly - as it should IMO. Certainly a lot faster than it is now.
I would love to just be able to hook my Macbook up to my main stereo and run iTunes through it without having to lug around and messily connect the external hard drive which contains all the music. As well as being able to hook my Macbook up to the stereo and LCD monitor and be able to watch a video, again without the hassle of having to connect the external hard drive - which as I said prior, appears to transfer the data way too slowly anyway.
Any suggestions on what external hard drives I should get and any other hardware/software I need to run them wirelessly would be gratefully welcomed.
Thanks in advance (and I apologize for the long winded post)
MM

Obviously, FireWire is a fast connection, but for changing metadata, USB is plenty fast. Why it takes so long is anyones guess. Is it a USB 2.0 drive? Using external drives can be tricky. My father uses them for his gigantic library of almost 80,000 songs. When you have it setup properly, it works fine, but if you say forgot to have the external drive mounted when you launch iTunes, iTunes defaults the library back to your Music folder, then when you start importing, it puts in on the internal drive, then you have to go back and reset it, etc. Problem, with iTunes alone, you can only set one library, so if you want to use two drives, you will have to have one set at any given time.
So you could set the music one first, add to the library, then set it for movies, then add those to the library. Then keep the library set to the one you use most frequently, so you don't have to always switch. Once you import all media, and iTunes "knows" where to find the files, you can play them with no problems with two drives.
For wireless, you have a couple choices. If you have two Macs, you could keep one connected to the two drives, then with the other computer, just connect to the network and share the iTunes library so your other computer has access. If you want the music stored on a drive accessible wireless, you'll probably have to look to NAS, or some form of wireless storage. If you do that, their may even be a better third party software solution other than iTunes for managing multiple libraries.
This is something iTunes really needs. As libraries grow, one drive just isn't enough often.
Bryan

Battery life on Macbook Pro (3 hours?)

I just got this laptop. It's a 15.4" MBP. I installed Snow Leopard on it from the upgrade DVD (from Leopard). All is well, but the estimated battery life is around 2:30 - 3:30. I've had the battery on charge for days and the button on the left of the mpb indicates a full charge.
Is it some services that are running? Is the estimate just way off (I know they usually are)?
My brightness is 3 blocks from full. I have iTunes (playing), Terminal (no activity), Adium, MacVim, iCal, Firefox running. Does this sound accurate?

i have a unibody late 2008 w/c lasts about 2Hrs+ or 3Hrs max. is your macbook pro the built in battery?early 2009 and mid 2009 model?if so that doesn't sound right since the built in battery have 7hrs battery life "ideally" but reality its just 4-5hours. I've tested 3 of them already and all have same behaviors.(2mid 2009 macbook pro and 1 early 2009 macbook)
Airport: off
Bluetooth: off
Brightness: 2 bars
only running: safari and quicksilver
no external device plugged in
no CD inserted
have the latest battery update and firmware update
so yeah not a bug not an issue with battery but that's just how it is. Macworld already did some lab bench test on their own and so did the other mac fanatics. I just don't get why sometimes Apple says it will last 5hours if it won't.

Losing my battery life for macbook pro very fast

I charge my battery for my macbook pro retina and i keep losing battery life very fast ?
Please help

I've done my research and could not find a decent article for my Macbook Pro Retina Mid2014.
Review these link:
Considerations for the long life of your MacBook. Handling and environmental care tips
The tips helped me out the most compared to the other links that can be found. Not sure why your battery life isn't lasting you though. You may need to get it checked by Apple. Try the Apple Support--if you got yours new, you have 90 days free support.
Thankfully, I never had issues with the battery life but I did replace my first Macbook a few days after purchasing. Thankfully, I was still within 14 days so had it replaced by Best Buy, no question asks as long as you brought everything including receipts.
Out of curiosity, can you click on APPLE logo > About this Mac > System Report > Power
Copy & paste the Battery Information.
For some reason, I am having issues copying & pasting my information.
Charge Information:
Charge Remaining (mAh): 6062
Fully Charged: No
Charging: Yes
Full Charge Capacity (mAh): 8816
Health Information:
Cycle Count: 4
Amperage (mA): 4806
Voltage (mV): 12498
I have my screen dimmed since I don't really like it too bright and I have my keyboards lights off unless it's at night and I need to see the keyboard for whatever reason. There is really no real reason for me to have the keyboard lights on anyway other than to make it looks nice. My laptop had lasted me maybe about 7+ hours (maybe even more) if I get it down really low. I've got it down to 10% the first time I used it just to see and then since then, I've been trying to charge from 30%+ and when I am streaming, I keep it plugged in.
I don't ever plan on leaving it plugged in over night or while on sleep mode for a long period of time. Never do a battery calibration since it's not necessary for the new Macbook Retinas.
Amperage (mA): 4806
Amperage (mA): 4806
Voltage (mV): 12498

Issues with MacBook Pro and Asus VW266H

I own a 2.4 GHz 15 inch MacBook Pro,and an Asus VW266H (external monitor) that I wanted to connect to my Mac via VGA,since the DVI is connected to my desktop computer.So I went ahead and purchased Apple's MiniDisplay Port to VGA adapter,and connected my Mac to my display.At first,the Mac didn't recognize the display with its name and would only go up to a resolution of 1920x1080(while the maximum resolution of the display is 1920x1200). I restarted the Mac with the display plugged in,and once the laptop booted up,the resolution was 1920x1200 and the display was recognized, but immediately quite a lot of trembling was noticeable.When the display wasn't detected properly(as an Asus VW266H) this problem wasn't present. I'm guessing that this is a compatibility issue,which by the way wasn't fixed by the latest EFI update by Apple,which improved external display compatibility. Does anyone have any idea if the problem might be something else other than lack of compatibility and/or how to fix it?
I know that neither the adapter nor the VGA cable have a problem since I connected the computer to my 1080p TV and it worked just fine...

Concerning this comment:
I know that neither the adapter nor the VGA cable have a problem since I connected the computer to my 1080p TV and it worked just fine...
I would like to point out that 1080p has a lower pixel clock than will 1920 x 1200. So it could be the stability problem is only present when the pixel clock is at the high end of the range.
You could return the adapter and try another. A new one might have better margins. Another thing you could try is to use a utility like SwitchResX to lower the pixel clock and see if stability improves.

Battery life on MacBook pro 12 months old?k pr

What is a reasonable time to expect from a fully charged battery on a MacBook pro which is around 12 months old running snow leopard?

Battery run time is a function of the number and types of applications that are in use. The 'time' data that is displayed is a very volitile piece of information. It shows what is occurring at THAT PARTICULAR MOMENT. If you open Activity Monitor, you will see that the various applications are in a constant state of flux. There are moments of high usage and moments of low usage.
Do not expect battery run time to be as long as the advertised 'up to' times posted by Apple. You will note that the criteria they base the run time is very conservative usage.
Ipaduserpol wrote:
Also it shows me that i have charged it for 5 times, while I only did twice!
It is not unusual for a new MBP to have a battery with up to 3 charge cycles on it.
PS right now it shows me 4:18 remaining at 40%..
If you were to extrapolate from the figure, total battery run time would be over 10 hours. Sounds good, but do not believe it. My experience with my MBPs is that 60%-70% of the advertised run time is realistic.
Here is some Apple battery information that you may find useful:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html
http://www.apple.com/batteries/
Ciao.

Problem with Macbook pro and Airport Express!!!

I'm having the same problem I have seen others with right now with my macbook pro and my airport express. I have set up and reconfigured the A.Express 3 times now. I have the green light, i have the Ethernet configured, I have full bars of reception but I cannot access the signal. meaning I can not go online even though everything is set up correctly and says that it's good to go. Anybody have any advice?
Is it an issue with having to re access the network I created with the Airport utility?
It worked the first time I configured the A. Express with my macbook pro no problem. Then suddenly my computer was just not getting internet. Even though all the settings were ok and I was even getting full bars reception from the device on my comp. So I reset the A.Express and have been having the problem mentioned above since that point. Please help me if you have any advice. Thanks so much in advance.

I had the same problem, and to test if I was connected launched Safari and Safari after a few seconds of not connecting, it shows you a dialog box, with options to follow up, I follow the dialog box and like magic I am connected to the Internet.

What surveillance camera and software are compatible with MacBook Pro and Mtn Lion?

Hello,
I want to know what wireless camera is compatible with my 2012 MacBook Pro and OSX 10.8 Mtn Lion? I want to RECORD surveillance video.
Also, can you recomend video recording software?
Thanks!
Newbie
Message was edited by: newbies88

You can get a replacemnt from http://eshop.macsales.com/
Allan

Battery Life with Macbook Pro and External Drive

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