Bus Powered External Hard Drive?

Can anyone recommend a good bus-powered External Hard Drive that I can use with my iMac? I really like Western Digital's MyBooks, but they require mains power and come with a big power brick, which is pretty messy. I want a hard drive that gets it's power through either USB 2.0 or Firewire. And I'd like something that has at least 250GB of storage. Any suggestions?

I bought a bus powered OWC laptop drive (100GB 720RPM) for around 170 dollars. But, that was for my laptop, as it's much easier to have a bus powered laptop drive then needing to plug it in to use it. This way I can sit somewhere, not near a power outlet, and be able to use the drive.
As mentioned in an earlier post, 3.5 Hard Drives require to much power in order to be bus powered.
You could buy a 200GB hard drive, bus powered, 4200RPM, and is a laptop drive for your iMac, but that's not the best way to go. First, the drive is going to be very expensive. You could get a 320GB 3.5 In HD for way cheaper. Second, it's going to be noticibly slower.
When I get externals, I buy the drive, and pitch in 50 bucks or so for an external enclosure. It's the CompUSA brand and they work quite well. They are not bus powered, but the Power Brick is limited in size and is relitively small. It's cheaper this way. This can be a challenge to someone who isn't really 'computer-talented.'
I'd go FireWire....It's much faster and won't slow you down while you're trying to access your files and do your work.
OWC if you really want that bus powered laptop drive.
NewEgg if you want to shop for drives, and get them cheaper. Not to mention their fast shipping.
Give it some thought.
-benny

Similar Messages

Bus powered external hard drives and the Powerbook G4 17 inch

Does anyone have a suggestion for a bus powered external hard drive that will work with the Powerbook 17 inch? I had purchased a Simpletech Simpledrive portable USB 100GB bus powered drive and it will not work with my 17 inch. It works with my 15 inch titanium and a G5 but not the 17 inch. Simpletech told me that it isn't getting enough power from the USB ports (I even tried using the adapter to plug it into both ports at the same time).
I am going to return the drive and probably buy a Firewire one instead since you can boot from Firewire but I am wondering if I will have the same problem with Firewire on the 17 inch and HAVE to use an AC adapter.
PowerBook G4 17 inch Mac OS X (10.4.1)

This also happens on the PB 15". It is perceived as a problem. If you check via the System Profiler you will likely see that the USB port output is 500mA. Most drives - in a USB or FW case - need 1A to boot. There are some drives that will boot with 500mA. If a 500mA drive is installed in the USB case it should boot off the bus power. If using a ext HD you can only boot the computer from the FW port and not the USB or PCMCIA slot.
The FW port will power the ext HD. I do not recommend daisy chaining unless you use a powered FW hub. I blew 4 FW ports and had to replace the logic board 4 times but Apple Care paid for all the work. The newer FW ports are more robust but it is still a chance if you try to draw too much power.
MJ

What's the largest capacity bus-powered external hard drive?

I realize that this isn't a Mac specific question, but I'd really like a recommendation. What's the largest capacity bus-powered (preferably USB) external hard drive available. My new MBP has a 500GB drive so I would need something with probably 640GB or bigger. Problem is I can't find anything over 500GB that's bus-powered. Everything I've found requires an external power supply which is what I'm trying to avoid. If anyone has a recommendation, please share it.

Have a search on the web for USA retailers who supply empty enclosures and drives separately. The enclosure is the physical case and the bits of circuitry and the physical ports. Tell them what you want and ask him what drives and enclosures he has to suit your purpose and if he can fit the two together for you. I have such a supplier but am in UK.
Does it have to be a USB bus? Firewire is better and gives more power. One way I power a 360GB pocket drive is to feed from TWO USB ports on the computer into one input port on the drive(now in the enclosure) you should be able to buy a sort of "Y" shaped cable with two full size flat USB connectors at one end and one single connector at the drive end. The drive end often will be a mini usb port. What you want will depend upon the size of the input into the drive.

Bus powered FW hard drive

Hi everyone,
I'm looking for a bus powered FW hard drive for about $150. I'll be using it as my secondary scratch disk while traveling. Any suggestions would be great!
I'm currently using a UBS bus powered Western Digital drive; No problems yet with as a scratch disk, but i don't want to press my luck!
Thanks,
-N.A.
15" MacBook Pro 2.16 Core Duo, 1GB RAM, 256 VRAM Mac OS X (10.4.8)

if the drive has its own firewire controller and serial converter built in (some do), then it should work but of course with a lot of latency.
but other drives with a firewire port do not have an onboard controller and rely on "daisy chaining" for the firewire port to be active.
only one way to find out though, aside from reading its packaging materials.

Difference between portable external hardive & powered external hard drive

I have read many post discussing buying external hard drives, either portable or with a power cord. what is the pro and cons of choosing a portable external drives versus non portable ext. drive. My wife has almost filled up my imac with movies and tv shows. I recommended a 1TB external drive with a power plug that sit next to my computer. We just purchased a macbook pro 2009 for her and now I'm learning it a slightly different world with her having the ability to move around the house or take her computer to work. So maybe my suggestion is not the best. Can anyone share some suggestions for us?
Austin

Austin Smith2 wrote:
Is there any problem/cons with the bus powered ext drive using the laptop for power and also backing up data? does the laptop need to stay awake so the bus powered ext drive can backup, since it drawing it power from the laptop?
No problems, no. The limitation is that bus-powered drives are usually smaller/slower for the price than AC-powered drives. You can't get a 3.5" 2 TB, 10000 rpm diameter bus-powered drive, for example.
Yes, the MBP needs to be awake to power the drive. But that's not a 'problem' since the MBP itself needs to be awake for a backup to run, too.

Black screen but still powers external hard drive

I have two Cinema Displays, not thunderbolt, hooked to a new iMac 27". I took the first one to an Apple Authorised Repair Center and was told that either the logic board or power adapter were shot. The monitor is too old for them to get parts from Apple, so I went and bought a used one from ebay a year ago. Now this monitor just went black while I was working on it. It still powers an external hard drive that appears on my imac, and the light on the front still pulseates.
Both these monitors are the chrome edged 23" HD displays. One is an 07' and the other 11' neither are thunderbolt and neither have a camera. Any ideas. My Apple authorised tech shop said i can have the later one replaced by apple for $670. I don't want to spend that much when I only paid $350 off ebay. If it was just the power adapter I would buy just that, but who knows?

…and I suspect you want some clairvoyant or mind reader to guess all the details and specs of your setup?
Please read this FAQ for advice on how to ask your questions correctly for quicker and better answers:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/419981?tstart=0
Thanks!

IMac 24" + 2 daisy-chained bus-powered external hard disks: possible?

Hello everyone,
I have a 24" iMac and two G-Drive Mini external hard disks. Currently, one of the disks is connected to the FW 800 port, and the other to a USB port. Each is powered by it's respective bus. I would love to have the use of the USB port for other purposes. Is it possible to daisy chain both drives to the FW 800 port without an external power supply?
If not, can I power one drive on the FW 800 bus, and the other with an external supply, or must I use two external power supplies? Does it matter which device, first or last in the daisy chain, is powered by the external supply?
Thanks in advance . . .

Hi Captain Spalding
The iMac's FireWire port supports 7 watt.
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP507
Check the ratings of both the Mini G-Drives and add that together? If it is over 5 watts, then I would suggest using the external power supply on at least the first drive in the chain.
The power has to come from somewhere and personally to keep the power demand on the iMac as low as possible, I use external power with all of my desktop FireWire Drives.
Dennis

Bus powered external Firewire drives

Most portable external drives are now bus powered, many don't even have a power input.
I wonder how many bus powered Firewire driives I can daisy-chain. Where should I place them, at the beginnig, in the middle, or the end of the daisy chain.
I have several powered Firewire drives including my Time Machine Drive.

tommmy wrote:
Most portable external drives are now bus powered, many don't even have a power input.
I wonder how many bus powered Firewire driives I can daisy-chain.
Use a powered Firewire/USB hub so there is enough power to power the port powered devices.
What happened is port powered devices are cheaper and many people opt for the lower price than the ones with their own power supplies, so it creates a problem and computer makers had to turn off ports drawing too much power from the comptuer, so people have to run out and get powered hubs.

Why does my Airport Extreme Base Station not recognize my iProDrive powered external hard drive?

My 500GB iprodrive is recognized when connected directly to any of my computers just fine. My AEBS recognizes flash drives just fine. But the two together don't work. I have tried reformatting to exfat, msdos(fat), extended, extended journaled, none work. Its a powered drive so I'm assuming thats not the problem. Help?

Its a powered drive so I'm assuming thats not the problem.
I have to use a powered USB hub with a 1 TB LaCie hard drive when I connect it to the AirPort Extreme, otherwise the drive is not recognized.
However, I can connect the same hard drive directly to my MacBook Pro and it works just fine without the powered USB hub.
Try formatting the drive in Mac OS Extended (Journaled), also known as HFS+, and try using a powered USB hub when you connect the drive to the AEBS.
If that still won't work, then you have to assume that the drive is just not compatible with the USB port on the AEBS.

Does anyone have a USB powered external hard drive that works?

I bought a really slick USB powered hard drive to take with me when I travel. The whole reason for purchase is to have it power off the laptop. It works on all the Windows machines, but my Mac doesn't even know the drive exists unless I first plug it into a powered USB hub. If I plug it directly into the USB port on the laptop, nada-zip-zilch.
This doesn't fit the plan I had.
Any help? Anyone need a slick little hard drive? 8-)
Kittie

Hi Kitty, I have a lacie porsche designed drive that works with out a hub, but it needs to use two usb ports to mount on the mac. not ideal but portable enough for me

IBook G4 won't mount LaCie external hard drive

A friend of mine, with a new iBook G4 with 512MB of RAM, is having some problem with an 80 GB bus powered external hard drive from LaCie. The problem he is having is he can't see his drive when he plugs it into his machine. He has tried plugging it in with a firewire cord and a USB cord, and neither have worked. In addition to not showing up on the Desktop the drive doesn't even show up under Disk Utility, however, the drive does show up under System Profiler. When it's plugged in with the firewire cord it says:
FireWire Bus: Max Speed up to 400 MB / sec
When it's plugged in with the USB cord, the computer says it sees a LaCie HD.
He has also tried plugging the firewire drive into another computer, that machine is also running 10.4, and the drive mounts without a problem. He has recently run software update and updated everything that was recommended, repairing permissions before and after each update.
Any ideas on how to fix this? Or, since it's a new computer should he just take it to the Apple Store he bought it at and have them replace it? Thanks so much.

Thought you could use this info about getting FireWire to work!
First, you should always Repair Permissions in Disk Utility before and after any update; I would do that now. If you installed your update with FireWire plugged in, your Mac may not recognize it anymore.
Try resetting your FireWire ports by disconnecting all FW devices, shut down your Mac and unplug it from AC power (wall socket) for 15 minutes. plug it back in and try FW.
If that did'nt work, download the combo update from this site (yours may be corrupt), not Software Update, disconnect all firewire + USB devices except keyboard + mouse, Repair Permissions, re-install update, Repair Permissions again + try.
If that still did'nt get it Zap the PRAM. While restarting Mac hold down the following key combo Command-Option-P-R. Keep holding those keys down till you hear the second start-up chime, then release.
For those of you with Macs that are not PowerBooks or iBooks, a bad internal battery can cause FireWire to not be recognized, so make sure it's good!
Good Luck!
Cheers!
DALE

Why can I no longer access my external hard drive?

I've been accessing my (powered) external hard drive for several months through my AirPort. It was never formatted for a Mac, since I had purchased it when i was still using a PC. And we still have PCs in the house that I want to be able to have access as well.
When I purchased the AirPort I was told that I could use it as an external drive, so I had moved some files onto it. Then... I was told, NO, don't put files on your AirPort because it could eventually lead to corrupt files in the Time Machine.
Yesterday, I was in the process of removing files from the AirPort and copying them to the external drive. I hit a point where my computer seemed to be thinking too hard and too long. The majority of the file transfers had been fine, but when I went to look at the external drive it appeared to be empty. After a bit of freaking out, we plugged the external drive directly into my Mac book to confirm that the files are still there. I've rebooted the computer, powered down the AirPort, and powered down the external drive to no avail.
While speaking with Apple customer service last night, we reset the AirPort as well. Nothing. I was finally told that my only option was to reformat the external drive. I'm hoping that someone here might have more insight before I jump through moving everything again.

#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3

Which external hard drive do i need to transfer my files from my G4 with OS 10.3 to my new iMac?

I have a Mac G4 PowerPC (with: processor speed of 1GHz, 1 MB L3 cache) running OS 10.3.9. I want to transfer my files from the G4 to my iMac (.21.5/2.5QC/2X2GB/500GB/6750M) which is still in the box, for the last 3 years. I believe it is running OS Mountain Lion. All the Mac-compatible external Hard drives i have looked at are for OS 10.5 or 10.7 and above. Are there any external hard drives for sale that will work with my OS 10.3.9 to transfer files to my iMac? If not, how can i do this transfer of files?

An external hard disk drive enclosure with FireWire400/800 ports, with others
may be able to be used; but not as an adapter from one kind of port to another.
The old iMac uses USB, perhaps as slow as 1.1; that won't work with newer
USB3.0; but both the newer and older computers could use FireWire; or maybe
ethernet for computer to computer.
Newest models have Thunderbolt data ports, so adapter cables are needed.
And then you'll need cables to match whatever combination you end up with.
{You may have tried something or another, but not posted back to say if you did.
And this thread is nearly two weeks old, now. I just happened to find it here.}
For what you suggest, you may be able to find a suitable cable, perhaps FireWire
or Ethernet, depending on the ports available and cables still applicable to both.
Does newer iMac have FireWire ports? You could buy a FW400 to FW800 cable where
the ends are different, if the newer machine has FireWire800. [The old one has FW400.]
This would have to be equipped with the protruding connectors so each could make
the connection between each computer's built-in ports. Not all cable sets do this.
This would be the fastest way to copy content between machines, if FW 800 in newer mac.
Port-powered external hard drives may be under-powered and fail to work, so that is why
I suggest enclosed HDD with its own AC power adapter that will not rely on FW or USB
for the power to run the drive and the electronics inside the enclosure.
example of external enclosures with multiple ports and its own power adapter:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
This is an image of the lesser model series with fewer ports. The FW800 and USB3.0
are both backward compatible to their older counterparts, FW400 & USB2.0. But even
so the old 1GHz iMac G4 with USB1.1, would not be able to use newer USB3.0; yet
should be able to connect via FireWire400 to FireWire800 by special cable.
If the iMac G4 is still working, that's a plus. Attempting to remove the old IDE/ATA HDD
and access it outside the PowerPC iMacG4, is really a troublesome effort, one to avoid.
But the PPC iMacG4 can be started in Target Disk Mode and accessed as a hard drive
via FireWire cable, too. Then files can be seen as though the old Mac is an external HD.
In any event...
Good luck & happy computing!

What is the best external hard drive for backup on powerbook g4 17-inch?

i need to get a good external hard drive for backing up my files on my 2004 powerbook g4 17-inch. up till now ive been using thumbdrives, but i have way too much to backup now. i was thinking of getting the time capsule, but i don't have leopard version with time machine.
what would be an advisable backup to get without buying a new mactop yet?
please include model # if possible.
thanks in advance for anyone's input!

What I've done is buy the case and drive separately. The case I use is similar to this one: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEFW91UAL1K/ (looks like they don't offer this case with Firewire 800 anymore), and the hard drive is a Western Digital 3.5" Parallel ATA 320GB which Newegg carries at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136109. The reason I like a combination like this is that the enclosure uses the Oxford 911 chipset, and Oxford chipsets have a good track record working with our macs. The Western Digital drive comes with a 3 year warranty (many pre-packaged hard drives only have a one year warranty). It is very easy to install the drive ... you plug in the power and data connectors to the hard drive, and screw the hard drive to the case.
Whatever external hard drive you get, recommend one with a Firewire connection. Our Powerbooks can boot from a Firewire connection, however, cannot boot from a USB-only connection. Also, be aware that for a USB-only connection, if the external hard drive relies on power from it there may be a problem. This is due to the Powerbook putting minimal power out on USB. There are many people who have found that they've had to either get a dual USB cable, a USB powered hub, or an external power supply for their USB-powered external hard drive. The case I mentioned above has it's own external power supply. Firewire-powered drives don't have this problem.

WD Passport External Hard Drive Not Being Recognized on PowerBook G4

I bought a WD Passport 320GB USB 2.0 powered external hard drive that isnt recognized by my PowerBook G4. The funny thing is that the external HDD works perfectly on my friends MacBook! What's the deal with that?
I called AppleCare but they just told me to take it into my nearest Apple Store... LAME!
Can anyone else help?
Message was edited by: WRDinc

I had the same problem. See below for the answer from WD (...sigh...):
Cause:
Many 15" and 17" Macintosh PowerBook and Mac Book Pro Laptops do not provide enough power through a single USB port for the WD Passport™ external USB hard drive to work correctly. The WD Passport™ external USB hard drive requires a minimum of 1000Ma (Milliamps) of power for proper usage.
Resolution:
You can purchase a WD Passport™ Power Supply or a USB 2.0 Power Booster Cable from links below to the Western Digital Online Store.

Bus Powered External Hard Drive?

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