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.

Similar Messages

Partitioning External Hard Drive- questions about software & filing system

I just got my macbook and I want to use my older external hard drive to transfer data between the macbook and my PC desktop. I have a Maxtor OneTouch II 300gb with only one partition. I have about 80gb of data already on the Maxtor. So my two questions are . .
1. What is the best software (prefer freeware) to partition my Maxtor and keep the data I already have on it? Or is there a better way?
2. What is the best setup for the filing system for the partitions? NTFS for one and FAT32 for the other or something else? I want to be able to both read & write to the Maxtor from both the PC and Mac. Appreciate any help anyone can throw my way.
Macbook- Black model Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I'm not quite sure of what you mean by:
I would like to avoid
moving all the stuff from the external drive to the
mac, and then having to move it all back onto the
external drive.
But most external drive was formated using fat 32 which theoretically limit to 2 TB and file size limit to 4 GB. Just put a useless file from your pc, and connect your external to your MacBook ,and see if you can copy and or delete that file from your Mac.
You can also check your HD format on PC side by: go to my computer, right click the external HD icon and select properties, and it will shows you the hd was formatted with,...
If you mean you want to format to mac format "on the fly", they might be some utilities for that on Mac side, but I'm not aware of, but why you want to re-format it if the external work for both sides without getting new format, since format that using MAc extended journaled wight result unreadable on your PC side.
Good Luck

Backing up to external drive, and questions about "clearing up" hd space..?

iPhoto 6. Specs are below.
I have about 7,000 photos, and I have to clear out my hd to create more space.
I have "backed-up" my hd using "super duper" and an external firewire seagate pro drive and now need to clear out space on the internal drive on my G4.
Here are my questions/concerns:
How do I go about deleting my photos off of my internal hd?
I want to continue to use iphoto, but need to delete my current photos from it, in order to free up space.
Will I be able to get access to this drive in, say 10 years from now?
Will it be safe to store in the closet?
When I go to back-up iphoto, will it add my "new" pictures to the old pictures I saved?
My concerns are longevity, and to be able to access these in the future.
Should I be looking at another process? Back-up to DVD?
Thanks for your help!!!!
Feel free to ask me questions as well. These are very important photos, actually ANYONE'S photos are important......just want them safe for the future.

jp6940
You can run an entire library from that external disk:
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library Folder as an entity from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Now, when you add new pics, that's where they will go - obviously, as long as the disk is attached to your Mac and not in the closet
The longevity of storage is a matter of some debate. Optical media (CD & DVD) are rated in years, but none have been around long enough to know if those ratings are accurate. My solution to that problem is to burn a copy of my library to DVD twice a year, so that gets renewed every six months or so. I also upload my library to FLICKR.
I guess the point of backing up is that it's an ongoing process, not a single event.
Regards
TD

Can I cut/paste my backups to an external hdd and then back to my mac?

Ok, here's my issue and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I have an iPhone6 and my wife has one as well, and we both have iPads.
I have to backup all of these somewhere, and my current device is a Macbook Pro with 250gb SSD.
As you understand, backing up so many things in so little space it almost renders my Macbook useless.
I have read some advice about using sudo commands to make iTunes store the backups in an external hdd.
However, I am not an experienced mac user, and I do not trust myself doing something like that.
What came to my mind, and that's what I want your opinion upon, is the following.
Something that I used to do when I was using a windows pc to keep many different backups, rename them etc.
As far as I understand, when I plug in my iPhone to my Mac, iTunes recognize the device and the last backup of that device.
Then, by pressing "Backup to my pc etc" it only updates that backup and rewrites on it.
My questions:
I backup my iPhone then quit iTunes.
I remove (cut) the backup folder (the one with the huge weird name from the directory library/application support/mobile sync/backup/0604f04blabhblahblah) and paste it on an external hdd where I have tons of space.
When I want to backup my iPhone again, instead of creating a whole new backup that would take a lot of time, if I take the backup folder that I had stored to that external hdd and paste it back to its original place (the directory I mentioned above), will iTunes recognize it and update and rewrite on that backup?
And then again move it back and forth from my mac to my external hdd.
And something even more important.
In case something happens to my iPhone (it falls from the 10nth floor) and I buy a new one, will I be able to "restore from backup" using the same method I mentioned before? Will iTunes recognize the folder?
Sorry for the long text and any mistakes but english is not my mother tongue and I wanted to make sure I would be clear about my questions.
My current backups use more than half of my 250gb internal SSD and along with some apps and other stuff I cannot get rid off I am left with only 50gigs of space which is terrible.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

edwardpeck wrote:
If I have iMatch can I move the music files to an external drive and then play the music off the cloud? This way freeing up space on my hard drive? If so how?
You can move the iTunes library to the external and use it there.
Copy the entire /Music/iTunes/ folde rto the external.
Hold Option, launch iTunes, select Choose library... and select the iTunes folder on the external.
iTunes will use the external for everything.You can delete /Music/iTunes/ folder.
FYI: The iTunes media folder is not the (entire) iTunes library.

I have a Lacie External hdd and on usb 3. Now If I plug in the device it shows a message to connect to windows or mac (Parallels installed) so If I click on mac it works fine well and good but when I select connect to windows it shows a error.

I have a Lacie External hdd and on usb 3. Now If I plug in the device it shows a message to connect to windows or mac (Parallels installed) so If I click on mac it works fine well and good but when I select connect to windows it shows a error.
The error that pops up is:
The device "Lacie Rugged USB3-FW" was unable to connect to its ideal host controller.
Please anyone could suggest what the solution could be?
Thanks.

But my 1 tb hdd is already formatted via ex fat which can work on both mac and Windows no limitation of file size also like if we use ntfs or fat it has a restriction of 4gb file size.

Can you buy any type of external HDD and it'll work with any mac or do you have to buy specific ones that cost like €999?

can you buy any type of external HDD and it'll work with any mac or do you have to buy specific ones that cost like €999?

You can buy any disk with FireWire, Thunderbolt or USB. If you've got a 2010 or early MacBook Pro, buy a FireWire disk, or if you've a newer computer, a Thunderbolt disk. They'll be faster than the USB, but you can buy an USB hard disk

Want to move LR5 catalog to an external HDD and incorporate my Aperture3 files already stored on another external HDD.

With the demise of Aperture, and lack of space on my mac, I would like to consolidate all my LR5 and Aperture images onto ONE external HDD.
My Aperture originals are already on one external HDD, and my LR5 images currently occupy (too much) of my hard drive on my MB air.
Is there an uncomplicated way to join the two sets on another new external HDD?
Thanks

what I meant is that I would like to access my Aperture images via LR5, so have just the one LR5 catalog for all my images.
This is a goal that I would recommend!
However, I can't really state if that's what you need to do with your photos in Aperture, as I have never used Aperture. I'm sure someone else who does use Aperture will be along soon to comment, or you can try your favorite search engine.

Twin unpowered USB hub for connecting external HDD and iphone

I have a MBA and a powered Kensington 7 port USB hub which works great when I am either at home/in the office.
Is there an unpowered twin port USB hub that would allow me to connect both my WD myv passport 320gb external HDD and 3g iphone to my MBA when i am truly on the move?
thanks in advance
Message was edited by: NRG1970

Because those are both drawing power from the macbook air, it might be questionable, but any should do, but I haven't seen any 2 port hubs, only four port ones, and I tend to like Logiix, as their support is good and their products are good also, and they are fairly low profile.

HT1391 downloaded itunes and when it synched it took all my music off of an external hdd and I would like it back?

downloaded itunes and when it searched for music it took music off of a external hdd and that folder is now blank but not all the music is in itunes, I would like to have the music back on the hdd is that possible?

In iTunes 11 uncheck the preferences setting in in the iTunes Preferences panel "Advanced > Copy Files to iTunes Media folder when adding to Library"

* Buying Vado HD - 1st or 2nd gen? and question about pricing *

Hi.
I want to buy the Vado HD. I'm deliberating between the st and the 2nd gen. Can you help me with that?
Second question, how come the 2nd gen (that supposed to be better and newer) costs less than the st gen?! (99$ for the 2nd gen and 229$ for the st gen).
Thanks,
Adam

CRe: * Buying Vado HD - st or 2nd gen? and question about pricing *# To me the Vado Rev3 seems to be trying to get the same feature set as a digial Camera with HD recording capabilty....except the cameras take better stills. I have the below Canon and the Vado HD Rev.
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-SD780IS2--Stabilized-Black/dp/B00SER47Y
We don't use the vado anymore since the camera is always with us.
Factor into the price of the Canon also purchasing a highspeed 6GB sd card.
if you are really sold on a Vado...look at the comparison here:
http://www.myvado.com/products/comparison.aspx
Note how they reduced the recording time of the new models to only 4gb instead of 8gb.....however, the newer units nati'vely record to MP4 which is a little easier on some software programs than the AVI container.

Mac can't find my partitioned external HDD

My previous setup was:
1 WD 2TB external HDD with own power supply, formatted as MacOS Extended (Journaled).
But I wanted to split this HDD up into two partitions, Archive and Library. I also wanted to have a Time Machine backup of this disk. So I bought another WD 2TB external HDD with own power supply. On this one, I made two partitions, Archive and Library, both as MacOS Extended (Journaled). Then I copied all the files of my first HDD to their specific location.
So my new setup was:
My new WD 2TB external HDD with own power supply, with two partitions, both formatted as MacOs Extended (Journaled).
My old WD 2TB external HDD was still holding a copy of the files on the new one, but I wanted to use this one for backup.
Now I just had to format the old WD 2TB, so I could use it as Time Machine backup. I knew this was a critical point. Because if something would go wrong I didn't have any backup. But what are the chances that things would have gone bad just right now???
As you can guess it did go wrong. My new HDD (the one with the partitions) could no longer be recognized by my Mac. My Time Machine backup was still indexing all the files, so didn't get an actual backup of them yet. A disaster!!!
When connected the new HDD I had a prompt window telling me that my computer couldn't find the disk, with the options 'Initialise...', 'Ignore' and 'Remove'. Choosing 'Intialise' I got into Disk Utility, it does detect the 'mother' HDD, but not the 'children' (= the partitions).
Is there a way to get my data back? I have everything on it: my files for work (important files for my business), but also my personal files (pictures, complete iTunes library with music and movies...).
I must say that I had this problem before. Same situation: I partitioned a disk and after a bit, my Mac couldn't find it anymore. Back then I thought it was the HDD, and as the files were not that important, I just forgot about it... until I found it back one day and discovered that I could restore the HDD, but I had to re-format it, meaning that all the files were lost.
This situation is different as lost files would mean a disaster. :-(
I hope there's someone out here that can help me.
Thanks in advance!
I use a MacBook Pro mid 2007. I currently use Mac OS Mountain Lion (up to date).

Thank you! That information was definitely helpful.
I haven't tried since my post to get our printer to work (ended up sending my doc to Staples, in the interest of time, and haven't had to print anything since).
Anyway, this morning I replaced our ink and tried printing something. It still wasn't working (but this time, all it said was the printer wasn't connected). I reconnected the printer to the network, then turned it off, restarted our computer, and once the computer was back up, I turned the printer back on.
The printer appeared in our network, again, and my printing job was successful. Yay! I LOVE when technology works. =)

Type of HDD in Edge E130 and question about msata SSD

I'm interested in thickness of HDD in E130. I read that in E125 was 7 mm HDD and there is troubles with 9 mm. So, is E130 similar to E125(E130 is next-gen of this type netbooks, but there is huge posibility that Lenovo Engineers decided not to change HDD type)? Or 9 mm hard drive will work?
Installing msata breaks warranty agreement, doesn't it? And i have some, maybe, obvious questions amout msata SSD(i've read about installing SSD in other Thinkpad notebooks), but I need some proves for Edge E130:
1)Speed is limited by SATAII interface?
2)mSata drive as bootable device will work?
Last questions are not such important, but i'll happy, if Edge E130/E135 users will share their experience
Solved!
Go to Solution.

I bought the E130 as a travel computer, so I didn't have to travel with my X220T - which is a tank compared to this little fellow. I have the 3358-8dg model of the e130 (came with free-dos but I bought an extra 4GB Ram to up the total to 8GB). The HDD is the usual 7mm think ones as expected.
I've had my e130 for 2 days now and I removed the HDD it shipped with and installed a 64GB mSata instead.
Link to image
I then installed Win7 with SP1 from a USB in UEFI mode (see this thread: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Windows-7-Discussion/Prepare-an-usb-thumb-drive-to-boot-windows-7-or-8-i... - installed Lenovo System Update 5 and installed all drivers and software along with all windows updates.
So, running only an mSata HD and booting from it is not a problem at all.
My windows experience index is 4.9 due to the Graphics: Desktop performance for Windows Aero.
The HD transfer rate is 7.9.
The exact model of the mSata SSD I installed is: Crucial m4 SSD 64GB, mSATA 6Gb/s (CT064M4SSD3)
I hope this helps.
Moderator note: images totalling more than 50k converted to links per forum rules: Lenovo Community Participation Rules Also fixed broken link.

MacBook Pro iphoto external HDD and can't open iphoto.

I have a Macbook Pro OS X 10.9.2 and I cannot open iphoto. My HD has 0 kb free. Is this why? It worked yesterday and I haven't uploaded anything new, just attached a WD my passport ext HD and did a time machine back up. I can't locate the Iphoto backup on the external HDD. When I attempt to open iphoto I get an error message - Unable to write to library "iphoto library". Its got around 850GB of photos in there. Plan was to back up time machine on one HDD, then just the actual photo files to another HDD and store old photos on the external drives, thus freeing up my MacBook Pro.
I have a copy of time machine from about 2 weeks ago which is when my old external drive ran out of space. The new drives are WD My Passport for Mac 2TB.
I've tried holding down the cmd-alt buttons and can get the menus up but if I click 'repair database' I get the same error message up.
Any ideas?
I have dragged the iphoto library from finder, which is showing around 850GB, to the WD HDD and its backing up but very slowly!!
If I can get iphoto open I can get some photos off of it which no doubt will solve the problem!!

The ext HD is not partitioned. It also has a Time Machine back up on it
You don't want to run an iPhoto library off the same drive/partition the Time Machine uses. It will eventually run of of space and damage the library. Running a library in that manner is asking for problems.
Should I (can I?) rename one of the iphoto libraries so I know which is which?
Yes. Then if you're not sure which library you're using Control (right) - click on the iPhoto title in the top frame of the window to see which library it is:
What is the best way to keep my photos backed up on an ext HD before/ after editing as I want to keep the original as well as the edited version.
That's what iPhoto does. When you edit a photo the edits are applied to a modified version separate from the original/master version. iPhoto has a Revert to Original option which removes the edited version. Also when viewing an edited photo in the edit mode the Shift key will toggle between the edited version and orignal version.
Any ideas if it is easy to extract my music from itunes from time machine back up?
Enter Time Machine, go to the Music folder or wherever you kept your iTunes library, select the library and click on the Restore button. It will be restored to the Music folder on your boot drive. If you want to restore the library to another location Control (right) - click on the iTunes library and select "Restore to .....". That will let you pick the location for the restored library.
am thinking of getting LIghtroom to use instead of iphoto but have no idea whether it would talk to the photos that are in iphoto on my ext HD. Perhaps Aperture would make more sense?
Lightroom works alot like iPhoto and Aperture, a database based application. You can't use both Lightroom and iPhoto. You'll have to pick one and use it alone.
However, Aperture can use the same library as iPhoto so there would be no converting the library as LIghtroom would require.
Your best solution would be to daisy chain another EHD off of your TM hard drive to use with your iPhoto and iTunes libraries and any other files you'd like to keep there to use. Then have TM backup both your boot drive and the second EHD. The TM drive should be about 2X the size of the drives it's backing up.
So if you go that route you might want to get a new EHD for TM that's big enough and use the current TM drive as your working drive.

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!

Need logical setup advice for new iTunes on external HDD and new laptop

New to Win7, would like to know the best way to re-create from scratch my 5+ year old iTunes library on a new external hard drive without simply copying the previous iTunes folder structure over. I guess that I would like to add all the music, video, movie and iPhone app files to a new library. What is the best method to do this so that iTunes can organize all of the new data from scratch correctly? What about reauthorizing apps and media I purchased through iTunes? anything special to do to reintroduce this data to a new iTunes?
(to clarify - I intend to install the iTunes program on my local C drive in programs on the laptop and all data on the external drive) Thanks...

Steve M. wrote:
I know I should have redundant backups and should probably have a second external HD and eventually will.
Yes, that's best.
But for now, if I partition (I'm assuming I should) a new 1 TB external HD, how big should I make the TM partition vs. the SD partition at this point assuming I have under 100 GB on my internal Mac HD? Is this a feasible way of doing things here in the near term.
Your best bet is to make your TM partition 2-3 times the size of the amount of data you anticipate backing-up. Put it first on the drive; that way, later on you can delete the partition below it, expand the TM partition, and make a new, smaller partition for SD (or use the whole drive). See #1, #3, #5 and #6 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of this forum, for details.
By the way, any recommendations on which peripheral HDs to consider? I was very surprised on a recent visit to my local Apple Store that they have a large stock of WD My Studio drives. I mentioned to an Apple sales person that I had always heard WDs were kind of a no-no among Mac users but she assured me the current crop of them were much improved. Any comment on that??
Most any drive will work with Macs, and Time Machine.
If you're going to put a "bootable clone" on it, be sure it's a bootable drive. Most PPC Macs can boot only from FireWire; most Intels can boot from F/W or USB. But some Western Digitals won't boot a Mac. Their list of which ones should and +should not+ boot: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=1787. But note the disclaimer that they don't support it +*at all.+*.
In addition, many of them have a built-in sleep mode that cannot be disabled, and sometimes interferes with Time Machine backups: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?pfaqid=1376

Partition External HDD and questions about mac

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