Do I need to have an external hard drive that has a certain spindle speed, like 7200?

In the past, when I did audio or video editing, the specs on the software required a certain rotational speed if I were using an external hard drive. Most of the time it was 7200. Do I need to use a specific spindle rotational speed for Final Cut Pro, or will drive 5400 or above do fine?

That still applies today as well. Helps to also use faster connection ports like Firewire 400 or 800, USB 3.0, or Thunderbolt rather than USB 2.0.

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I would like to know if you have to back up a macbook hard drive, can I use a external hard drive that has been previously used to back up several pc 's, or is it best to have a separate external drive for the Mac?

I would like to know if you have to back up a macbook hard drive, can I use a external hard drive that has been previously used to back up several pc 's, or is it best to have a separate external drive for the Mac?

In the Mac side of things, backups usually come in two flavors: clones or incrementals.
A bootable clone is a bit-for-bit copy of all essential files in the startup volume. If using the Lions, clones can be made using CarbonCopyCloner or just plain old Disk Utility. These backups represent the safest protection of your info, but take the longest to do. Recovery is an inverse process: you copy the clone back into the internal drive.
Incremental backups start with a complete backup of the startup volume and only copy whatever changed from the previous run. OS X includes the fully integrated Time Machine backup utility to do this. It is extremely easy to do and takes the least amount of time. Recovery is another matter altogether since you have to start with a freshly installed instance of the OS and have to apply all intervening backups to bring the result to the latest saved version.
As for where the backup takes place, the recommended media is an external dedicated drive or drives connected via the fastest interface available on your Mac: Thunderbolt, USB3, Firewire, or USB2. Network-based backups, wired or wireless, are attractive but may not offer the same performance and hence take longer. Also important to note that the entire drive need not be completely dedicated to a single backup. The Mac's EFI firmware infrastructure allows for an unlimited number of partitions on a hard drive and each can be used for either type of backups.
Holler if you need specifics on how to do each. This was just an executive summary.

I have an external hard drive that shows up in disk utility but Verify and Restore are greyed out.

I have an external hard drive that shows up in disk utility but Verify and Restore are greyed out. I am trying to determine what is wrong with the drive.
I need the data on the drive and it won't show up in Disk Warrior. I have tried different Mac's and different USB cords only to find the same outcome. When selected in Disk Utility the information read as such...
Disk Description : WD Elements 1023 Media                      Total Capacity : 500.11 GB (500,105,740,288 Bytes)
Connection Bus : USB                                                               Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External                                                     S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
USB Serial Number : 575837314135304D36373132        Partition Map Scheme : Unformatted
As the drive shows in Disk Utility there must be some life left in it surely. There is a possibilty that the physical connection between the USB cord and the external drive is damaged but since the drive shows up I believe it's unlikely... before I give it to the pro's is there anything else I can do to diagnose the issue?

Hello,
I have just experienced the same thing!
Although my external drive shows in Disk Utility, it does not show in Finder.
And the Verify/Repair buttons are also greyed out.
Also, although the drive is 2TB. DU shows it as having Total Capacity of only 4.14GB! (Which should be the Free Space).
I was wondering if you solved your problem, & if so, would you share your solution.
I´m afraid to Erase in case I lose all my Data on the drive.
Thanks in advance for your reply!

I have an external hard drive that was formatted by a PC and has files and directories etc. I want to format it and use it on my IMAC for backup but I can't seem to write to it nor can I delete current content. How do I initialize it for use with the MAC?

I have an external hard drive that was formatted by a PC and has files and directories copied to it etc. I want to use it on my IMAC for backup. I see it on my my IMAC . I can open files etc. But I can't seem to write to it nor can I delete current content. I don't care if I lose current content. How do I initialize it for use with the MAC?

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
If you want to use the drive exclusively with your Mac then move the data off it and reformat it in Disk Utility (Applications - Utilities - Disk Utilities) as Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)

I keep getting "error occurred while attempting to import file *******. The disc your are attempting to use is full." I have an external hard drive that I moved files over to, but apparently they're also still on my hard drive? HELP!

I keep getting "error occurred while attempting to import file *******. The disc your are attempting to use is full." I have an external hard drive that I moved files over to, but apparently they're also still on my hard drive? HELP!

So you have backed up the content of the computer's hard drive, too?
That usually is a great idea since it is possible to lose use of the system
if parts of it have accidentally been removed or get over-written, or the
main system files get corrupted, when the hard disk drive gets too full.
If you have not trashed the originals of your created content, that remain
after you made copies on an external hard drive or other device, then
that is what you'd have to do to reclaim the capacity still in use by them.
What are specifications of the hard disk drive? The unused capacity
verses the used, in GB? If the hard drive has less than 15 to 20%
free or unused capacity, you could run into trouble. Mine are 40-50%
unused hard drive space, so ample room is available for automatic
Virtual Memory to use that capacity as temporary swap file space.
This is helpful when the computer could use more physical RAM
memory capacity, but doesn't have it. Or if the RAM is maxxed out
and you can't add any more. Virtual Memory is part of OS X and the
system automatically can use as much as is available, but it is better
to be sure there is plenty of resources available to include chip RAM
as well as unused or free hard drive capacity for use as VM.
If for some reason your files in Trash won't go away when you empty
it, you may have to restart. Be sure you have not included any System
files in the content in the Trash, or the Mac may not start up later on.
You may have to boot the computer from the install-restore OS X DVD
and run Repair Disk from its version of Disk Utility, to be sure it's OK.
I'm guessing that by now you know enough about the vintage system
in the older hardware to figure it out, so I won't write about it now.
In any event... hopefully you can simply trash the files, but check them
carefully, & you may need to remove (copy to archive first) even more.
Good luck & happy computing!

I have an external hard drive that I have been using for years. All of a sudden my mac will not recognize the external as a "save as" device location. But the external does show up on my desktop and I can open it to drag and drop items. Help.

I have an external hard drive that I have been using for years. All of a sudden my mac will not recognize the external as a "save as" device location. But the external does show up on my desktop and I can open it to drag and drop items. What happened and how do I get my mac to rerecognize the device?!?!?

Hi,
Check Finder>Preferences>Sidebar, is it checked there to show external drives?

I have an external hard drive which has my i-photo on it

I have an external hard drive which has my i-photo on it & some movies from i-movie that I have on disk now. But for some reason my ehd has a caution symbol on it & I can't move my event to free up space on my hd so that I can export i-movie events. Help!

Usually the caution symbol means that it's formatted as a PC compatible format like NTFS or most likely FAT32. For iMovie to use it the ehd must be formatted Mac OS Extended. Then iMovie will show it without the caution symbol and you can drag/drop open any Event/Project from that hard drive.
To find out if it's formatted as PC:
Go to the desktop, holding down the Control key click on that ehd and in the pop-menu choose 'Get Info'
Under Format: It will say whether or not it's Mac OS Extended (Journaled). The only way to undo a PC formatted ehd would be to copy everything off of it first, Erase/Format the drive using Disk Utility in the Applications>Utilities folder on your Mac, choosing the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format in the pull-down menu there.

I am new to a MAC. I have an external hard drive that I used with my Windows XP computer. Can I reformat it

I am new to MAC. I have an external hard drive that I used with my former computer running Windows XP. Can I reformat it to use with my new MAC? If so, how do I do it?

Yes you can. See the following:
Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Security button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.

I have an external hard drive which has my i-photo on it & some movies from i-movie that I have on disk now. But for some reason my ehd has a caution symbol on it & I can't move my event to free up space on my hd so that I can export i-movie events. Help!

I have an external hard drive which has my i-photo on it & some movies from i-movie that I have on disk now. But for some reason my ehd has a caution symbol on it & I can't move my event to free up space on my hd so that I can export i-movie events. Help!

Usually the caution symbol means that it's formatted as a PC compatible format like NTFS or most likely FAT32. For iMovie to use it the ehd must be formatted Mac OS Extended. Then iMovie will show it without the caution symbol and you can drag/drop open any Event/Project from that hard drive.
To find out if it's formatted as PC:
Go to the desktop, holding down the Control key click on that ehd and in the pop-menu choose 'Get Info'
Under Format: It will say whether or not it's Mac OS Extended (Journaled). The only way to undo a PC formatted ehd would be to copy everything off of it first, Erase/Format the drive using Disk Utility in the Applications>Utilities folder on your Mac, choosing the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format in the pull-down menu there.

HT4718 I have an external hard drive that I used as Time Machine Backup. I have not used it for a while and now, when I plug it in computer says: This disc is not readable. I want to recover the backups and not erase and reformat the disc. Thank you in

I have an external hard drive that I have used as Time Machine backup, but not for a while. Now when I plug it in, computer says this disc is not readable.
I want to keep the backups on it and not erase and start over.
Thank you in advance.
Gregor

It sounds like something went wrong with the drive. Did you drop it? How long has it been sitting around unused?

Can I backup to an external hard drive that has been formatted with windows?

Hi, I am fairly new to mac. I was wondering if I can backup my mac book pro using time machine to an external hard drive that has been formatted with windows. Time machine is saying it must erase to the hard drive in order to do a backup? Please help.

No it has to be formatted for OS X. Mac Extended (Journaled).

ITunes cannot locate purchased music. It was stored on an external hard drive that has crashed. How can I recover the songs?

iTunes cannot locate purchased music. It was stored on an external hard drive that has crashed. How can I recover the songs?

Hello, nwestpha.
Thank you for visiting Apple Support Communities.
You may find this article helpful in locating your missing media.
iTunes: Finding lost media and downloads
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1408
Cheers,
Jason H.

How do I use an external hard drive that has been used on a windows machine on my mac....

I have recently just bought a new mac and want to edit files that are currently saved on my external hard drive that I used on my windows machine.
Is there any way to be able to do this or will I have to transfer all files across to my mac and then re-format the external?
Thanks in advance.

Either copy files over, reformat drive from NTFS to a Mac format and copy files back, or tell your Mac how to write to NTFS drives with a third-party product. Tuxera NTFS has high ratings: http://www.tuxera.com/products/tuxera-ntfs-for-mac/

I have an external hard driver that I used to use with my old pc, but now I have a mac and I can see all of the files on it and open them, but I can't add things to it. How do I fix this?

I use my external hard drive to store all of my music, but now I can't save anything on it with my new Mac. Is there a way that I can reformat it or something without losing everything I already have on there?

I suggest to copy all your files in your external drive to your Macbook and reformat that external drive to Mac OS Extended Journaled or exFat.
Once you've done that - then copy all the files back to your external drive.
Do not format your external drive if you haven't copied whats in your external drive. You'll lose everything.

How to recover data from an external hard drive that has lost half of the data I was storing in it

I am using a Lacie external hard drive to store my photos on. Every once in awhile it disappears from my screen. I have been able to bring it back by unplugging and re-plugging from the computer. Then I had to turn it off and on again. Finally, it lost about half the stored photos, and I couldn't recover them. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what I might do to fix this problem?
I'm using an iMac with iOS 10.6.8
The hard drive has 1 TB capacity

You can try these.
Data Recovery Programs
Data Recovery – Best
Data Recovery – Disk Drill
Data Recovery – Data Rescue
Data Recovery – File Salvage
Data Recovery – Stellar Phoenix
Data Recovery - uFlysoft

Do I need to have an external hard drive that has a certain spindle speed, like 7200?

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