G-Tech Mini vs. 'Regular' G-Tech External Hard Drive

Noticed in local Apple Store that the mini version of the G-Tech HD was $40 more with half the stated storage space. Why the difference? How do both products compare in use for video storage & editing in iMovie or Final Cut?

The mini versions use smaller 2.5" hard drives, like those uses in laptops and the MacMini. The regular versions use standard 3.5" hard drives, as found in desktop computers and the iMac. The smaller hard drives are more pricey, usually a bit slower, but are much quieter and can be powered from USB. So you don't need a power supply with the smaller drives.
For video editing, you need space and performance. I recommend the standard version.

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OK to have 10.3 on mini and 10.5 on external hard drive?

Total neophite here and slightly panicked...
I just discovered my turbotax software will only work with 10.4 or higher. I do have the 10.5 Leopard CD but am not ready to install it over my 10.3.9 because I don't have the time do all the backing up, etc. that's necessary and then learn how to use the new aspects of 10.5.
I do have an external hard drive that's partitioned in two parts; I have 10.3.9 in one partition and the other partition is empty. Can I install 10.5 on the empty partition on the external hard drive and use it to do my taxes if I start up from the hard drive, and then also use 10.3.9 on my mini for other things like mail, if I start up from the mini? Will my printer work with both sources (mini, external) if I have the printer drivers updated?
I don't know how computers work; just know how to use the software, so any help will be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Esther

Esther Le Sieur wrote:
Total neophite here and slightly panicked...
I just discovered my turbotax software will only work with 10.4 or higher. I do have the 10.5 Leopard CD but am not ready to install it over my 10.3.9 because I don't have the time do all the backing up, etc. that's necessary and then learn how to use the new aspects of 10.5.
I do have an external hard drive that's partitioned in two parts; I have 10.3.9 in one partition and the other partition is empty. Can I install 10.5 on the empty partition on the external hard drive and use it to do my taxes if I start up from the hard drive, and then also use 10.3.9 on my mini for other things like mail, if I start up from the mini? Will my printer work with both sources (mini, external) if I have the printer drivers updated?
I don't know how computers work; just know how to use the software, so any help will be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
Esther
Because it's getting close to the Ides of April, I suggest you install Leopard on the empty partition and do NOT migrate or transfer anything from you previous OS. Do that later.
Installing Leopard on a blank drive from scratch should not give you any problems with old software, etc from your previous system.
When you first boot Leopard and fill in the registration screen, etc., the OS should find your internet connection and set itself up properly.
Set up your printer, again, from scratch.
Once you get to that point, install TT, which, if it's like mine, will need about 14 updates.
I am assuming your external HD is properly formatted and partitioned for Leopard/Intel which is a GUID and HFS+ aka, Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
After you have finished with TT, you can install Leopard on your internal drive, after making a backup of your TT data. I suggest copying the entire TT folder, but the data are all you need. If you reinstall TT on the new Leopard OS, it will find the datafile that you saved.

Mac mini's best choice of external hard drive?

What would be the best way to back up a Mac mini; using a G-Tech,Lacie,Iomega, or something else?

Buy from a reputable vendor and try to keep to brand names that have a good reputation as well. I've been pleased with the Western Digital external drives as well as Seagate's. Maxtor has had some issues in the last 18 months and I'm not sure those have been resolved yet. For backing up FireWire is slightly more preferable because it tends to have better sustained write/read speeds than USB2 but heck, my backup is done in the background and doesn't affect my ability to surf or write so I really don't care one way or the other.

Help with setting up mac mini w/keyboard,mouse and external hard drive

OK, first, I filled my mac mini with photos and music, so I bought an exteranl hard drive and thought I copied over my library, but only half of it shows up. (Another questions)
But, now that I have 3 things using the USB ports and only 2 USB ports available, how do I set this up. I tired a 4 port, but what ever I plug into the 4 port USB does not work.

If I understand the problem, you have a 4 port USB hub that is not working.
The obvious suspect is the hub. I trust it is a powered USB hub, i.e. one you have to plug it into an external power source. A hub that draws its power from the Mini is not a good idea, since that would be asking the Mini to provide power to the two built-in ports as well as four external ones.
(I have a Keyspan usb 2 four port externally powered hub hooked up to my Mini. It works flawlessly.)
Even if your hub is powered, it is still the first suspect.

"streaming" itunes located on external hard drive on mac mini from my mbp?

Hi! This may sound really confusing so bear with me.
We have a mac mini and a macbook pro in our house. We have connected to the mac mini a 1T external hard drive that stores all of our music and movies.
We want to be able to use the external hard drive connected to the mac mini as a "server" for our music and movies and "stream" music and movies from the mac mini itunes located on the external hard drive to my laptop so we can listen and watch itunes movies from my laptop.
However, when I tried to "point" my laptop itunes library to the itunes library on the external hard drive, I get the dreaded error that it can't locate the song.
Is there any way around this? are we expecting too much?

NEW QUESTION AS I CANT FIND WHERE TO POST MY OWN PROBLEM,, SO HERE IT IS!
Can anyone help me please, ive got a network hd which stores my mp3's & videos
my itunes on my laptop manages this drive, but for some reason i cant play videos stored on this drive thru itunes, they work fine with windows media player so is this a problem with itunes or am i doing something completly wrong??!
Please help!!

External Hard Drive that Both OS and Windows can use

I just bought a MacBook Pro for my son @ college. I've installed bootcamp because we have a large volume of windows software. (I also like the features of the Apple).
I'm trying to make this as bulletproof as I can (since I won't be around to act as tech support. I have an external hard drive (160 G firewire) that I'd like to set up so i can back both systems up.
How do I do that? I know one system uses NTSF and the other Fat 32(?)

Should I partition the external hard drive?

ITunes Library on an External Hard Drive issues

I've read hundreds of forums, but none of them discuss my problem in a way that's at all related to mine.
I have two external hard drives for my iTunes library. I have iTunes set up to read everything from the two external hard drives, and it works fine...until the external hard drives get disconnected somehow. Sometimes when I hook up my iPod, they just get disconnected and come back a few seconds later, but by that time, iTunes has lost all the links to my thousands of files.
What is the simplest, easiest way to keep iTunes from losing those thousands of links. I have a TON of TV shows that I made myself that I HATE having to put into iTunes again and again and again and having to convert from Movie format to TV format.
I know there's a simple way. People talk about doing it all the time, but none of them seem to have linkage problems like I do. I'm getting so tired of having to destroy my entire iTunes library and rebuild it from scratch every day.

The article Zevoneer linked to has a very good explanation of the porcess.
One thing it dos NOT mention, is that you should assign a permanent drive letter to your exHD before you start moving/consolidating anything to it. Windows has a nasty habit of changing drive letters unless they are permanently assigned, like when you plug in a digital camera, it could change your exHD's letter and mess up itunes finding your songs.
Use these directions and the further down in the alphabet, the better. Like M: for music.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844

Can Time Machine back up external hard drives?

I have an older Mac Mini with a fairly small hard drive -- I think it's 80G. Most of my data needs to live on a separate 250G external hard drive . I would like to use my brand new 1TB hard drive to back up both the 80G Mini HD and the 250G external hard drive.
Is this possible?

Thanks. I had my suspicions about that, but I'm glad to hear it's an easy fix.
And special thanks for the quick answer. It came so fast, I think I felt wind blowing over my keyboard.
Jack

FireWire External Hard Drive Workaround

Scenario:
1.) AirPort Extreme connected to Mac Mini via ethernet.
2.) Mac Mini connected to a FireWire External Hard Drive.
3.) MacBook Pro connected to AirPort Extreme via 802.11n (wireless).
4.) AirPort Utility is administered from the MacBook Pro.
Problem:
Considering that the AirPort Extreme does not support a FireWire External Hard Drive, I was hoping to find a work around. Is there any way to indirectly access the FireWire External Hard Drive connected to my Mac Mini from my AirPort Utility administered from my MacBook Pro? Essentially I want to access files from the External Hard Drive on my MacBook Pro without being physically tethered to my Mac Mini or the External Hard Drive. That is, I would like to define the External Hard Drive as an Airport Disk in Airport Utility so I can utilize the Back To My Mac feature.
Solution:
Your solution goes here...

That is, I would like to define the External Hard Drive as an Airport Disk in Airport Utility so I can utilize the Back To My Mac feature.
No that won't work.
If your Mac mini simply has File Sharing enabled you can get to the drive using Back To My Mac with no involvement of the AirPort Extreme base station (AEBS).

Cloning external hard drive new computer

Hi,
My HD on my old iBookG4 recently went kuput. Luckily I have been cloning fairly regularly to an external hard drive using Carbon Copy Cloner. I just purchased a new iBookG4 from a friend, and would like to clone the old hard drive (on the external) to the new (on the new computer). So, using the new computer, I went online and downloaded CCC, I plugged the external drive into the computer, and I attempted to do just that. The trouble is that when I open CCC, it doesn't give me that option. Under "Source Disk" it lists both the external HD and the computer's HD as options, but under the "Target Disk" it only lists the external HD as an option. This obviously doesn't help me since I need to clone to the new computer's HD. Anyone know what I can do?
P.S. - there is nothing on the new HD that I need to keep, so I don't mind overwriting the whole thing.
P.P.S. - What will CCC do if the new computer doesn't have all the software that the old HD had? I have yet to purchase Microsoft Office and install it on the new HD, but some of the files on the external HD are Office files. Will it just skip over those files during the clone (assuming I can get it to clone at all)? Can I selectively copy those files later once I have installed Office on the new HD?

You could start from the OS on the external if that device is a FireWire400
enclosure with Oxford-type chipset; and if there is a copy of CCC on there,
run it from there. To erase (secure-erase, or overwrite destination drive with
zeros, and then reformat the computer's internal hard disk drive, you can
use Disk Utility.
There are several options, including using the booted OS X Installer's version
of Disk Utility and have it do the tasks to repair disk, erase, reformat, etc; and
depending on what you have in the way of a clone, Disk Utility can restore a
system from another volume without use of a clone utility.
If your clone can boot the computer, then it is a good volume; but if the drive
enclosure does not allow that to occur, you have to be sure the clone is good
and you can prepare the computer's drive is ready to have the clone on it.
There are a few questions that come up, and I have danced around them;
as they would determine how you could proceed, depending on the situation.
Bombich's Carbon Copy Cloner web site has some good info for basic use
and if the clone was pre-tested to work in the same model of computer, it
should work once it is cloned back into the computer's internal hard drive.
Is the size of newer computer's hard disk drive adequate for the size of the
older computer's clone? Since you can't have two systems on the same
hard disk drive (OS X, etc) and that internal drive already has a system on
it, that would have to be erased. To use the Secure Erase option in Disk
Utility would be the better way to handle that since the feature will also wipe
the data by overwriting one-pass (or more, if chosen, takes a lot more time)
and that also defragments the drive at a basic low-level. A good thing.
PS: Your second PS/PSS should not matter so much, if you clone in all the
content of the first clone, back into this computer, and if that works OK, then
you can install an Office app and you may be able to open them with the
newer version of Office, or convert them, etc if necessary to the new version
once you have it and launch the documents via the newer app. If you don't
want them on the new re-clone into this newer computer, it may be harder
to selectively not import only a handful of documents. That's your call.
Anyway, what else can you say?
Good luck & happy computing!
{ edited for PS }

Automator to move files to external hard drive?

Is it possible to have "automator move files uploaded to my computer automatically from my phone, via motocast (Droid Razr Maxx) which sits in a "pictures" subfolder, and move it to the external hard drive i use to back up my macbook air weekly? I occasionally take photos and videos and were wondering if this is at all possible to do being that I only connect my external hard drive occasionally and not regularly. The external hard drive was partitioned to have a back up drive for time machine and another drive for other (pics&vids) use.
If it is possible can the automator task then trash all files in original pictures subfolder when task is complete to avoid any memory use on macbook air?
Any help is greatly appreciated.

sdiaz34 wrote:
The external hard drive was partitioned to have a back up drive for time machine and another drive for other (pics&vids) use.
If it is possible can the automator task then trash all files in original pictures subfolder when task is complete to avoid any memory use on macbook air?
You really don't want to do that.
You'll have only one copy of the files, on the external HD. When (not if) it fails, they'll be lost.
For best results, get another external HD for your photos. Then let Time Machine back up both your internal HD and the external. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #32 for details.

Whats the best way to transfer everything from my old macbook pro to a new mac mini, i have a external hard drive which i backup to regularly via time capsule

whats the best way to transfer everything from my old macbook pro to a new mac mini, i have a external hard drive which i backup to regularly via time capsule

Check out > OS X Lion: How to use Migration Assistant to transfer files from another Mac

My external hard drive stopped working so I had a tech fix it by moving it to another case since the power supply is in the case. It was working fine till I started getting these messages saying USB over current device, my USB is drawing too much power.

I need to know how to rehabilitate the hub since it gets deactivated as soon as I plug the external drive. By the way the drive contains important information

Buy a drive or drive case that is not bus powered.
Look for help in MacBook Pro forums.
Helps to include what drive and drive case you used and switched to (you didn't need a tech).
You can find good selection and assortment of reliable cases from OWC :
http://www.macsales.com/firewire
Not knowing what macbook whether you can use USB3, Thunderbolt and other interfaces that would be better.
WD My Book 2TB External Hard Drive Storage USB 3.0 File Backup and Storage - Western Digital
Direct you to the proper forum for MacBook :
MacBook Series Forums
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks?view=discussions
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro
Mac OS X Forum
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions
This forum deals with a desktop/tower 65lb Mac Pro
http://www.apple.com/support/macpro

When my old PC died I had the tech guy place my iTunes library on an external hard drive. Just set up my new iMac

When my old PC died I had the tech guy place my iTunes library on an external hard drive. I just set up my iMac and I cannot get my library on the external hard drive to import to iTunes. I authorized my computer and had the "purchased" songs downloaded from iTunes directly, but I have 3,000+ songs from other sources that I cannot seem to get to. Help! What's the trick?!

maggiedoodle wrote:
When my old PC died I had the tech guy place my iTunes library on an external hard drive. I just set up my iMac and I cannot get my library on the external hard drive to import to iTunes.
Don't import anythiong.
Simply copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folder from the external to /Music/ on the internal.
Launch iTunes.
That is all you need to do.

I acidently erased my external hard drive (G-Tech) while reformating my GoPro. Can they restored?

When transferring files from a GoPro camera to an external hard drive (G-Tech) I accidently erased the hard drive video imovie files. I was trying to reformat (erase) the GoPro in the Disk utilities. I clearly had the GoPro highlighted but for some reason both the external hard drive and the GoPro were erased. I had the external hard drive connected but not open or highlighted. The files were not back up on icloud or on any other device. The 1T hard drive was almost full. Can the files on the Hard Drive be restored?

Highly unlikely. Try one of the solutions below:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-1689

G-Tech Mini vs. 'Regular' G-Tech External Hard Drive

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