Bus powered external drive for MacBook

Hi,
I'm looking for an external HD to use with my MacBook, and I'm a bit confused about power. I'd rather avoid lugging around an extra power supply and international adaptor when I'm traveling if it can be avoided.
Does the MacBook's firewire port provide bus power? Is it sufficient to power a 2.5" external HD?
Is USB a better option if I want a bus powered HD? Are there any clear advantages to one or the other?

For the longest time, FireWire was the only practical solution to bus-powered hard drives. FireWire provides a heck of a lot of power (typically 7 to 8W) while USB by definition provides up to 2.5W per port (if powered). FireWire has so many advantages, but cost seems to be the consideration that's won out.
Current USB bus-powered external drives seem to be feasible because of newer 2.5" drives with reduced power consumption. Still - many drives come with (or they can be bought) cables with two male ends. One end is used for data/power, while the other draws more power from a 2nd powered USB port.
I have no problem getting a 160 GB WD Passport (Black) USB 2.0 drive to work on my iBook 1.42 or my new MacBook. It does take a while to mount in the OS though, although the same goes for Windows.
Message was edited by: ypw

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Editing with Bus-powered External Drive

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I have a MBP and usually edit using a bus-powered USB drive. It works fine, but I'm wondering if I would get a performance increase if I use a bus-powered Firewire drive. I know Firewire is faster, but if the drive is a 2.5-inch 5400 RPM that's powered by the Firewire port, does it matter?
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Using external drive for MacBook that was previously used for PC

I can't be the only person who'd had this issue...but I can't seem to find anything about this problem.
I have an external drive that I was using for my iTunes library on my PC. I recently upgraded to a MacBook. I was hoping to continue using my external drive for my iTunes library. When I plugged the external drive into the MacBook, it characteristically made my life very easy by quickly setting up itunes for me. It wasn't until the next day I realized that my entire library had been copied from the external drive onto the MacBook hard drive. This was not my intention.
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martinifontaine wrote:
It seems, however, that though my nifty new MacBook can easily read and use any files from my old external drive, it absolutely will not write to the external drive.
i'm guessing this is a NTSF formatted drive. in order for your Mac to write to it, you need to install e.g. NTFS-3G
In fact, even though I've repeatedly changed my iTunes settings to use the external drive for the iTunes library, it continues to write CD's onto the Macbook hard drive.
above will probably take care of that
I'm very worried that:
1. I've now used 4 of my 5 "authorized" machines
you can deauthorize the PC if no longer in use. also, once you've reached the "5-computer" limit, you get the option (once per year) to *deauthorize all*, then reauthorize those in use. click here for information.
2. I've used another move that I can make with the music I've purchased on iTunes and I will now have to use yet another move in order to make this right
not sure what you mean by move.
3. I fear if I back up my music now, because of 1 & 2 I will lose my rights to some of my music.
no. you can transfer purchased content between authorized machines as much as you want. see _*iTunes for Mac: How to copy purchases between computers*_.
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I have never trusted bus powered usb devices. I use a powered multi port hub. Not only does this supply bus power to an army of usb devices (printer, scanner, camera, hard drives, etc.), the hub can be placed close to me. No need to reach for hidden usb ports, no trying to figure out which way is up on the plug ....
http://usb-hub-review.toptenreviews.com/
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Bus powered external drive

I want to buy a small portable external HD (USB2 or Firewire) for my MBP; of course, the bus powered ones have the advantage of being totally portable/free of wires, but I'm wondering if either USB2 or Firewire ports on my MBP would supply enough power? Or would it drain the battery too fast? I plan to at least put the LiveType and Soundtrack files on it and have FCE use it as a scratch disk.
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Barbara Daniels1 wrote:
I've looked at the Seagate portable drives again - none of them seem to have an external power source option.
If you read the "3.5-inch External Data Sheet", you will see that they come with a power supply (under Package Contains, on the second page). What they don't seem to have, is a bus power option. It's not mentioned anywhere.
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NewEgg if you want to shop for drives, and get them cheaper. Not to mention their fast shipping.
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I doubt this can be relocated or moved so you might want to just repost in the macbook pro area.
MacBook Pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions
Can you afford a new Thunderbolt case and cable? any case with FW800 is going to be slow 72MB/sec and less, and any new 1TB drive is capable of 75MB/s minimum up to 125MB/sec.
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kat.hayes wrote:
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Bus powered external drive for MacBook

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