External HDD enclosure questions

Hello, I just recently swapped out my factory HDD in my 2012 MBP for a Crucial 256GB SDD. I'm very pleased with the speed and the installation was a breeze! (Thanks to Bimmer 7 Series who's step by step reference guide helped me out alot)
I have a couple of questions or would just like a few opinions regarding what I should with my factory HDD? It's now in a enclosure and everything seems to be running fine. On top of the Hibatchi HDD (or whatever the apple factory HDD is) I also have a WD 500 GB regular external hard drive that I bought some time ago for time machine backups.
Ok so here's my question:
1) What do you recommend I do with the Hibatchi 750 GB HD? Should I leave it as is in case something happens, clone my SDD to it, use it for Time machine backup, etc..? I'm thinking I'm going to need one of them for storing large files that I don't need immediate access to, since the SSD isn't too much space. And the other one just a straight clone.
2) Kind of off topic, but do you think upping my RAM to 16GB from 8GB is worth it? My laptop seems to be blazing fast already but I do use RAM hungry apps like ProTools, Logic, Reason, and Ableton Live.
I was also having a problem with the Hibtachi HDD in the enclosure. When I plugged it in to the USB, my comp didn't recognize the HDD and did not mount. I tried opening up disk utility and I could view it there, but when I tried to erase/create Mac Journal it said something about it being unable to mount...
Sorry for the blabber but if anyone could give me some of their tips/tech opinion I would greatly appreciate it.
BTW if you're on the fence of upgrading to SSD... DO IT!!! It's well worth the $$$ and installation is a breeze.

The one question many of us are asking ourselves with the new and much vaunted USB3 ports that come in this year's Macs: do they also have the miserable 0.5A current limit of USB2 or not? Back in the day, that seemed an awful lot, but with modern monster drives it really falls short. Imagine trying to drive a 3TB HDD, which is virtually available in any corner store nowadays. And Hitachi promised reaching an 8-10TB record on a single spindle before the year is out.
As for the memory, been enjoying the following for the past three weeks, can't believe how fast the Mac has become. Cost me about the same and from the same place. Only difference is mine IS Mac-certified, although the specs appear to be the same, in speed and CAS timing. Go for it!

Similar Messages

Upgraded to Mavericks. Now External HDD Enclosure Won't Mount. Is there a fix?

Upgraded to Mavericks. Now I can't get my external HDD enclosure to mount. A little about this enclosure, as it's not the usual settup . I have four 3TB HDDs in a RAID5 settup. The most unique part is that they are formatted as a Windows NT Filesystem (Tuxera NTFS). Basically, when I set this up, I had to get a lot of info from a Windows-formatted HDD, but also be able to read/write afterwards. It's worked fine for ~ 1 year, but now that I've upgraded to Mavericks, nothing will mount. I ran Disk Utility, where I see the HDDs (I've partitioned them into four drives of varying sizes), but they are greyed out. I tried to mount them, but it says it won't and that I should run First Aid. So I did...tried to "Repair Disk," but it just gets stuck on "Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required." For over an hour it's been on that message.
So, does anybody out there have a fix? I've read several similar posts about people having a hard time mounting and, overall, dealing with external HDDs after upgrading to Mavericks. But nothing seemed to fit my exact circumstances. Lastly, I should mention that I've used both Firewire and USB connections. Both resulted in the same.
Thanks.

I can't help with specifics for your issue, but some general thoughts:
The upgrade and the disk problem may be a coincidence. It would help you if you could verify that the drive still works fine on a windows machine. If you run a windows virtual machine or have a windows pc, or a friend does, verify full functioning that way. If it still won't mount on the mac, try to copy/backup it's data onto the windows machine (maybe another external drive connected to it. You could then scrub the disk in windows, leave it unpartitioned, unformatted. Connect it back to the mac and format it as HFS+ (Mac extended journalled) and transfer the data back to it by sharing the windows machine external drive and connecting the two machines with a network cable.

USB External HDD Enclosure with a 500GB HDD!!

Hi All,
I was just wondering if anyone has come across using a 3rd party USB external HDD enclosure with a hard drive (mine is 500GB HDD). What I am trying to do is to format the HDD so both PC and MAC can use it but it will be mainly connected to my iMAC. I have tried by using PC to format the HDD to NTFS but MAC will not show the HDD on the desktop when I plug the USB to the back of the iMAC.
I have done some researches and it seems the only way to do make this possibe is to format it into FAT32. So I have tried to use FDisk to make the partition but it doesn't seems to support anything bigger than 120GB, now I am really stuck. If anyone knows any quick and painless solution, please spare me some advice.
Headache!!
Dave
iMAC 20" Core2 Duo 2.16 1GB Mac OS X (10.4.9) Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Windows can use, but not format, large FAT32 partitions. Microsoft wants to discourage using FAT32 for portable storage (for marketing reasons).
The solution is to use Mac's Disk Utility to format the disk as FAT32 (misnamed MS-DOS in Disk Utility). The disk will then be read/write by both Mac and PC.
Also, it's worth pointing out that you can read and write NTFS disks using MacFUSE with the NTFS-3G plugin. Albeit, this is very awkward to do unless you've got some UNIX shell experience.

Empty External HDD Enclosure that is the size of the Time Capsule

anyone know a model for a empty Time capsule size enclosure to put a HDD in to act as a second drive sitting atop of the Time Capsule.
looking for one that is the same dimension, yes I know u can add any external HDD, looking for an enclosure that is the same size.
thanks

My first thought was to look at enclosures sold to Mac mini buyers.

External HDD Enclosure Problems

Hi, I recently switched to OS X from Windows and I am still learning how to use it. I just bought an external 3.5 inch HDD enclosure and i am having problems getting it to work properly. i formatted it to be FAT32 in windows, and it works fine in windows. it is no name and i bought it for 20 bucks so there is no company website and the user manual says that it should work with os 9 or newer without installation of drivers. it says "safe store", hispeed usb certified and firewire compliant on the box. it supports IDE hard drives and USB 1.1 & 2.0 transfer. when i plug it into my macbook, the green light goes to red on the enclosure and thats pretty much all it does (doesnt do that in windows). i checked system profiler under USB and it recognized mass storage device. this is what else i got from there :
Mass Storage Device:
Version: 1.00
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Prolific Technology Inc.
Product ID: 0x2507
Serial Number: 0
Vendor ID: 0x067b
like i said, im new to os x and im sure i would have had this figured out on windows but this is all i can do. any assistance would be useful.
dave
btw, i have 7 days to return this thing for store credit so i would like to get it figured out before then if possible.

Does that mean that it doesn't show up in Disk Utility, either? If not, are you connecting it using USB or Firewire? Does it work in the other port? Do other devices work in your USB or Firewire ports?
If you don't have any data on it (or have it backed up), you can try connect it to your PC and remove the partition. (If you're using XP then right-click My Computer, select Manage, select Disk Management, right-click the partition, select Delete Partition...) Once the partition is removed, does OS X recognize it when you connect it?

External HDD Enclosure Drivers - PX1396U-3T01

Hi folks, have run into a problem with my hard drive.
I'm using Windows Vista Home Premium edition. I got a driver CD with my HDD enclosure when i purchased it, but have recently reformatted my computer and have realise i have lost the disk. vista does not detect the enclosure automatically, it requires the drivers cd to install properly. where can i get a copy of the cd that came with the drive? or failing that, where can i get the drivers needed to run the drive properly? the toshiba website has the enclosure in the downloads section, but does not have drivers for it, just some other software utilities.
Thanks,
James.

Hi there,
thank you for the replies. I was under the impression I didn't need drivers. however, when i turn the enclosure on, vista detects it, and asks me if i have the cd. if i leave vista to try and install drivers for it automatically, it says it cannot find them.
the enclosure worked fine with the same cable before the reinstall. I'll try it again, and try it in another computer and see what happens.. the files on the drive are pretty important (stupid of me, i know, but this was supposed to be a backup drive heh :)
also, the partition hasn't changed i don't think. i had the drive powered off, installed windows, and powered it back on again.
Message was edited by: jimmyholloway

WD 750GB HDD won't erase or repartition, using external HDD enclosure, what am I doing wrong?

I have the late 2008 aluminum macbook running Mountain Lion with the original 250gb hard drive, and the hard drive's been sitting at over 90% full for months. I've been needing to upgrade it for a while, so I bought a 2.5" WD Scorpio Black 7200 rpm 750GB HDD and a StarTech 2.5" External Hard Drive Enclosure (SAT251OU2).
Once inserted into the enclosure and plugged with USB into the mac, a green light on the enclosure comes on and a message comes up reading "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." and gives me the options to Intialize..., Ignore, or Eject. To allow for the Disk Utility to see the disk, I press the Intialize...
When I run disk utility and select the 750.16 GB WDC WD75 ... HD and run erase: format Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or Partition the Drive (has a disk2s2 partition by default) to 1 Partition with the option of GUID Partition Table (and Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) and hit apply, the disk utility will run for about 30 seconds, while reading Formatting (default partition name) disk2s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name [name I specified].
The light on the external enclosure changes from green to amber when the formatting starts, then about 20 seconds in a message stating "Partition failed, Partition failed with the error: File system formatter failed," and a hard drive click sound occurs, the enclosure's lights blink green and amber (or red) for a few seconds, then shortly afterwards a message reads, "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" with a prompt allowing me to again start the process over: Intialize..., Ignore or Eject.
How can I format this disk and use it with my mac? I was hoping to clone my original hard drive.
HDD: Western Digital WD Scorpio Black 750 GB SATA 3 GB/s 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache Internal Bulk/OEM 2.5-Inch Mobile Hard Drive
Enclosure: StarTech.com 2.5in Silver USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure for SATA HDD

Any ideas on how to get the HDD to format, or whether it's a bad enclosure or hard drive?

Partition External HDD and questions about mac

Hey Forum,
I am using Mac OS X snow leopard on my macbook, and I recently bought a WD HDD 500gb external. I was wondering is 320gb for mac and 125 gb for windows enough?
Pls reply.
Thanks
Ala.

It's impossible for us to determine, without knowing what you will be doing with OS X and with Windows. Your 320/125 estimate at this point is a better bet for you than any number any of us might suggest.

Install snow leopard on external hdd using windows

My laptop logic board broke. So I wasn't able to erase the hdd. So I took it out put it into my external hdd enclosure. Now I'm stuck on how I would reinstall a fresh copy on the hdd when I only have a windows computer available. I could get a Mac one but that would be a little harder to do, since I have one and I have to go outta my friends. Anyone have a way for me??

Ummm, this is posted in the forum for help with iTunes on Mac.
Fresh copy of what? You're trying to install Snow Leopard on a Windows computer?? Or you are trying to install iTunes on a Snow Leopard drive in an external enclosure to run on a Windows computer? Need some clarity here please.

I have question about hooking up an external hdd to a time capsule and still have my printer hooked up as well. Anyone got any tips for me, how to do it and what brand of harddrive that will work best for me 1 or 2 TB

i have question about hooking up an external hdd to a time capsule and still have my printer hooked up as well. Anyone got any tips for me, how to do it and what brand of harddrive that will work best for me 1 or 2 TB

You just need a powered hub.. if you already use one then fine.
Plug in just about any external hard disk will work fine. Format has to be readable by the TC.. ie fat32.. or much better HFS+.. plug it into a Mac to prepare the drive.
Pick whatever size suits.. nowadays 2TB are most economical.
WD, Seagate have goobled up all the minor players.. so pick one.
Whatever suits your budget and asthetics.
NOTE.. The USB on the TC is fine for printers.. IMHO it is the wrong way to go with USB disks.. use the internal disk of the TC.. USB is less than half the native speed plugged into a Mac.. TC to USB is slow.. far slower than internal drive.. or using external drive as external.

Aperture - library management and external HDD question

Hi all.
I have just graduated from a point and shoot to a Panasonic GH2 (love it), and have now begun using Aperture 3 rather than iPhoto on my early 2008 MB Pro to manage my photos going forwards. Of course, I’ve now discovered that Aperture is quite the resource hog and so it’s upgrade time (darn, “have” to buy a new ‘puter!). I have a 2011 MB Pro (2.3Ghz i7 with 512GB SSD) on order and 8GB of DDR 3 arriving from Crucial. Since I have this brand-new-computer opportunity I want to make sure I’m organising things properly before I start transferring things across, and so have a few Aperture-related questions. (In case it’s relevant, I’m shooting in RAW+JPEG. So far I’ve been using RAW as master, but have since learnt it might be a good idea to import JPG as master and switch to RAW only when I need to make corrections, so I’ll probably do that going forwards.)
I understand that moving to referenced masters on an external drive might be a good idea and save me precious SSD-space. To that end, questions are:
1. Can anyone recommend a companion external HDD for Aperture and the 2011 MBPro? I guess either FW800 or Thunderbolt are the way to go. The Lacie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt might be an option but is this overkill for Aperture masters or would FW800 be sufficient. I’ve also seen the G-Tech G-RAID mini, Lacie Rugged – thoughts welcome.
Key requirements are a) as compact as possible, and b) bus powered.
2. What kind of performance can I expect if I go down this route? Is there going to be significant loading/processing delay whenever I switch to a new image?
3. How will Aperture cope with (eg) syncing photos to iPad / iPhone if the drive containing the masters isn’t connected? Put another way, are JPG renders saved in the Aperture library (i.e. on my MBP SSD) or with the masters?
Thanks in advance to anyone who responds!
Aljrob

Aljrob_UK wrote:
...I have a 2011 MB Pro (2.3Ghz i7 with 512GB SSD) on order and 8GB of DDR 3 arriving
...I understand that moving to referenced masters on an external drive might be a good idea and save me precious SSD-space.
1. Can anyone recommend a companion external HDD for Aperture and the 2011 MBPro? I guess either FW800 or Thunderbolt are the way to go.
...Key requirements are a) as compact as possible, and b) bus powered.
OWC (an excellent vendor) has the Elite Pro Mini hard drive that meets your specs:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/EliteALmini/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
Thiunderbolt drives are not mainstream yet but eSATA and FW800 both work well. The multiple connection methods of OWC drives allow very desirable flexibility when purposing/repurposing drives.
Note too that the MBP optical drive can be replaced with up to a 1-TB hard drive DIY or OWC will do it for you. That is what I am doing with my 17" 2011 MBP.
2. Is there going to be significant loading/processing delay whenever I switch to a new image?
SSD latency is orders of magnitude less than hard drives. Switching to a new image even fast hard drives with fast connectivity add significant latency delay. To avoid that what I do is leave (Referenced) Masters on the SSD until all editing is complete (which may be a few weeks). Only then do I use Aperture to change the Referenced Masters location from the SSD to a large external drive.
What kind of performance can I expect if I go down this route?
With Masters on the SSD and 8 GB RAM imports/exports are very fast and all Aperture editing is essentially instant. You will be pleased!
Suggested workflow steps for Referenced Masters:
• Use a FW card reader or MBP slot to copy to a file folder on the SSD (never directly into Aperture or any other images management app). With fast camera cards copy times are quick, but cheap slow cards can slow this step down a lot.
• Eject and physically disconnect the card reader.
• Back up that file folder on external drive(s).
• Only after backup is complete, reformat the camera card in-camera.
• Import images into Aperture from the file folder on the SSD.
HTH
-Allen Wicks

Have a still folder with a question mark and OS on external HDD isn't loading onto the Mac Pro

Good Morning....... I'm having an issue with this Mac Pro I've recently purchased that came with an 500GB HDD and I added an 2TB HDD also, but it never had an OS on it and when you power on the Mac Pro, you'll get a still folder with a question mark on it. I am very determined to get this situation corrected!!! I had got a copy of Snow Leopard on a blank DVD from a friend of mine but nothing had changed or occurred when I put it in the optical drive & I even saved Maverick installation on an external HDD; it read the drive when I held down the option key during the startup chime, I choose the external because that’s the only volume it shown on the screen; nothing else!!! No sign of the copied disk, the two HDDs that's in the Mac Pro, just the external HDD with the OS on it; I choose the external with Maverick on it but it still doesn't read and then a still folder with the question mark appears..... Can someone please help & save me PLEASE?????????

Buy a retail copy of Snow Leopard, then we can "chat" and get you with a system installed.

Time Machine w/ external HDD question

Hello all! Just started using Time Machine with an external HDD. So, here is my question, if my HDD (USB) is not attached for a week, and Time Machine is running, will I get some sort of error message letting me know that the backup volume cannot be found? Also, when I reattach, say one week later, will Time Machine pick up and backup those items over the past week? Please advise. Thanks!

Time machine might give you an error but its very unlikely. And as for unplugging the drive, yes time machine will pick up were it left off and update the changes you have made. I usually only hook mine up every couple weeks cause I don't make very many changes.

External HDD/Backup/Time Machine Questions

Hi gang. Another question for you all...
I have a MacBook Pro as well as .Mac and a 500 GB G Drive external HDD. Normally I've been dragging my iTunes and iPhoto folders over to the G Drive, along with any other documents. And I use Backup (from .Mac) to backup my iWeb websites. That's been fine.
Now I want to get a little more safe and have another backup option/source. So I've been thinking about Time Machine. It seems pretty cool (from the marketing I've read on Apple's website) and I figure two backups are better than 1 (especially when I have a ton of music and photos to backup).
So what are my best options? I budgeted myself at $500 and just bought a G Tech G Raid2 (which is 1 TB Raid 0). I haven't opened it yet. Should I use that with Time Machine, or should I use my 500 GB G Drive with Time Machine and do the "manual backups" (i.e. dragging files over) on the 1 TB? Do I leave the G Raid2 as Raid 0, or can I change it Raid 1? Does Raid mess with Time Machine at all?
Or do I return the G Raid2 and get a 1 TB or 500 GB Time Capsule in two weeks time? I would have to imagine (although it's purely speculation at this point) that the G Raid2 must be better hardware (hard drive wise) than Time Capsule, right?
Any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated!
-Keith
MBP 15" 2.33 C2D with 10.5.2

You didn't mention anything about having a bootable backup - if not, I'd seriously consider doing that. As for the rest of it, I don't know how much space you need for your music and pics, but whatever your decision will be, I'd partition the external(s) for a bootable backup and another for the tunes and pics plus any other partitions you may want for other files (i.e. I keep copies of all installers on an external; that way, if anything goes wrong, I don't have to download them again). I don't know if Time Machine is capable of creating a bootable backup (I couldn't find any mention of it on the website). I have a bootable Leopard on an external as well as bootable copies of Tiger on externals for both my iMac and MBP and backups of all my important files there and on CD's, so I have not found a need for Time Machine or .Mac at all.
That said, if you need more space, I'd go for another 500 GB or more external if needed; create partitions, make a bootable backup of your entire system, and copy your music and pics to both.
I'm sure you'll get more (and different) suggestions..

Encrypted external HDD question

Hi,
Hope this doesn't sound like a daft question, but I am trying to learn as much as I can. I have encrypted my external drives, but I was wondering where the decrypt key is. Is it held on the computer or on the drive itself? I ask as in the future either when I upgrade, or as the result of a serious problem with my Mac I would want to restore from one of the drives so need to know if it will work ok on another machine. Also if the decrypt key is on the external HDD isn´t that a security flaw as any hacker would have the key with which to decrypt together with the files?
Thanks

Hi Linc,
I have two external drives, one runs os and has my files on it and the other is a time machine back up of it. Now that I have encrypted the os disk it asks for the drive password on boot up, so I assume that the decrypt key is on the os drive and that I can use that HDD on any Mac but just inputting the password?
Is that correct?

External HDD enclosure questions

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