Need external harddrive advice..

.. I need advice for a good external harddrive. One with firewire 800 would be a plus, 160-250gb is what i am after. I've had bad luck with external harddrives in the past so i'm hoping someone can reccommend somethign that will last and hold up. Lacie? Western Digital? I dont know which way to go..

I have used WD MyBook Pro (USB 2.0, FW 400 and 800 connectivity) 500 GB drives ..a pair for one year with zero problems and I just got a second pair. Set up was very easy.
I also use OWC (Other World Computing) 160 GB portable external (powered off the FW port). I use this to back up my internal drive of my C2D without difficulty. Also very easy to use, and thus far robust and fast! It does not run very often and using SuperDuper, the drive is bootable in case my internal drive fails...but not has fast as the internal but fast enough for crises mode.
Good luck.
Steven

Similar Messages

Need advice for a solid external harddrive system

Background:
I am a professional photographer and my data is well, my livelihood! So you would think I have an effective backup solution in place.Unfortunately, not so. The choices are overwhelming and I have not been able to decide what to buy.
Currently I have an iMac G5, 2.16GHz, 1G memory (2 512K) that i need to upgrade to 3G. I have about 230G hardrive.
Currently my iMac is running 10.4.8.I plan on doing a clean install of 10.5 once I have a backup of everything on my harddrive.
I need an external harddrive. I want to have a backup of a backup so I think I should be getting a RAID 1 system. Is this correct? I would like 1TB (2 mirrored 500G if I understand correctly). My budget is about $600 or so.
Please can you suggest a good harddrive for me? The Mybook from WD seems to fit the bill but I see it does not work with OS 10.4 . I did not see any OWC with a mirrored solution (RAID1?). I am so confused! Please help!!!
Thanks!

Take a look at what's available from macsales.com, their stuff is reliable, and they will have RAIDs to fit your requirements. Look at [this one|http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/raid_1/Gmax] for instance.
Hope this helps,

I just got a WD My Passport 1TB External Harddrive and i have already backed everything up to it but im still a little nervous about erasing things off the physical drive since it says my disk utility is out of space an implying i need to erase items.

I just got a WD My Passport 1TB External Harddrive and i have already backed everything up to it but im still a little nervous about erasing things off the physical drive on my macbook pro since it says my disk utility is out of space an implying i need to erase items.
I cant find the options to erase selected items it only shows that i can erase everything.
I mean technically i suppose i could erase everything an have a fresh start since its backed up to my external. But what exactly are the specific items being erased?
I have bought the newest OS X 10.8.2 an worried that it will get erased also an end up having to repurchase it.
Can anyone help me?
<Personal Information Edited by Host>

Black_Chevy07 wrote:
I just got a WD My Passport 1TB External Harddrive and i have already backed everything up to it but im still a little nervous about erasing things off the physical drive on my macbook pro since it says my disk utility is out of space an implying i need to erase items.
I cant find the options to erase selected items it only shows that i can erase everything.
I mean technically i suppose i could erase everything an have a fresh start since its backed up to my external. But what exactly are the specific items being erased?
I have bought the newest OS X 10.8.2 an worried that it will get erased also an end up having to repurchase it.
Can anyone help me?
If you are trying to delete some files get out of Disk Utility, it is not for that!
How did you backup and what are you trying to achieve?
Please post the exact error messages(s) you have received.

Need Help setting up a Fully-Accessible External Harddrive on Network.

Alright Ladies and Gentlmen of the Apple Support Forums,
I'm fairly new to servers in general - but I thought I'd be able to figure this one out on my own...I guess I was wrong
I am the tech head of a video studio that needs to share a single 12 TB external 3.0 drive on the entire network. I want all to be able to read, write, and delete as easy as possible.
Here's what I have:
- 20mb/s UP and 20 mb/s DOWN coming from Northstate into my modem.
- I have my modem connected to my new Airport Express.
- I have connected my airport express to my Mac Mini server (new).
- I also have it connected to a 24 port netgear switch.
- My switch is connected to about 11 stations across the studio.
- My LaCie 12TB drive is connected via USB 3.0 to the mac mini and is available to view in the "shared" finder window for all computers. In other words, everyone CAN see it.
- I have set everyone up with their own username and password to connect to the server. I have set permissions through the server (file sharing) to allow all users to Read & Write to the external Harddrive.
My problem:
It seems as though any file or folder created by one computer is not accessable by another computer - and vice versa. One user has NO permission to write or copy a file into a folder that another user has created on the external drive.
My needs:
I really want this to work freely. I want all users to be able to write, read, and delete any file or folder on the External HDD through the network. I don't want to have to set every folder created on the external to sharing or have to manage permissions at all.
Ladies and Gentlemen! What am I doing wrong?!
Message was edited by: IndianaPwns

Underlying the Mac OS is unix. By default when a file or folder is created, it is owned by that user. Other users don't have read/write permissions.
I suggest reading a bit about unix permissions work.
Unix assigns permissions for 3 categories for each file and folder. Self, group, and other (think of other like the permissions you would want a complete stranger to have).
If all your users are members of the same group, you can use unix permissions to allow anyone in the group to have r/w permissions. You'd first need to define a group, and then assign all the users to that group.
Lastly, you'd want to associate all the existing files you already have to that group.

I need an external harddrive for my ipad

My ipad is running out of harddrive space for my music. I need an compatible external harddrive to store my music. I want to have my music stored on an external harddrive and be able to play it wirelessly on my ipad as needed. I was looking at Seagate Blutooth harddrive, however, I an not sure it will work.

I have a friend that told me he is using a Seagate external drive and it is working. I did not see any that stating it's compatible with the ipad. My friend he is using Seagate 1TB Backup Plus Slim

Help, please! Any advice on how I link my new iMac and my new itunes software with existing external harddrive containing my entire itunes library?

Help, please! Any advice on how I link my new iMac and my new itunes software with existing external harddrive containing my entire itunes library?

Hello!
It should be a matter of
Quiting iTunes first if it's running
Connecting your external harddrive to your Mac, use the Finder to browse to it
Find your iTunes folder on the ext HDD and double-click on iTunes Library.itl
If you have any trouble with this, please let us know.

Needed disk space, bought an external harddrive and

Just dragged the icon for my hard drive to the icon for the back up.
It is a packard bell and I used the disk utility to erase and set it up for mac.
It shows both the Macintosh HD and an alias for the hard drive. Is it that easy?
Can I start clearing stuff off the lap top? If I erase stuff off the lap top I guess I have made a copy of it on the external, have I not?
Dumb question I hope, just do not want to completely lose files.
A lot of old photos not being used by iWeb at this point, but will be needed soon.

So your laptop hard drive is called "Macintosh HD"
right? Approx how big is it? And what is the name
given to the new external harddrive? Approx how big
is it?
Mac HD is original capacity 37.14 used 32.01 free 5.12
Back up is new external capacity capacity 232.76 used 7.65 free 225.11
Hummmm, something is missing I have download carbon copy and will try using that.
Usually dragging your Macintosh HD icon to the
external drive should copy most everything you would
want to keep. But it doesn't copy some of the hidden
files for the system, etc. Probably okay. Just
compare the size of the "Macintosh HD" folder on the
external hard drive with your harddrive on the
laptop...do a Get Info on both.
The best way I know of to make an exact copy of your
hard drive is to use a program called Carbon Copy
Cloner, available here...
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
What it will do is to make an exact image file of
your harddrive and then you will be able to mount it
and copy things from it when you need to.

I need Lacie external harddrive help

I've been using my Lacie Rugged external harddrive with my Macbook for a while. my macbook crashed for somereason and I'm trying to use the harddrive on the gateway computer in the house. The first time it was plugged in the computer said that a new thing was found and it was installed but now I can't find it on the computer to use it. theres a chance that it might not be working correctly because there is a dent on the fount of it, but its probably just that I'm not looking in the right place for it.

ok well for anybody elts that may need an answer to this ... go to the start menu, right click on my computer. click on the manage option. go into computer managment, storage, disk managment, your harddirve should show up on the bottom of the list (the list will be at the bottom of the window) and um, right click on it ... then I forget. If you need to you could probably figure it out. I found the instructions for this at the lacie website .... but i think formatting might erase stuff on it and then you can't get your mac stuff off of it onto a pc. thanx for your help though.

Want to upgrade from snow leopard to lion, need to purchase an external harddrive to b/u my stuff. will formating for snow leopard be ok when uploading to the new system (lion)?

oh sorry, I thought that was where we put the question I am on an extremely tight budget, but since I do shift work, I wanted to use the iCloud funciton to keep my calendars uptodate on my pc/mac mini/and iphone. Wish there were a way to do it for free on my snow and snow leopard OS, but sinc e I cannot, I am wondering about formatting the external harddrive (which I have to purchase). If I format for the snow leopard, will there be a problem re installing the information into the new snow leopard OS machine? Also, I am wondering about the older Mac Pro I have that is the OS before snow leopard (Snow, I believe) will I be able to use this same HD for backing it up to upgrade it (at a later date)?
Thank you for your help.
Deb

so sorry, I mean uploading information from the back up (ex HD) onto the new Snow Lion OS. (and later doing the same with the Mac Pro which is the system before snow leopard.) TY

Guest account needs adminstrator's name/password to save to external harddrive.

My brother has a guest account on my iMac. He now has an external harddrive to save his home folder to now and again so he can back-up his music and pictures etc, but each time he attempts to do so he is asked for the adminstrator's name and password. Why is this? Can it be changed? And if so, how?

I'm having a similar problem, since the 10.5.1 upgrade (I downloaded the 110MB version, as Apple readily admits that there are problems when using Software Update for upgrades).
I ran Disk Utility to repair permissions on my boot drive, and it prompted me for my administrator password (something that I've only had to do since the upgrade to 10.5). This time, the user name was blank (usually it fills in the user name with the account name I'm logged in under). I entered the information, and got the error. Double checked everything, and still no luck. After a third attempt, I was told I had to wait a while before trying again.
I'm hoping there's some simple fix or something I can easily to type in. I don't want to wait a few more weeks for Apple to release another patch, and I don't want to have to step back to an even more unstable version so I can use Disk Utility.
~Trilo~

MacBook White - Possible to reload OSX from an external harddrive?

Ok heres the problem, I own a MacBook White (late 2006) my harddrive and optical drive have failed, I have replaced my harddrive but I'm currently in a pickle with the optical drive (im a university student and funds and time are not on my side).
My Question is can I copy the OSX Install disk onto an external harddrive and boot/install from that? If so how can this be done?
thanks for any help and advice received.
Jay.

Thanks for the reply, I'll be using a PC with windows XP to create the partition and disk image...
I assume this will work fine? also from what I can see on that page I will only need to partition 4gb of the Harddrive for Tiger...
So again assume I could use a flashdrive with the required space.
Thanks again for the advice

Exporting to external harddrive "not enough disk space"

imac Mac OS X (10.3.9)
I'm having several problems while trying to export my entire iphoto library as a backup to an external harddrive...
The main on is I am getting a "not enough disk space error". There is 95 GB available on the harddrive and the library is approximately 20 GB.
I've been doing it in smaller increments b/c I thought it might be an issue of not enough space on my mac's harddrive as I only have like 6GB left (the reason I'm backing up and deletiing photos) but it gets to a certain point and then says no more.
I've been using the export function, but I've also tried just dragging and dropping them and get the same error.
I'm runnning iphoto 4.0.3.
Of course I've tried restarting to no avail...
Any suggestions would be welcome...
Another issue is the filenames. Of course many have the same names from the camera. Is there a way to get them to automatically put them in folders on the harddrive. I've been doing this manually and it's tiresome.
Finally, is there a way to get it keep the "date created" information. When I look on the harddrive it says they were all created 12/31/1903! That's going to make it very difficult to find something later should I need it...
Thanx so much!
JT

< The library is like 30 GB while the pictures are only 20GB.>
If you have rotated, cropped, or edited any pictures in iPhoto, the originals are all kept inside the iPlibrary in case you want to "revert to the originals"... it's good to know it's there, but you are less likely to revert to an original, since there's a reason you edited the pics in the first place.
Anyway, those originals are taking "wasted space" in your iPlibrary.
If you want to reduce the size of the iPlibrary from 30GB to close to 20GB, (because the thumbnails will remains and must), then you should get rid of the superfluous duplicates! I did.
if you want to clean you iPlibrary and get rid of duplicates, you can use iPhoto diet. Free download.
My advice, is do a drop and copy the entire iPlibrary to the external, as suggested by eww, because imagine a day, when the internal HD iPLibrary crashes on you, and becomes not salvageable, you will have a mirror copy, to copy back to your internal drive, with all it's albums, names, favorites ,star ratings etc....... If you export to the external HD, and if your iP library crashes on you.... you are to re-import from scratch.... and you will go %#%^&$&@$$@#
I have been there myself... now I have 3 differents external HD that I back up to. 9 different iPlibraries, and 3 copies of each on 3 separate HD..... Photos are too important to me.....
Reading this discussion group, you see many people writting thing such as "my library is gone what do I do?"
it's not a matter of if but when!
You be the judge...
Michel

"A USB device is drawing too much power..." External Harddrive

My 15" Macbook Pro, OS X, 10.6.8, 2GHz Intel Core i7, 4GB memory keeps booting my 1 TB Seagate external harddrive off because it is drawing too much energy. It's done this repeatedly for about two weeks, and now it won't appear on the desktop (while it still whirs when I attach it and the LED comes on). I checked how much energy it's drawing in the System Profiler. 500, then very little after I restarted both machines, and then too much again. I tried connecting it with an identical harddrive's cable (my housemate has the same model), and it wouldn't register then, either.
...I suspect it's the harddrive as opposed to my MBP! Or I hope it is, and not a problem with my USB ports or anything like that. I'm surprised because the Seagate is connected to the mains... But if it is the Mac, how would I go about checking to know if it is? (My Wacom Bamboo is working fine.)
Anyone with any ideas, suggestions? Anything else I need to inform you guys of?

:-) use your room mate's and do it!
pretty old drive, is it makeing clicking noises? try re repairting it before you go erasing but I think yoru system is giving you some sound advice. but I would go further in saying it's either too full or too old and is on it's last legs.
If you are afraid you're going to be loosing some important data that you haven't backed up get DiskWarrior as this has saved me from loosing my hair a few years back when my HDD crashed.
http://www.alsoft.com/diskwarrior/
if you do get this, be sure to be picky on the things you keep as it will not always work and it sounds like your hard drive is on it's last legs. Imagine a door slowly closing everytime it spins up.

IMovie and extern harddrive

I need some help... When I moved one of my iMovie projects over to an extern harddrive it all seemed fine, but now it's just like this:
So when I open the project it goes to textedit... And this is a very important video of mine, so if someone could please share any info/tips/soloution I would be very happy!

Hi jim:
I am one of those that often suggests that imovie users should not purchase Harddrive cameras, but only IF
*The harddrive camera does not have a firewire or USB2 port
Or if
*The user wants to import directly to imovie from the camera without having to use third-party applications
Many folks here just want to 'plug and play' their cameras. It's those that do not understand how to convert (or those who do want to convert) that usually get the advice of not getting a Hard Drive Camera.
Also, there may be some quality reduction when converting from MPEG-2 to .dv (and then back again if you want to burn a DVD).
:)Just my 2¢ FWIW
Sue

Gaming from Macbook Pro onto external harddrive

Hello,
I have a Macbook pro 2.4ghz that I bought this past Summer. I have partitioned about 32 GB for Windows in bootcamp and since I opted for the 120GB 7200rpm harddrive I don't want to use anything bigger. My problem is that I am starting to use up the space installing games that I have bought. Gears of War, COD 4 (PC), and soon Fallout 3.
I would like to know the practicality of re-installing these Windows games on an external harddrive (the kind that would run off of the USB or firewire - instead of power supply). I don't mind re-starting the games since I haven't gotten that far along on any one of them anyway. Can this be done? I figure this way I can still carry around the harddrive w/games and free up much needed space on my bootcamp partition.
If you can could anyone recommend specific harddrives of about 120GB and larger that fit this niche. Thank you.

OK,
But what I was really asking, i guess, was can you realistically play games from an external drive using bootcamp? More specifically has anyone here played higher graphics FPSs from an external (or know someone who has)
Thank you for the initial advice but while I don't mind re-installing a couple of games, installing a new harddrive and reinstalling OS X, VM Ware Fusion, Windows XP etc is a bit much at this early stage in the game.
I would specifically like to know if anyone has experience with a macbook pro similar to mine playing these types of games off of an external harddrive. And if so what harddrive did you specifically use? Thanks in advance.

Need external harddrive advice..

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