MacBook Pro and External Enclosures

Just now updating from a PowerBook G4 to a brand new MacBook Pro...
I understand there may (will) be issues with trying to use FCP with Mavericks, but I'm really not wanting to switch to FCP X.
I would like to get a two-bay external enclosure to use with the new MBP. Can anyone offer suggestions? Does it need to be Thunderbolt to get the most out of my editing? And which drives would you suggest?
And do I REALLY need to migrate to FCP X? I'm currently editing with FCP 7 on my office MacPro. So if I do offline work on the MBP and then finish projects on the office MacPro, it makes sense to me to try to stick with FCP 7 for the workflow.
Thanks for listening...

For an external enclosure, I like this:
http://www.caldigit.com/T3/
or something from:
http://www.macgurus.com/store/Category/SATAEnclosures
Go with thunderbolt if you can afford it, you want the fastest interconnection possible and it certainly is an easy connection to your computer. If you are goiing with an eSata enclosure, you will need to look at a Thunderbolt PCIe Card box so you can put in a eSata raid card.
USB3 is also worth looking at, although I have had some problems with USB3 using port multiplied enclosures.
As Mr. Ross points out, there are options - including staying with FCP-7. The problem is that production world is changing at hyper-speed, and FCP-7 was killed several years ago. There will soon come a time when the third-party workarounds to get contemporary standards of media in and out of FCP will become too difficult and time consuming to make it worth while.
So while FCP-7 is and always will be a great editor for those who know how to use it - it certainly is time to consider another NLE.
MtD

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How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

How can I get Time Machine to back up an external hard drive (iPhotos) that is attached to airport extreme base station. Note: Time machine is usb to macbook pro and external drive with iphotos is usb to airport extreme base station. Help please. Thanks!

Once you have the drive connected to your Mac, click System Preferences (gear icon) on the dock
Click Time Machine
Click Options
Be default, the hard drive will be Excluded from backups. Click the drive to highlight it, then click the "-" (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the drive from Excluded items.
The drive will be backed up on the next Time Machine pass
Everything above assumes that the hard drive has been formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as Time Machine will only backup drives in that format.

MacBook Pro And External Hard Drives

My only Apple computer is a MacBook Pro. I've just got a new camera that stores both RAW and JPEG for each shot so my internal drive is filling up fast. I need to get an external hard drive and move my Aperture library to that.
When I travel, I wish to continue to use Aperture with the internal drive of the MacBook Pro. I'm not sure if I understand the workflow. Please would someone help me understand the best way to do this properly?
I think what I need to do is this:
Let's call the existing library on the internal disk home. After moving home from the internal to the new external drive, I must create a new library on the internal drive - let's call it travel. When on the road, I should use the travel library and, when I get back, merge it with the home library.
How do I do that though?
The documentation on merging libraries describes the scenario where you have two computers instead of my scenario. I'm guessing that you open the home library and import the travel library. If that's right, do you just then delete the travel library and start again on your next trip?
Also, what do you do about vaults? Have a second external drive and put them on there?
Thanks in advance for your help.

There are two things you could do:
Turn your Aperture Library into a referenced library and relocate the master image files to your external drive. You will be able to browse, grade, and tag your images even if the external drive is not connected, but you can only edit those images whose masters are managed. Sp perhaps you could keep the masters of the most recent projects managed. while you are on the road import the new images into the library and relocate them to your external drive when you get back.
To relocate to an external drive: Select the images and use
File -> Relocate Masters
What I sometimes do when on vacation: create a new, second Aperture Library on my travel MacBook Pro and import my new pictures from the trip into this library. When I return I import the new Library from the trip into my main Aperture LIbraryFile -> Import -> Library/Project
Regards
Léonie

Need help setting up Macbook Pro and external hard drive(s)

I apologize for the vague title but I was limited to so many characters.
Here's my situation (sorry for being verbose, I just want to be thorough)
Right now I have a Macbook Pro and a 500 GB external hard drive (Western Digital using USB 2.0 connection). I've outgrown the external hard drive and am ready to upgrade my external memory.
Here's my issues right now:
My iTunes library and music reside on the external hard drive. Using iTunes is painfully, I mean brutally, slow for some reason. For example: if I were to just change the genre of an average album, it takes upwards of 4 or 5 minutes to change the data. Compared to the POS Dell computer I used to run iTunes with (using the same external hard drive), the same task would take 5 seconds at the most. Likewise, if I try to watch a video that resides on that external hard drive right now, it skips and eventually stops because (presumably) the data is transferring extremely slowly. I have no idea, and haven't gotten any real answers, as to why this is happening with the Macbook and/or if using a Firewire connection would improve the speed.
Taking that into consideration, here's what I would like to do (and ask). I see myself having one 1T external hard drive for all my music and one 1T external hard drive for all my movies and videos. Ideally I would like to be able to access these two hard drives wirelessly with my Macbook and have it transfer the data very quickly - as it should IMO. Certainly a lot faster than it is now.
I would love to just be able to hook my Macbook up to my main stereo and run iTunes through it without having to lug around and messily connect the external hard drive which contains all the music. As well as being able to hook my Macbook up to the stereo and LCD monitor and be able to watch a video, again without the hassle of having to connect the external hard drive - which as I said prior, appears to transfer the data way too slowly anyway.
Any suggestions on what external hard drives I should get and any other hardware/software I need to run them wirelessly would be gratefully welcomed.
Thanks in advance (and I apologize for the long winded post)
MM

Obviously, FireWire is a fast connection, but for changing metadata, USB is plenty fast. Why it takes so long is anyones guess. Is it a USB 2.0 drive? Using external drives can be tricky. My father uses them for his gigantic library of almost 80,000 songs. When you have it setup properly, it works fine, but if you say forgot to have the external drive mounted when you launch iTunes, iTunes defaults the library back to your Music folder, then when you start importing, it puts in on the internal drive, then you have to go back and reset it, etc. Problem, with iTunes alone, you can only set one library, so if you want to use two drives, you will have to have one set at any given time.
So you could set the music one first, add to the library, then set it for movies, then add those to the library. Then keep the library set to the one you use most frequently, so you don't have to always switch. Once you import all media, and iTunes "knows" where to find the files, you can play them with no problems with two drives.
For wireless, you have a couple choices. If you have two Macs, you could keep one connected to the two drives, then with the other computer, just connect to the network and share the iTunes library so your other computer has access. If you want the music stored on a drive accessible wireless, you'll probably have to look to NAS, or some form of wireless storage. If you do that, their may even be a better third party software solution other than iTunes for managing multiple libraries.
This is something iTunes really needs. As libraries grow, one drive just isn't enough often.
Bryan

Just installed 10.6.3 on MacBook Pro and external disks cannot be seen by OS. Help

i installed 10.6.3 on my 17" MacBook Pro (updating from 10.5.8). All my external disk drives which had all been visible to the system and accessible before the update no longer were visible to the OS. Not in the sidebar and not in the disk utility. After checking all connections etc. many reboots, resetting the pram i still am unable to see or access these disks.
From there i updated to 10.6.8 but exactly the same results. i'm not sure where to go from here. i have 4 externals on 2 different usb routers and 1 external on a firewire router.
I'm considering removing the routers and trying each drive separately and directly connected to the laptop.
And of course, i'm short of time.
Anyone with similar problems and/or solutions?

You mean USB HUBs, correct? Not routers.
Yes remove the HUBs and try the drives connected directly to the computer.

Macbook Pro and External Monitor flashing?

I am using a Macbook Pro with an External Dell 1908fp 19" monitor via a Thunderbolt to DVI adaptor all fine.
However the annoying niggle I have is that the monitor which seems fine, keeps flashing intermittently on and off randomly?!?
Would anyone know why this is happening and if its the Mac's fault? I have the MBP open and the Monitor as the 2nd screen at 1440x900 which it seems to have defaulted to, and its very clear on both screens.
Is my monitor on its way out? it seems ok, and is quite new (though it was 2nd hand a couple of years ago) or is this a known Apple issue?
Thanks for any help

The graphics card in the MBP supports resolutions far greater than that of the internal display, so any modern monitor will work fine - up to and including Apple's excellent (but pricey) Thunderbolt display and Cinema display.
The MBP will detect the external display and set the image to the correct resolution automatically, or you can choose the resolution in System Preferences -> Displays, so you don't need to worry about a black border.
Most modern monitors are 1080p and this works perfectly as an external display for a MBP. You will need a mini-displayport to HDMI cable to connect the two. If you get a monitor with built in speakers then that cable will also transfer audio.

MacBook Pro and external microphone

We bought a MacBook Pro 15" Retina a couple of weeks ago. We wanted to use it the same way as our current PC laptop: hook up an external camera via BlackMagic Shuttle Express Thunderbolt (through the Thunderbolt port), hook up an external Sennheiser Freeport wireless microphone (through the 3.5mm combination headphone/microphone jack), and hook up a set of regular headphones (through the USB port).
The idea is to videotape an event, getting good quality audio from the presenter via the wireless microphone (our space has big limitations in terms of using wired devices), and monitoring the audio through the headphones. This is a scenario and a set up where several PC units have worked perfectly well in the past.
However, after spending over $2,000 on the MacBook Pro, we found out that the 3.5mm combination port will not take input from any of the microphones we have. This YouTube video explains exactly our situation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaiYc9Cqpis (we did not create the video, but the video shows this is a common issue). On the video they explain the plug of a regular microphone has 3 rings or pins, while the plug needed for the 3.5mm combination has four rings or pins.
We spent about 45 minutes with Apple customer support, including a senior advisor, and we were told that as the Apple headphone/mic combination, the one you use with an iPhone (seen on the video above), works in the combination jack, both as a microphone and as a headphone, then there's no issue. Apple does not have any recommendation, solution, or adapter for using a regular 3.5mm microphone with the 3.5mm combination jack, so that an external microphone can be easily used. The senior advisor also suggested a USB microphone instead, but that means a) having a wired microphone, which is not possible in our space, b) buying more equipment, when we already have our equipment, and c) adapting all our setup to the MacBook Pro, instead of the machine being easily integrated into our existing setup (more likely, we will ship the MacBook Pro back instead).
A few discussions on the web (for example, https://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110505020946AA8izSV ) mention that this specific laptop expects a "line level" microphone signal, one that would come from a pre-amplifier, so that regular microphones would not be detected. The Apple senior advisor was not familiar with that claim, nor could he shed any light on it.
So our question is: has anyone successfully used an external 3.5mm microphone with the 3.5mm combination port on the MacBook Pro Retina 15"? If so, what kind of microphone did you use? Or, did you have to use any kind of adaptor or amplifier to make it work?
Thank you for any pointers you can give us.

We tried a number of 3.5mm splitters (to get separate headphone and microphone connections from the combo mic/headphone jack), and USB to 3.5mm converters (to get separate 3.5mm headphone and microphone connections from the USB port), but none of them worked.
The only solution we found to connect a microphone to a MacBook pro were the Shure XLR to USB convertor (http://www.shure.com/americas/products/accessories/microphones/microphone-proble m-solvers/x2u-xlr-to-usb-signal-adapter) and the Blue Icicle XLR to USB convertor (http://bluemic.com/icicle/). The Icicle is the cheaper back up for the more expensive Shure.
Both were recognized by the laptop, and both audio signals were detected properly. We are using them to capture voice only, so we don't know how they would fare when music and musical instruments are involved.

Macbook Pro and external monitor sleep issues.

I recently upgraded to a new 13 inch MacBook Pro to replace my previous one. With the upgrade, I'm now on the latest OS and I have a Thunderbolt instead of Mini-displayport output. I have a Dell U2410 monitor which has worked great up until now, but I now have the following behavior:
When the laptop sleeps (or puts the display to sleep) the monitor begins to turn on and off. It goes to powersave mode and immediately wakes up, realizes there's no signal, and goes back to powersave mode, etc etc etc.
When I wake the computer up from sleep, the monitor's behavior stays the same. The laptop never detects the display and begins sending a signal.
If I unplug and replug the adapter, all is well.
There seem to be two separate issues: whatever signal the computer continues to send down the display cable after sleep seems to confuse my monitor, secondly, the computer never again sends a real video signal down the line after it wakes up.
I'm on the latest 10.8.3. My adapter is the same adapter I have been using for years, an apple mini-display port to DVI adapter. Supposedly this adapter is still compatible with the Thunderbolt port.
I've seen lots of issues online about wake up issues with the latest OS. Is there a workaround for this yet or do I have to uplug my monitor anytime I sleep the computer?

Hi Steve,
I have had the exact same issues after adding a WD Thunderbolt Duo external drive to a Mid 2011 iMac and then daisy chaining the Dell U2410 monitor off that.
My Mini DP to DVI cable ceased working properly - sleeps issues.
After buying one of these adapters of Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/3-in-1-Mini-Displayport-to-HDMI-with-audio-DVI-DP-ada pter-3in1-convertor-Macbook-/110861703462?pt=US_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item1 9cfdf5926
I then tried all the different cables that came originally with the Dell U2410 with that adapter, and none of then would put the U2410 to sleep properly. The backlight would stay on, or "No Displayport Cable" would float around the Dell display with the backlighting still on. Or otherwise the Dell would try to go to sleep and then wake up again and cycle like you found.
Apples Mini DP to VGA adapter was sleep successful with the VGA cable (Analogue) but the output picture was not as sharp as DVI or Displayport, plus there was RF interference with the cable.
After lots of internet searching I have found a near perfect solution:
A HDMI to DVI cable with the HDMI end connected to the Ebay 3 in 1 adapter, which then connects to the Thunderbolt port.
Connect this to DVI-D 1 on the Dell U2410.
On the Dell in Menu - Other Settings, disable DDC/CI
Now in OSX Settings - energy Saver you will have to tick:
"Put Hard Disks to sleep where possible" and select a short time frame for "Computer Sleep"
I have found that the display would go black but the backlighting on the Dell U2410 would stay on, when the display went to sleep on the Mac as per the Energy Saver "Display Sleep" setting.
The backlighting on the Dell would only turn off when the time for 'Computer Sleep" has elapsed and the external Thunderbolt hard disk went to sleep as well.
The Dell U2410 would then wake up correctly as well when my iMac woke, with this setup.
Cheapest solution for you would be to try an Apple or Ebay HDMI to DVI adapter and then use the DVI - DVI cable that came with the Dell.
If that fails get the 3 in one Adapter and use my Mini DP/Thunderbolt to Ebay Adapter to DVI-DVI cable setup.
I'm assuming your new Macbook Pro comes with the HDMI port ?
I believe the Sleep Issues with this monitor are all related to appropriate signal on the cable, and only the HDMI to DVI solution will work correctly on Mac's connected to the Dell U2410.
Good Luck. :-)

MacBook Pro and external iSight

At the office, I use my MacBook Pro closed with an external screen and an iSight. Until recently, it worked rather well but now, I have a sound problem. Specifically, in the iChat settings, the Sound item does not show my iSight microphone as it used to. In the video settings, I can choose between the MacBook iSight or the external iSight but this is not the case for the sound item as it used to be.
I cannot date the change with certainty as I don't use it everyday but the most likely change in my configuration is the latest round of updates and security patches over the weekend.
Any idea ?

HI François,
If you have completed updates using Software Updates I would use the Combo installer
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1046comboforintel.html
There may be other things we can do with Audio .plists if this does not work.
11:42 AM Tuesday; May 16, 2006

Battery Life with Macbook Pro and External Drive

I have a mid 2010 macbook pro with a 7200 rpm 500 gig internal drive and then a 1 terabyte external drive that I believe runs at 5400 rpm. I will be going on a trip tomorrow and I plan on watching some movies that I have made backups of while traveling. Will my battery last longer if the movies are stored on my internal or external drive? This may be an easy question but I know very little when it comes to power consumption. If I had enough time I would try them both on my own but I would like some input from others. Thanks! Also not sure if it matters but I am running lion the screen is 15 inches and it has the 2.8 processor with 8 gigs of ram.

Does the external disk have it's own power supply?
If it does it will not affect your MBP battery run time.

MacBook Pro and External Display on full resolution

I want to use only my external 20" cinema display, connected to my MBP. So what I do is connect the display via the DVI cable, close the lid of the notebook, wake it up from the keyboard/mouse (now I have the full resolution of the Cinema Display), open the lid so I can use the keyboard and the trackpad. This is all right with me, but when I restart or after sleep MacBook's display turns on and is set up as primary and the Cinema Display goes to Dual View mode. Is there a way the laptop to remember the external Display as primary, so I don't always have to close the lid, wake up the laptop and open the lid.
For instance, when I've done this for the first time in Windows, I didn't have to do it again. Now every time I log in in Windows, the macbook's display automatically turns off and the Cinema Display gets its full resolution. This is what i want to be done when I boot in Mac OS.

I know both scenarios (OS X/Windows), but I'm pretty sure that there's nothing you can do about it. As long as your internal display is open while waking from sleep or booting up, it will be always on in OS X. I'm only using my external Cinema Display and keep the MBP's lid closed all the time. Of course, I use an external keyboard and mouse as well. You can only choose which display has the menu bar on it, but you can't turn it off without sleeping the Mac. In Windows the ATi/Nvidia drivers take care of your settings, but it won't be applied until you get to the Desktop, so you'll still have the internal display on while booting Windows...
Björn

Emptying trash isn't freeing up any space on MacBook Pro or external drive. Time Machine is OFF.

Yesterday, while using Final Cut Pro X, I noticed the program/my computer was starting to run slow--and then I was totally caught off guard by a warning that my startup disk was full. I checked Storage and Finder and both my MacBook Pro and external drive had less than 1gb of space each! I usually use Secure Empty Trash and have no problems...but for my drives to be full, it clearly hasn't been working for a few days, possibly weeks.
I'm using a MacBook Pro (early 2011) and a LaCie Thunderbolt external drive. I'm running Mavericks (10.9.2)
I am not using Time Machine. When I look at Storage under About This Mac, my Backups on my MBP and LaCie drive are both at zero KB.
I read through the forums and tried going into Terminal and entering sudo rm -rf ~/.Trash ...but all that did was free up about 10gb on my external drive (I'd emptied upwards of 90gb from my trash).
Right now I'm basically stuck with a slow laptop and very little storage space, which has slowed my work to a halt. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Some space suggestions.
Disk Space - Free Up
Disk Space – Free Up (2)
Disk Space Filling Up – OmniDiskSweeper
Disk Space Filling Up - WhatSize

I have my new HD in a USB enclosure connected to my MacBook Pro and I want to put a fresh copy of Mountain Lion on it. But I do not have an install DVD as I got ML as a download from the App Store. What do I do?

I have my new HD in a USB enclosure connected to my MacBook Pro and I want to put a fresh copy of Mountain Lion on it. I'm told that I need to boot from the Installation Disk to start. But I do not have an install DVD as I got ML as a download from the App Store. Can I download ML from the App Store again, but this time directly to my new HD?

Create a data recovery/undelete external boot drive
You can also use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your present setup to it and boot from it.
Most commonly used backup methods
However, SOME external enclosures are not bootable, you will soon find out.

I have a new 2.0GHz Intel Core i7 macbook pro and my external firewire drive is causing the laptop to lock up

I have a new 2.0GHz Intel Core i7 macbook pro and my external firewire drive is causing the computer to lock up. The drive seems to sleep and then never wakes and the laptop locks up. I've had this drive connected to an older 2.0 core duo macbook pro and a 3.0GHz quad core macpro with no issues. It's a ministack v3 drive, 2GBs, fw400+800, sata and usb. Any ideas? And can I stop the drive from going to sleep?
Thanks.

Check with the drive's manufacturer to see if they might have a firmware update for the enclosure; it sounds like the enclosure's firmware isn't properly detecting the FireWire wakeup sequence.
Obviously this could also be a bug with the new MBP's firmware, so it wouldn't hurt to ask the Genius Bar at your local Apple Store; in particular, ask them to show you that the sleep/wakeup sequence on your MBP works with some other FireWire drive.

I have an older macbook pro and the hard drive is starting to go (making loud noises). i tried to back up to an external hard drive (my passport essential se) using time machine and the computer keeps shutting down. suggestions to complete backup please?

I have an older macbook pro and the hard drive is starting to go (making loud noises). i tried to back up to an external hard drive (my passport essential se) using time machine and the computer keeps shutting down. the same thing happens when just trying to save my pictures from iphoto to a flash drive. suggestions to complete backup please?

Sounds like you'll need to access that drive while it is not booted. You need to replace it anyway, so do that, then one way or another (ext enclusure, et), access it and copy files.
If you keep trying to boot it, you might kill it for good and not get your files, so just swap it out first.

MacBook Pro and External Enclosures

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