Can someone suggest an affordable external hard drive for use with FCPX and video editing on my Macbook Pro Retina

I have a Macbook Pro Retina from 2012 and I only got the 250GB hard drive. I'm getting ready to purchase a Panosonic HC-X920 to use with Final Cut Pro X already installed on my laptop. Since I know the file sizes are going to be so big, can anyone suggest an affordable external drive fast enough to keep up with editing the video? I'm not a pro and use it for family and personal projects.
I prefer some thunderbolt options since I haven't had a chance to use the inputs since I got my macbook pro. I just don't know what is necessarily too little or too big and too cheap and too expensive for my needs. Thank you.

OWC is a Mac specialist and a very trustworthy vendor. I have dealt with them and their technical stall on many occasions. Hence you may look at what they offer and be assured that they will stand behind what they sell:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/
I suspect that for your needs, a 1 TB drive is going to be the minimum.
Ciao.

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Can I bring files from a NTFS formatted external hard drive (from Windows XP 32 bit desktop) to my new macbook pro retina?

Can I bring files from a NTFS formatted external hard drive (from Windows XP 32 bit desktop) to my new macbook pro retina?

What are these files you are trying to copy over?
If they are program specific and there is no program on a Mac to read them then you'll have to find either a Mac version of that program or one that does the same thing and can read those files.
The file extension should not change just because you connect a NTFS formatted drive to a Mac computer. A Word Document is still a .doc/.docx ad the same for all other office type programs. Music files with an extension of .MP3, or whatever, should read the same on both system. Same goes for all other files like images with a .JPG extension.
Yes I would network them.
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marimbapony1 wrote:
Also, when I view the files from the external hard drive, they show up as .nbz and are not recognized by any program on the Mac. Should I just abandon the hard drive option and start sharing files through the LAN approach?

What is a good external hard drive for use with a macbook air?

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It is however, much better to get a USB external drive that comes with it's own power adapter to avoid issues when or if your USB port can't supply enough power to your external drive.
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2. Can I still back up other stuff like my audio recordings and record onto that drive to a seperate folder?
3. If I make a bootable copy will it try and boot from the drive everytime I turn it on or something?
My other question is... how can I use this drive with a pc? I have a pc as well and I heard that the only way it will work is to format it in ms-dos mode (fat32?)
If I write it to fat32 will it slow down my drive or make it worse? I heard that you should format external drives specifically for mac if you have a mac; so it will only work with macs...
(sorry this is going on and on; it's like a chain reaction of questions)
so If its formatted to mac drive format then can I do this with my current situation:
1. I have wireless internet, the router is on a pc downstairs
2. Can I send files over a network somehow from the pc to my mac
3. then store it on my external?
If so can someone point me in that direction with a link?
Thank you for reading, sorry for making this so long.

1. No, you don't have to make a bootable clone.
2. If you use the drive for a bootable backup, then you cannot use the drive for other types of storage unless you partition the drive and make more than one volume.
3. No, it will not try to boot the computer. You must designate the startup volume using Startup Disk preferences.
If you wish to use the drive on both a Mac and a PC, then either you make two partitions - one for Mac and the other for the PC or you must format the entire drive using FAT32 so the drive can be used for read//write by both operating systems. If you do this then you cannot use the drive for a bootable backup nor can you use it with Time Machine.
FAT32 is slower for read/write on the Mac than using Mac formatting.
Optimally, I would suggest you partition the drive into two volumes. One volume formatted for the Mac and the other formatted FAT32.
You can send files from a PC to a Mac and vice-versa using File Sharing. Select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu and search for "file sharing" or "sharing" to find help articles. Also see,
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Setting up a Mac computer to share files with Windows users
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Setting up a Windows computer to share files with Mac users
Mac OS X 10.5 Help- Sharing with Windows computers

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Quiet external hard drive for use with Time Machine?

Few questions related to Time Machine:
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1. I like these (have three of them) - literally whisper quiet:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
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Hi,
My current setup is I have a 1TB Hard Drive linked to my intel Mac Mini via FireWire 400, the Mini shares my music and films through iTunes so that my AppleTV can pick them up.
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Hello,
It should work in theory, but the disk access time of the TC is much slower. I was setup like you are with an external drive connected to a Mini via FW and I had true Gigabit transfer between computers.
When my hard drive failed I sold my Linksys gigabit router and bought a TC to reduce the number of boxes, but I soon learned that the read/write speed on a TC is a little bit faster than on a thumb drive! Not that great. All my machines are also connected with Cat6.
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Can anyone suggest the best external hard drive for MAC PRO?

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You will find suitable products at MacSales.com or you can purchase a hard drive separately and install it in an external Firewire enclosure. You will find enclosures at:
MacSales.com
CoolDrives.com
FirewireDirect.com
NewEgg.com
In the future please choose the proper forum for your topic. You posted this question in the MacBook Pro forum instead of the Mac Pro forum.

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Do this when you're ready:
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LN

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I just purchased a SimpleTech external USB harddrive. I can copy files from both PC and MAC to it.
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I contacted the company and they have no idea. Any thoughts??

You can't write to it because it's formatted as NTFS which OS X will read but not write to. If you want to continue using the drive with both a PC and OS X you will need to download and install NTFS-3G so you can then write to it from your Mac. You can get NTFS-3G at:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g
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How to?
Rgds Jan

Go to disk utility
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Hey all
I'm looking at getting a new USB 2.0 external hard drive to use with FCPX, I was wondering what everyones thoughts were on minimum speeds and what everyone else uses.
I am looking at least 1-2TB.

I will warn you now that I am somewhat of a lone voice on these forums for recommending USB 2.0s.
I have used the 7,200rpm types with their own mains supply over the last 6 years (and exclusively for the last 3) and had no problems of any kind.
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Can someone suggest an affordable external hard drive for use with FCPX and video editing on my Macbook Pro Retina

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