Disk Drives for iMac

I purchased an iMac (Intel) to be delivered in Jan.  To my dismay it does not have a disk drive.  Some peripherals (printers an example) require loading a disk before use of the peripheral.  I also plan to set up a music library using iTunes and my large CD collection to then transfer to iPod I purchased.  I need suggestions for a reliable external disk drive that accepts CDs and DVDs, and something other than Apple's USB SuperDrive which has many poor reviews.

I would look into OWC (www.macsales.com) for a large variety of EHD's, any would do fine. I would recommend buying at least 2, you will need one for external storage and the second for your Time Machine backup drive. DO NOT, repeat DO NOT use the same external EHD for storage and backup. Even though it's possible it's foolish because when (not if!!!!) that EHD fails you will have lost EVERYTHING that is stored on it including it's  backup.

Similar Messages

  • What is the best external hard drive for iMac time machine?

    I need to purchase 1TB external hard drive to use as a backup drive for iMac (lion) Time Machine. I currently have the Lacie little disk but I need more storage. All I need is a simple USB connection.

    I've been happy with my silver FW Western Digital drives, I use two daisy chainned together (1TB, 2TB).  These were the ones sold for mac's so they have a aluminum look to them.  Only a bit more expensive than their black USB brothers.

  • What are the pros and cons of a solid state drive for imac?

    What are the pros and cons of a solid state drive for imac?
    I wonder if the SSD is good for replacing a failing hard drive?

    However they are dramatically faster than magnetic disk drives, useful for startup and shutdown and frequently accessed apps and fi.e

  • Where can I buy an external floppy disk drive for my Macbook?

    where can I buy an external floppy disk drive for my Macbook?

    You can find them on eBay http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=usb+floppy+drive&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksi d=p2045573.m570.l1311.R1.TR2.TRC1.A0.Xusb+floppy+drive+for+mac&_nkw=usb+floppy+d rive+mac&_sacat=0

  • I have bought a new laptop which does not have a Disk Drive for CDs. How can I load my Acrobat Pro X on to this computer

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    Download it from https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/acrobat-downloads.html

  • Do you need a special external hard drive for iMac?

    Do you need a special external hard drive for iMac?

    Any external hard drive that will connect via Firewire 800, USB, or Thunderbolt will work.
    I have a 750GB Western Digital Scorpio drive in an OWC case, sitting on a Backpack, which connects via Firewire.  Western Digital Scorpio drives have 5 year warranties, the OWC (macsales.com) cases usually use the Oxford chipset which works well with macs, and the Backpack is a slick way to mount a backup drive without taking up desk space.
    After you hook up whatever external drive you end up with, you'll partition and initialize it for OS X, then begin using it.
    My opinion, I would not get a Western Digital pre-packaged external drive/case.  While the hard drives are OK, there have been a number of people that have had issues with the electronics.

  • Floppy Disk Drive for Mavericks

    Hello
    Does anyone know of an FDD for a mavericks mac? I would like to create boot disks for an old mac. Is this a good method to consider? I am not sure how else to go about this. If there is an alternative, whatever it might be, please let me know.
    I apologise for posting here but this relates to older machines in a way.
    Thanks in advance.

    The original system for a PowerBook 2400c/180 was 7.6.1. Other supported systems (according to Apple's technical specifications) were 8, 8.1, 8.5, 8.6 and 9. You would need to purchase an appropriate Apple system CD. Ensure that it is a retail disc (for all models), not a disc for a certain (other) machine.
    You can use one of the Apple CD-ROM drives above, providing that you have the proper HDI-30 cable. See the manual for details about connecting SCSI devices and about booting from a CD.
    If necessary, and if the already installed operating system is working (and you can navigate the Japanese menus), you should at least be able to create a Disk Tools PPC floppy on the PowerBook. Use the Disk Copy 6.3.3 program (the Make a Floppy command under the Utilities menu) for this. I assume that you have the external floppy disk drive for the PowerBook.
    www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html
    http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English -North_American/Macintosh/System/Mac_OS_8.1_Update/Disk_Tools_PPC.img.bin
    http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English -North_American/Macintosh/Utilities/Disk_Copy/Disk_Copy_6.3.3.smi.bin
    One may also want to try to modify a Disk Tools PPC to hold CD-ROM software, thus allowing a CD to be read when the computer is running from the floppy disk system.
    Additionally, since the computer in question has PC Card slots, an inexpensive PC Card adapter for CompactFlash and a CompactFlash memory card can be very useful for file transfers. In certain PowerBook models, such a CompactFlash card (reformatted to Mac) can even act as a startup disk (if it has an appropriate system folder).
    Jan

  • I need a floppy disk drive for old 3 1/2" disks. I have a PowerBook G4 Mac with MacOS X 10.4 operating system. What will work for me?

    I need a floppy disk drive for old 3 1/2" disks. I have a PowerBook G4 with Mac OS X 10.4 operating system. What external drive will for for me?

    Hi,
    Providing that the old 3.5" floppies are 1.44 MB HD disks, you should be able to use a USB floppy drive.
    However, if the disks are 2DD/DSDD in the 800K Mac format a USB drive is not going to work. In this case you would need a suitable semi-old Macintosh computer with a built-in floppy drive as an intermediary.
    Jan

  • Need a recommendation for an external Cd drive for iMac intel

    Need a recommendation for an external Cd drive for iMac intel

    Welcome to Apple Support Communities
    Any external optical drive will work, so you can purchase the one you most like. Have a look at OWC to see some optical drives > http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/optical-drives/

  • External Hard Drive for iMac - Firewire or USB?

    I need an external hard drive for my new iMac. Can you clarify the difference between a firewall connection and a USB connection? I assume you use one or the other, but not both. If I use firewall, will that free up a USB port (which I'd like to do)? Also, some USB hard drives require 2 USB ports; this I do not want!
    Also, do these hard drives work like a zip drive.....no more complicated?
    Beyond this, do you have any other advice about which hard drive to purchase?
    Thanks.

    I think you are starting to put the cart before the horse. Back up (pun intended) and think about what your goal is. Is it your intention to back up just your user documents, photos, and music? When disaster strikes (note that I didn't say if) are you okay with installing the OS from the DVD, reinstalling all your software, reconfiguring your printer, your scanner, your internet, and setting everything up the way it was? Notice that I'm really piling it on here! I don't know about you, but it took me about a week to fully move into my new computer and if my hard drive died tomorrow, I don't want to spend (I don't have) a week putting it back together again.
    My backup plan, in the nutshell, consists of three parts. 1) a clone of my hard drive; an exact duplicate so if my drive dies I can reboot and get right back to work. So that when I install the new drive I can immediately repopulate it as it was. 2) an incremental backup, especially of my data. If I discover I deleted a file I didn't mean to, I can go back a few days to a pre-delete backup and restore that file. 3) a backup of crucial material that leaves the house so if file destroys my computer or a thief makes off it with I haven't lost the most very precious information.
    I believe everyone should adopt a plan similar to mine. The particulars of how you achieve the plan will vary but I think all three steps are vital. If you agree then your hard drive needs to be large - 120GB probably doesn't come close to cutting it. To estimate how big a drive you'd need to implement this plan, determine how much of your drive you are currently using. Double it. That is once for the clone and once for the complete (non-bootable) backup Time Machine will make. Now, at the very least, add the full contents again. That is for a couple weeks worth of incremental backups. Now add another 50% for growth as you add new programs, music, photos, and data.
    So if you are currently using 30GB of your computer's hard drive, 105GB is the very smallest drive you want. The 120GB drive you are talking about is okay. Barely. When you get it make a 40GB partition and a 80GB partition. The 40GB is for the clone you'll make using SuperDuper! and the 80GB is for Time Machine. Of course, if you are using more than 30GB then you need a bigger drive for your backup. And if you know you intend to add a goodly amount of stuff to your drive soon, then plan for it now.
    Now if you are okay with getting the computer back together more slowly - maybe being without it complete if the drive dies - you can dispense with keeping the clone. In that case, you will want to determine your current disk usage and buy a drive about 150% to 200% of that. It'll take about an hour to reinstall the OS on the hard drive and depending on how much you have in data and other programs, another half hour to a couple hours to restore that.

  • I have 2 auxillary disk drives for my MacBokk Pro. Time Machine uses one for backup and I use the other for storage, but I am unable to create a new folder or drag and drop files or folders to the aux drive.

    I am unable to create a new folder on either of my auxillary disk drives.  I can access the files and folders that were there when I transferred one of the drives from a PC.  Time machine uses one for backup and I want to use the other to store photos which are large files.  An help would be appreciated.

    Thanks for the reply.  If I reformat the drive will I be able to access the files on it from the MAC.  I do not share the drive with a PC.  The files were originally created on a PC which I no longer use.  I do want to continue to access the files put there by the PC.  I would like to not have to copy them over to the MAC hard drive just to use them.  The second aux drive is new and works fine because it was formatted by the MAC.  I can drag and drop files there and work with just as if they were on the internal drive.

  • Can i get an external disk drive for my MacBook 5,1

    My disk drive on my MacBook 5,1 (model #A1278) is bust. It will not accept a dvd/cd at all, it won't let it in...not an inch!  seems like it's stuck in eject? as if there is a disk inside but as far as i know there is not.  Nothing i have tried makes any difference.  So i am wondering if i can buy an external disk drive, but this info is not obvious to me on the Apple Store website!

    Probably pretty much any one would as long as it can be connected to your Macbook with USB or Firewire or what it has.  Read the fine print when it refers to system requirements.  In most cases that refers to bundled software which you probably don't need.  Usually if there's OS limits for Macs it's something like you must be running OSX 10.2 or newer.
    I would start looking on a site such as www.mac-sales.com which caters for Mac users so you can be assured their stuff is compatible.  You can get something pre-assembled or you can buy an enclosure and a drive separately and assemble them yourself.  My preference would be for one where the drive is powered independently, though that does tie you down to an outlet.  On the other hand with an external drive you're not going to be walking around the room.
    I guess one Mac compatibiltiy issue would be if the drive is bootable.  Not all third party drives can boot your Mac should the need arise.  I'm not so familiar with Macbooks that I am up to date on this and this might be one thing you could ask the vendor (and a reason for going with a vendor who knows Macs).

  • Best use of disk drives for data transfer

    I have three different data "disk" drives on my system and I timed transferring 13 GB of data between. The drives are a standard 7500 RPM disk, a pair of 7500 RPM disks in RAID 0, and a solid state flash drive. The times in minutes and and seconds were as follows:
    To:| Standard | RAID 0 | Flash
    From: | | |
    Standard | 6:39 | 2:43 | 3:22
    RAID 0 | 2:46 | 4:41 | 3:33
    Flash | 2:41 | 1:51 | 16:58
    The first thing to notice is that if the source and destination drives are the same then times are much longer. The Flash drive was particularly bad.
    The best time was from Flash to RAID 0, but in the reverse direction the time was poorer than a standard disk, suggesting that the flash has a fast read but a slow write.
    Conclusion: for disk bound operations, such as transferring DV AVI files with little or no processing use different drives if practicable. In other words, set the scratch files drive to be other than the drive with the source files on it. If possible, put your source files on a flash drive and your scratch files on a RAID 0 drive.
    Edit: Sorry for the poor table layout. Two or more consecutive spaces get converted into a single space for some reason.

    You can use the error-cluster to detect the end of your queue. The erroroutput of the shared variable will return a -2220 Warning, if it reads a value it has read already before. I attached a modified example and saved it for 8.2 I hope you can open it.
    Attachments:
    readbuffered82.zip ‏51 KB

  • Best Recommended External Hard Drive For IMac 3.1Ghz i5 Core

    Hi Guys!
      I'm in need of a external hard drive for my iMac,
    I have never used a external hard drive for a Mac but i have for Windows PC's
    I need something Fast & Easy to use,  
    Thanks in advance!

    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
    Before you buy, find out what brand drive is installed. Stay away from Seagate. They appear to be turning out junk now. An external drive is not specific to any iMac model.
    You can also just buy the same empty enclosure from OWC and get a decent deal on a bare drive from Newegg.com. Takes twenty minutes or less to DIY. How to video on the OWC site. Needs just a phillips screwdriver.
    You want a 3.5" SATA drive. If from Newegg, it will need to be reformatted for Mac. Mac OS extended Journaled. Partition Map Scheme: GUID.
    http://pondini.org/OSX/DU1.html

  • Make use of Seagate 120gb SATA as external drive for imac

    I have a nice seagate barracuda 120gb drive in my PC, which I virtually don't use. I was wondering whether there is a way I could use the drice as external firewire drive for my iMac g4 1ghz. Can you actually leave it in the PC and connect to it via a Firewire card in the PC or do you need to take it out, put it into a case with Firewire adapter and use it that way? If so, can you recommend a decent case at good price?
    Thanks,
    Matthias
    imac g4 1ghz   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

    Hello and Welcome to Apple Discussions. I believe your choices are:
    Network the two machines such that you can share the storage space.
    iFelix's Tech Pages provides details of the set-ups required, you can network over Ethernet, Firewire or Wirelessely.
    Or get a SATA to FW/USB2 enclosure. It should be firewire as you need FW to boot a PowerPC OS X Mac from an external drive.
    I don't believe a PC can do Target Mode so that rules out that option.
    mrtotes

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