External Hard Drive - Best Option

Anyone have any suggestions on the best solution for a 1TB external hard drive? I've been looking at either getting a Lacie Big Disk Extreme+ or buying an Icydock enclusure with a Seagate Barracuda Internal Drive. Both priced out about the same. Any thoughts on which would be better or another suggestion?

Reliability costs extra, because it requires redundancy. There's basically two options in the consumer price range: RAID (a technique requiring expertise and maintenance) or Drobo (a product designed to do what RAID 5 does without so much hassle).
Here's what Apple says about RAID, but it's much more trouble than it sounds:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh1013.html
Here's what Apple says about Drobo, with a few reviews:
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?s=price HL&fnode=home/shopmac/macaccessories/storage&nplm=TQ277LL/A&mco=A2F7CDA2
Here's Drobo's Time Machine page:
http://www.drobo.com/productstimemachine.aspx
The cheapest way to get a Drobo is with a $50 discount from podcasts like Tekzilla ( http://revision3.com/tekzilla/ ) or GeekBrief ( http://geekbrief.tv/ ). Otherwise, retail price only fluctuates by a few bucks:
http://www.pricewatch.com/brands/tapedrives/datarobotics-1.htm

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Need more space! Is external hard drive an option??

New to atv. Bought 40g model. Now going on vacation and need more space for more stuff. Can external hard drive be hooked up via USB and accessed through atv??

Can external hard drive be hooked up via USB and accessed through atv?
Not without voiding the warranty. No publicly available device is officially supported by that USB port.
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MB Pro & External Hard Drive - Best format for Mac/Windows use?

My external hard drive is currently formatted as FAT 32. I need to use it between Mac and Windows. However, I have many files that are 4 GB or larger.
Should I reformat as HFS? Will that at least be readable on Windows?
I thank you in advance for any thoughts.

There's no really good choice.
Regardless of the filesystem you choose, you will need additional software to read/write it on one of the operating systems. MacDrive for Windows will permit you to read/write HFS+ formatted volumes on Windows -- it's $50. MacFuse + NTFSng allows Mac OS X to read/write NTFS formatted drives -- it's free, but a little awkward.

External Hard Drive Partitioning Options

I recently purchased a new external portable hard drive for my mac. It is the WD My Passport Ultra 2 TB version. I looked up online how to reformat it for Mac's and read through the instructions. Essentially, when reaching the part about partioning the disk within the Disk Utility app I want to select the Mac OS Extended option. However, it is not there. Along with a few other options that I don't want to use, it shows Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and Mac OS Extended (Journaled; case sensitive). I understand that journaled offers more protection, but it is noted by a lot of the community that for photos and videos (and other media) the regular Mac OS Extended is much better (and that is what my use will be for). Do you know where this option has gone and what I can do to get it back?
Thanks, please let me know, any help is appreciated!

1. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) unless you have a reason to choose a different format.
2. Yes.
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Migration Assistant cant find external hard drive Best Buy backed up for me when laptop crashed.

My mac's hard drive somehow failed and I took it to Best Buy where i bought it from and they backed it up to an external I had to buy and now when I go to the migration assistant it cant find it. What can I do?

Migration assistant will only work with drives that are a) contain original Mac systems, b) are exact clones of such drives, or c) Time Machine destination drives. For example, with a clone, you would see an Applications folder, a Library folder, System and Users at the top of the hard drive. If Best Buy just copied files onto the external, you can't use it in Migration Assistant. However, once you complete setup of the new system (without migrating) you can manually copy user files (not most applications though) from wherever they are on the external to the proper places on your new drive.
Matt

Premiere Pro + External Hard Drive Best Practices

For best performance when editing in premiere, is it recommended to keep raw files and project files on seperate drives? Does this make workflow and response time quicker? What are the most efficient and safest options? Thanks

I see this repeated over and over. I have not found it to be true. I have found over and over again that a single dedicated 7200 internal drive for media will work just fine. This is editing RT employing mainly DV, HDV, Cannon XF and Sony XdCam up to 50 Mbps. This includes multicamera projects up to four cameras.
Since 2002 I have set up at least 10 separate Premiere based NLE PCs and have witnessed hundreds of projects across these many systems edited with Premiere 6.0, 6.5, Pro 1.5 Pro 2.0, CS4, CS5x, and CS6. The only time when hard discs became an issue was a misadventure using USB external drives.
I experimented, early in DV editing days, with advising editors to save their graphics, music, and project files on a separate internal media drive. However I could never get a consistent compliance with that, so for file management sake, I began having users keep all scratch disc dialogues checked to "same as project". That way they just needed to be certain to create their project folder on a Media drive, and save their project into that folder.
Things have been smooth with that. I think that over the years I've had enough testing to say with confidence that anyone will be fine with it for general use with codecs up to 50Mbps per stream.
The only place I've found some benefit is in targeting a separate internal drive for exports. This can speed up exports a bit, but I haven't found wild differences.
So a typical system I might set up or use would map like this:
     C: System (usually a raid0)
     D: internal 7200 rpm Media 1 (Active Premiere Projects)
     G: USB\Firewire External Drives Storage (Inactive premiere projects and offline file storage)
      Additional video edit space set up as:
     E: internal 7200 rpm Media 2 (Active Premiere Projects)
Again, lots of experience with this set up and no drive performance issues.

Can I back up what I want to keep on an external hard drive, as far as apps,pictures, books etc, and then delete the entire iCloud ?

Can I back up apps, books, etc to an external hard drive and delete iCloud?

There are some wireless external hard drives that can be used with the iPad.
Best iPad External Hard Drive Storage Options
http://www.unlocktips.com/2012/11/best-ipad-mini-external-hard-drive-memory-stor age-options/
iPad Storage Solutions
http://www.ipadstoragesolutions.com/iPadWirelessStorage.php
SanDisk Connect Wireless Media Drive
http://www.sandisk.com/products/wireless/media-drive/
WD My Cloud
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1140
Another option:
Expand your iPad's storage capacity with HyperDrive
http://www.macworld.com/article/1153935/hyperdrive.html
On the road with a camera, an iPad, and a Hyperdrive
http://www.macworld.com/article/1160231/ipadhyperdrive.html
 Cheers, Tom

I have downloaded some videos to my ipad via my SD card now my storage is full, how can I transfer the videos off my ipad to clear the storage but keep the videos on another media device (external hard drive)?

I have downloaded some videos to my ipad via my SD card now my storage is full, how can I transfer the videos off my ipad to clear the storage but keep the videos on another media device (external hard drive)?

There are some wireless external hard drives that can be used with the iPad.
Best iPad External Hard Drive Storage Options
http://www.unlocktips.com/2012/11/best-ipad-mini-external-hard-drive-memory-stor age-options/
iPad Storage Solutions
http://www.ipadstoragesolutions.com/iPadWirelessStorage.php
 Cheers, Tom

Play external hard drive from iPad

Can anyone tell me how to play a external hard drive from my ipad

There are some wireless external hard drives that can be used with the iPad.
Best iPad External Hard Drive Storage Options
http://www.unlocktips.com/2012/11/best-ipad-mini-external-hard-drive-memory-stor age-options/
iPad Storage Solutions
http://www.ipadstoragesolutions.com/iPadWirelessStorage.php
SanDisk Connect Wireless Media Drive http://www.sandisk.com/products/wireless/media-drive/
Another option:
Expand your iPad's storage capacity with HyperDrive
http://www.macworld.com/article/1153935/hyperdrive.html
On the road with a camera, an iPad, and a Hyperdrive
http://www.macworld.com/article/1160231/ipadhyperdrive.html
 Cheers, Tom

HELP!!!!! How do I back up using Western Digital External Hard Drive

I just bought a western digital external hard drive dual option media center and combo external storage. It came with a Dantz Retrospect Express backup software. I can't seem to get it to work. It installs ok, but when I try to open up the software it opens and closes with an error message. What am I doing wrong? How do I back up my files, programs, iTunes and Movies? Is there an easy way to do this? I've ask a lot of people and know can seem to give me a straight answer. PLEASE HELP!!

Hi Marc and welcome!
It is possible that the version of Dantz Retrospect does not work with Tiger. You do not need to use that program. In fact, a lot of people feel it is rather clumsy and feature-crippled to the point that it is not really useful.
Is that drive a combo FireWire and USB drive? IF so, there is a phenominal program called SuperDuper that does much, much more than Retrospect. It will clone your hard drive which means it will make an exact copy of every last bit and byte and then make it bootable so you can actually boot your Mac from your external drive in the event of a hardware or software problem. It costs only $27.95, but it is well worth it and highly recommended.
There are other programs that do what SuperDuper does, but I like SD best. Carbon Copy Cloner, and LaCie's SilverKeeper are the others most often mention, but their support is not as good as SD's. Both required updates to work with Tiger while SD worked from Day 1.
Plug the drive in and open your Mac's Disk Utility and partition it if you want. One it is formatted in HFS it will work fine.

Backing Up Songs on External Hard Drive

I saved my iTunes music out to an external hard drive. However, when I go to My Computer/Documents and Settings/Owner/My Documents/My Music/iTunes Folder I notice that all of my music (iTunes Purchased and CD loads) is not saved and listed. My iTune Purchased songs are backed up, and SOME of the songs that I loaded into iTunes from CD aren't. All the songs that I purchased or loaded from CD are appropriately listed under the Music label on the iTunes Main Page, but they certainly aren't all backed up on the external hard drive. I'm puzzled. Any ideas on what the problem is?

See: Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive
Best of Luck

Best Option to Improve Computer Speed Using External Hard Drive?

Hi!
My eMac's 80 gig hard drive is full - mainly due to music, movies and photos - so it is slow and I can't add new media. I cloned the whole hard drive to a 1TB external drive. The computer boots from the external drive. The hard drive is connected to the computer via a FireWire 800 to Firewire 400 adapter cable. I am running Leopard. My RAM is maxed out.
When I boot from the external HD, I seem to get a boost in performance but this seem intermittent and/or not substantial. I have not tested it with a stop watch yet.
I want to get the best performance from my machine. Please help me with the best option. What sounds best?
1) Forget about cloning. Copy my music, movies and pictures to the external hard drive. Delete these media files from the original eMac to free up space. Run the eMac from the internal drive and access these files from the external drive.
2) Boot from the cloned external hard drive and use computer like that.
3) Will it help if the internal eMac HD is not so full? Does this matter if I am booting up from an external drive? Should I delete most or all files from the internal eMac HD and then boot the computer from the EXTERNAL drive? Would this speed things up?
4) I am open to other suggestions.
The only reason I would not prefer option #2 is that I like to keep all my files on the same drive for backup purposes. I use Time Machine.
Thanks!

Your Mac will run best and fastest if you run from the internal HD -- it's much faster than an external HD.
And it's best to keep at least 15% free on it; as your startup drive gets more full, your Mac will slow down. Just how much and when depends on a lot of things, but if it gets over 95% or so, it may get very sluggish, apps may hang or crash, data may be corrupted or lost, etc.
So your best bet would be a larger HD in your Mac. I don't know if that's possible or how much it would cost.
Second best would be to put selected data on an external HD, preferably not the one you use for Time Machine. As long as you format that HD for a Mac, Time Machine can back it up, along with your internal HD.
Put Music on the external for sure, and things like documents.
Photos and Video, maybe. Editing will be much slower on a F/W disk than your internal. So it might make sense to do editing on the internal, then put completed video on the external. You'll have to figure that out depending on what you're doing and how.
For help moving things, see:
[Moving your iTunes Music folder|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449]
[Moving your iPhoto library|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1229]
[Moving iMovie footage to another drive|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1026]

I want my i-tunes from pc to my macbook? What are my best options for this/best external hard drives?

I recently purchased a mac book pro and my i-tunes library is on my pc. I was told I need an external hard-drive to move my library on my own. I need affordable options on what will make this an easy transition; does anyone have any suggestions?

Macworld - How to transfer iTunes libraries between PC and Mac

I have a external Hard drive of 1TB. I want to transfer HD movies to it from my MAC but it can only take 4 gb at a time, now i have to format it which is the best format in this situation NTFS or exFAT, as i use windows part ion as well??

I have a external Hard drive of 1TB. I want to transfer HD movies to it from my MAC but it can only take 4 gb at a time, now i have to format it which is the best format in this situation NTFS or exFAT, as i use windows part ion as well?? plzz help
Merry Christmas

Repartition and format the drive for a Mac:
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.

What is the best external hard drive i can get for my macbook pro snowleopard?

my hard drive is full and i need an external drive
we dont have a mac store here so i went to radio shack and picked up a toshiba canvio 3.0 plus
all fine and good except the fellow at the store failed to notice i am a 60 year old grandmother
and probably wouldnt know how to install let alone use it or format or whatever it requires... no manual
no nuthin' : (
i dont even know how to get all the stuff i installed off the computer (i uninstalled the driver)
So! i need an external drive but i am not a computer scientist
i just need to plug and play ya know?
Doesnt apple make one and does it have a users manual or operating guide or
whatEVER they are choosing to call the directions this week??!!
the thing is i came into apple's site and the flipping stuff in the middle is moving so fast
i cant even find someplace that talks about external hard drives...
i just get my eyes focused on the new array and it flips to the next one
hope someone can help me
i dont even know if i can find my way back here
will bookmark it but if not....
my email is
by the way... why is it all getting harder as we progress in this techno adventure??
it used to be so easy
[email protected]
thanks
calling apple care tomorrow

the BEST that exists (fact, not opinion) are Hitachi
best options for the price, and high quality HD:
Quality 1TB drives are $50 per TB on 3.5" or $65 per TB on 2.5"
Perfect 1TB for $68
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005J7YA3W/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379452568&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+toshiba
Nice 500gig for $50. ultraslim perfect for use with a notebook
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B009F1CXI2/ref=s r_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377642728&sr=1-1&keywords=toshiba+slim+500gb
BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba "tiny giant" 15mm thick 2TB drive (have several of them, lots of storage in tiny package) $100
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Connect-Portable-HDTC720XK3C1/dp/B00CGUMS48 /ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1379182740&sr=1-4&keywords=2tb+toshiba
*This one is the BEST portable external HD available that money can buy:
HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $88
http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Mobile-Portable-External-0S03559/dp/B009GE6JI8/ref=sr _1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383238934&sr=8-1&keywords=HGST+Touro+Mobile+Pro+1TB+USB+3.0+7 2 00+RPM
Most storage experts agree on the Hitachi 2.5"
Hitachi is the winner in hard drive reliability survey:
Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study. Of the hundreds of Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors. Adding the highest average lifespans and the best relationship between failures and market share, Hitachi can be regarded as the winner.

External Hard Drive - Best Option

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