External Hard Drive Recommendations?

Hello - Newbie here.
I am in the market for an External Hard Drive for my MBP 2.33. I can't decide between a 500GB Maxtor One Touch III with FW-800/400; and the 500GB Western Digital MyBook with FW-800/400.
I am going to use this to hold my digital video footage. So I will be transfering the video straight from my sony dv camera to the hard drive where I will work with the footage with IMovie. I already have a FW-400 wire for the camcorder-computer connection...that leaves me with a USB and the FW-800 port available.
Has anyone had issues with WD or Maxtor and their Mac? Suggest another model??
Any advice would be much appreciated!!
Thank you!!

Maxtor are owned by Seagate. They used to be something of a budget brand.
Just so that it helps, do bear in mind that an external drive is just an external enclosure with an internal drive or drives in it.
Reliability depends on the combination between the enclosure and the drive - a good drive can still fail as a result of the enclosure doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. A drive can also fail simply because they are not perfect, so you could easily buy an expensive external drive which has a Western Digital Drive in it which will work fine.
Personally I'd go with an OWC enclosure and put a Seagate drive in it. Hang on, I did and opinions will vary. IVMichael recently recommended Western digital Drives (I think - sorry if I'm wrong) - but I think the Drives rather than their My Book solution.
Best of luck.

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External Hard Drive Recommendation Needed

I have an iBook G4, with probably a little less than 20 GB of material that I want to back-up onto an external hard drive. Recently, I purchased a "Fuji 30GB External Hard Drive," but while attempting to transfer my material to it, I received very many times the following message:
"You cannot copy some of these items to the destination because their names are too long or contain invalid characters for the destination. Do you want to skip copying these items and continue copying the other items?"
As it turns out, about 20% of the files on my iBook are un-transferable to the "Fuji 30GB" because of the length or composition of their filenames. I was hoping that someone could recommend to me a brand of external drive, in the 20GB-30GB range, with which I would not have this problem. Thanks for reading.
Double thanks for answering.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Personally, I like Western Digital and Seagate drives. And I would recommend looking for a larger drive, as prices have really come down and you can often find sales. There is almost no such thing as a hard drive that is too big. I believe the extra space will help with the bigger files because it will improve the chances of larger blocks of space to receive the data.
Newegg and OWC are good sources. Also look at office supply stores for sales.
Good luck!

External hard drive recommendations for OSX 10.4.7 and Windows XP

I just purchased an iMac20. I used bootcamp and have Windows XP running on a partition. I want to purchase an external hard drive for backup. Recommendations for an easy to use device that will allow backup of both operating systems without too much confusion. Thanks.

If you have 250GB drive, look for FW400 w/ 320GB.
I have bought a dozen (FW800/400 mostly) from OWC:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/eliteclassic

External Hard Drive Recommendation for iMac 24

I'm a Mac Newbie; 25 plus years using HP's. I'm needing advise on best external HD for Time Machine and media storage. I currently have a MacBook 13" and an iMac 24 (3.06 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 1.0 TB Internal Hard Drive). I've noticed a lot of positive comments about OWC external drives, especially the Mercury Elite Series. Is there a particular model or size in that series that would make sense based on my current equipment? Also, just curious, there doesn't appear to be many recommendations for Apple Time Machine units; why not? Thanks in advance for your time into my query.

I'm very happy with my OWC Mercury Elite Pro. How large a unit you get it mostly a matter of your budget and how much data you want/need to back up. A 1TB external drive would probably do most people quite nicely for a long time, but if you're going to be accumulating a lot of video material, that will fill up space fast, so you might need a larger drive or RAID. OWC has RAID units up to 4TB.
just curious, there doesn't appear to be many recommendations for Apple Time Machine units; why not?
Do you mean Apple's Time Capsule? If so, many people are quite happy with it, but since it's more than just an external hard drive, you won't see it mentioned very often when someone asks for a recommendation for an external drive. If you need to share a drive between more than one system, and particularly if you're also in the market for a wireless base station, a Time Capsule might be just the thing for you. If all you need is an external drive for a single computer, a Time Capsule would be overkill.

New external hard drive recommendations !!!!!

Got a problem with a Lacie d2 hard drive. Don't think I want to go that direction again. Do you guys have any recommendations?
Thanks

The Glyph firewire drives are great. They use Seagate drives instead of Maxtor. Quieter and much more reliable.

External Hard Drives Recommended for media and scrasj disks?

I a working as a pro, but new to Final Cut Pro. I am wondering which external harddrives which would work best for a scratsj disk and a media disk (two separate).
I am concedering La Cie Rugged drives which are Firewire 800 / 7200 Rpm and do not need any external power suply (it gets the electricity from the mac).
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=11135
The Lacie Rugged does not have a fan which makes it silent. I am not sure how it operates under warm conditions though.
I am looking for a mobile solution.
0.) Some other forum suggested that is is important to buy a disk with at least 16MB cache. I am not sure whether the Rugged drive has 16 Mb. Is this important?
1.) I am having concerns whether the La Cie would be rough enough to be "beaten up" as a scratsj drive?
2.) Will the Macbook Pro have enough power to give the two external Rugged drives electricity / power enough?
3.) Will it be less speed efficient to have two Firewire 800 drives on the same machine / same Firewire curcuit?
4.) Are there other mobile solutins for external drives which are better?
5.) Is it better to buy two standard 7200 rpm Firewire 800 disk for this purpose?

Hi Simen
First off, what format are you shooting? DV Pal? or some flavour of HD? and how much do you plan on shooting?
Personally I have used the Lacie rugged drive, FCP and a Powerbook (G4) in a variety of field settings, cold and hot, and it has been fine with DV simple cutting stuff.
I would also say though that given the chance I would use mains powered drives any day, and my preference would be for G-Tech drives not Lacie, they do a "Q" drive which is heat sink cooled (not a fan) which I have found reliable.
I would also suggest getting a FW800 PC card to run your drives from.
Your Macbook will have enough power to run the drives but of course your battery isn't going to last long!
Best
Andrew

Is the SimpleTech 250GB SimpleDrive External Hard Drive recommended?

I have a MacBook and am looking for an external drive to backup to. I find the SimpleTech SimpleDrive affordable, attractive and portable.
I know it is essentially made for PCs. Can a MacBook use it as well - right out of the box, or do I need to do anything first? Is it a good choice for MacBooks? Thanks.

I bought one of the older 160 GB (Pininfarina Design) versions for my folks. It contained a WD drive as its internals.
It came formatted in NTFS, so it wasn't exactly ready for out of the box use with my MacBook or iBook G4. It also wouldn't mount without using both the data and power plugs. With just the data plug, I could see it in System Profiler, but it didn't mount properly. Since it was NTFS formatted, it was read only.
You could buy one and if it's still NTFS formatted out of the box, you could just reformat it in FAT32 or HFS+. I'm not sure exactly how much power it might draw, and if you might need to use both plugs or an external power adapter (they have a plug for a 5V power supply).

External Hard Drives-Recommendation required

Hi All,
I have a new Intel Mac and also a Lacie EHD of 80 gig capacity. I am also running XP, but about to go to Vista.
My question is about the best performing and silent (ish) EHD's.
My understanding is that Samsung in an appropriate case, may win on all counts, any comments. My aim is to use a new 300 gig Firewire EHD with an Oxford chipset, to back up the Mac ( using SuperDuper ) and use the present Firewire 80 gig Lacie to back up Windows ( have not figured out how to achieve the latter as yet-understand Windows Backup, not so good)
[[Further, my understanding is that many of the EHD 'manufacturers' eg Lacie, simply make the 'pretty case' and use mainstream drives.}}
Anyone see any issues with that? "That" being the setup I propose using in general terms.
iMac 20" Intel Core 2 Duo, 250 gig HD, 1 gig Ram Mac OS X (10.4.7) LaCie EHD 80 gig, Running XP via Boot Camp
Message was edited by: Ronald Begg

My biggest problem is the d2 case design by LaCie. I haven't used any of the others, but its power supply has a strange switch that puts the drive basically to sleep, when it is dismounted, or removed, and automounts when you start up even if you didn't press that button, or if you attach it. There are times you want the drive to act as if it isn't on. For quiet drive case designs with true on/off switches, I go for http://www.macsales.com/ cases. If you don't mind a little noise, http://www.granitedigital.com/ (also known as Relax Technologies) has one more plus to its side and that's the fact its cases actually use standard power supplies. The downside is the fan, but a properly inserted drive will yield very little if any fan noise on them.

What external hard drive to you recommend to free up space on an old Macbook Pro?

My Macbook Pro is approx. 5 years old. I have since gotten an imac, however would like to use my old Creative Suite 2 on the macbook. When I updated it to "Lion" - it denied access to my creative suite apps. I have since contacted Adobe, and they have given me a solution to get it up and running again, however, my startup disk is just about FULL. Therefore I can't upgrade or really even open more than one app without getting the warning pop up about getting rid of some files asap or risk malfunction of the laptop.
What external hard drive do you recommend to get the most bang for my buck in terms of offloading a massive amount of photos to in order to be able to use the laptop again?

Your picture folder would have to be 10 times larger and then it would be close to 1 TB in size. I have an aphorism, 'one cannot have too much storage'. If the bank account can afford it, follow Ralph's advice and do go for the larger storage drive. Given enough time, you might just grow into it..
Now there is an issue that you should consider. Since these pictures will no longer be on your MBP, do you want to have them backed up? If so, you then are going to need an additional HDD to store the backups. All HDDs will eventually fail, you just do not know when.
Ciao.

I need recommendations in purchasing an external hard drive, to back up everything in my computer. What brand and Size?

I have a mid 2010 iMac, version 10.8.2, memory 4GB, 1TB sata disk.
Apple sent me an e-mail last year stating that my imac maybe affected to a recall. They said I have to back up my computer before sending it in to them. So its a great excuse to purchase an external hard drive.
But I am clueless. I would like to know what brand and size of memory is recommened for my imac and my needs. I will be mostly be backing up homevideos and alot of pictures, music, and some documents.
If someone could also explain about time machine? I guess its a whole separte thing from your media. I also would like to keep it affordable. I just purchased an external hard drive from www.macmall.com Seagate Backup Plus 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Drive - Black (STBU1000100).
But I don't know if that was a really great choice because for it to work with time machine I have to reformat certain things, and Im not sure if I would like to have that hassle.
I also wanted to know whats the difference between usb 3.0 and firewire. I read some forums saying that if you are to transfer videos you need to use firewire, and some agreed disagreed. Is that true?
Please help!?
I definitely would like to know what brands of external hard drives are highly recommended and good at price. The one I purchased is it any good?
Thank you!
-wjrlelidepaula

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10554
http://www.newertech.com/storage/

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Can anyone make a recommendation on the purchase of an external hard drive for my Macbook Pro? I am currently using OS 10.6.8 because I can't upgrade until I clean out my start up disc space. I have a ton of pictures to transfer. Thanks!

Can anyone make a recommendation on the purchase of an external hard drive for my Macbook Pro? I am currently using OS 10.6.8 because I can't upgrade until I clean out my start up disc space. I have a ton of pictures to transfer.Thanks!

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
2.5" USB portable High quality BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba "tiny giant" 2TB drive (have several of them, LOT of storage in a SMALL package) $117
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.

I have a disconnect between my external hard drive and lightroom 5.6. The recommended steps do not connect 11000 photos on the hard drive. How can I connect? I am concerned I have lost my edits in lightroom.

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after some sorting out your article, I clicked on a question mark with the message find the missing folder. This brought me to a page where I could choose a folder by year and click on it. The question marks disappeared and the photos were available. In some cases I had to click on the year folder for each subfolder by date.
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Hi, Can anyone recommended software to import dvd to iMovies. I need to import about a dozen homemade DVD's and edit them into a single DVD comprising the 'best bits'. How best can I do this. I have an external hard drive available for the job

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You need to convert the VOB files in the TS-Folder of the DVD back to DV which iMovie is designed to handle. For that you need mpegStreamclip:
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html
which is free, but you must also have the Apple mpeg2 plugin :
http://store.apple.com/us/product/D2187Z/A/quicktime-mpeg-2-playback-component-f or-mac-os-x
(unless you are running Lion in which case see below))
which is a mere $20.
Another possibility is to use DVDxDV:
http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.overview.htm
which costs $25.
For the benefit of others who may read this thread:
Obviously the foregoing only applies to DVDs you have made yourself, or other home-made DVDs that have been given to you. It will NOT work on copy-protected commercial DVDs, which in any case would be illegal.
And from the TOU of these forums:
Keep within the Law
No material may be submitted that is intended to promote or commit an illegal act.
Do not submit software or descriptions of processes that break or otherwise ‘work around’ digital rights management software or hardware. This includes conversations about ‘ripping’ DVDs or working around FairPlay software used on the iTunes Store.
If you are running Lion or later:
From the MPEG Streamclip homepage
The installer of the MPEG-2 Playback Component may refuse to install the component in Lion. Apple states the component is unnecessary in Lion onwards, however MPEG Streamclip still needs it. See this:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3381
To install the component in Lion, please download MPEG Streamclip 1.9.3b7 beta above; inside the disk image you will find the Utility MPEG2 Component Lion: use it to install the MPEG-2 Playback Component in Lion. The original installer's disk image (QuickTimeMPEG2.dmg) is required.
The current versions of MPEG Streamclip cannot take advantage of the built-in MPEG-2 functionality of Lion. For MPEG-2 files you still need to install the QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component, which is not preinstalled in Lion. (The same applies to Mountain Lion even though that has it preinstalled.) You don't have to install QuickTime 7.

Recommend an external hard drive for a backup for me?

For the first time since I've owned any computer PC or Mac, I need to purchase a external hard drive so I can back up my computer. Over the years I have never backed anything up and have lost some things which at the time wasn't too important. But now with this computer I have lots of music and some very important pictures to me and videos of my grandson I do not want to lose, internet bookmarks etc. etc. I have a program called Time Machine on this computer which I assume is to back up my computer contents. I know nothing about external drives for the purpose of backups. Can someone recommend a reasonably priced one for a beginner and where do I purchase it? Online? Through Apple?
Thanks

I have two LaCie drives - you can check them out here:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10033
Depending on which brand you decide to purchase, you may have to format them for a Mac, which is very easily accomplished by using Disk Utility (Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility). At that same time, you may also want to partition it which will create 2 or more partitions on the same drive - each one will act as though it is a separate hard drive. I have mine partitioned and use one just to drag and drop (copy) an extra copy of important pictures or files on it. I use another partition to create a bootable clone using either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner (simple version is free). A bootable clone means that if there is a major problem with your internal hard drive and you can't start up with it, you can start up with the bootable clone because it is an exact and complete copy of your entire system. Then there is the option to use Time Machine; personally I don't use it, so someone else will need to chime in with it. It copies a lot of things and does it automatically every hour or so I believe, but you cannot boot up your computer with it (that is why I've decided not to use it).
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