Recommendations for external drive?

I'm looking for recommendations for an external hard drive to add to my iMac G5, 17" flat panel. I want to have enough GBs to use it as a backup AND to be able to store graphics such as my photos, videos and the like — all the components of making DVD movies. Ideally, I will be able to use the external to transfer things from my computer to other computers.
My G5 has a 250 GB hard drive. I'd like the external to be large enough to contain things I haven't even thought of yet.
I'm not that savvy when it comes to the workings of computers, so ease of use/simplicity is paramount.
All recommendations (and reasons why) will be much appreciated. Thank you.
ccCarol

Get a firewire drive and use SuperDuper! to make a clone and then regular backups (it's easy). As far as what make of drive, I have always had good luck with LaCie, and there are others who swear by Maxtor or OWC, which you can find here. In terms of size, get the largest one you can afford, in your case I would think at least 500GB. Transferring your video etc can be done to a second partition on your external drive by simply dragging and dropping the data. Partitioning is straightforward, using Disk Utility.
Let us know what you decide, hope this has been helpful,
Miriam

Similar Messages

Recommendation for external drive for time machine

I just got my new iMac today, and it has a 1 TB hard drive. I've read that I need at least 1.5 TB to run Time Machine. Since the largest drive I own in 1 TB, it's time to upgrade. Suggestions for a good, stable drive that plays well with Time Machine?

luba petrusha wrote:
Pondini,
Thanks. I use my computer for, among other things, photography, and tend to fill the drive. I had to move my music files to an external drive to free up space. My current computer (the one that's being replaced) has a 500 GB hard drive and almost that much data. So I'm looking for a drive that will last me as long as the computer does.
You're going to have a choice, then, whether to get a relatively-inexpensive external, that probably won't last that long, or a relatively-expensive one that will. All hard drives fail, of course, sooner or later, and since most of us buy largely on price, the low-end externals aren't exactly bullet-proof.
My other drives (LaCie 250 GB, used only for iTunes, and OWC 500 GB, used for back-up with SuperDuper) are Firewire, and work well.
Is there an advantage to Time Capsule? I am still using an old Airport Extreme given to me by a friend years ago. Does it warrant replacing, or is Time Capsule an unnecessary expenditure?
Wireless is fairly slow, but TM can back-up without having a drive physically attached, so it's a bit of a trade-off.
A Time Capsule, of course, is a combination wireless router and disk drive. So if you already have a reliable router, it may not make sense to get another one. I've never had a TC, but prefer a separate Airport Extreme and external disk drive for it; when the drive fails, I can just get a new one.
Depending on which Mac(s) you're talking about, there may be another solution as well. If you're going to have both an iMac and a laptop, you can share a drive on the iMac with the laptop. Thus the iMac can back-up directly, and the laptop wirelessly (both have to be running Leopard or Snow, of course, and be on the same local network).
Just for comparison, doing a small (about 30 gb) full backup, I get about 40 gb/hr via F/W 400 or USB; about 21 gb/hr to a USB disk on my AEBS via Ethernet; about 13 gb/hr wirelessly. That all varies greatly, of course, depending on load, contention, interference, etc.
And you can do the large initial backup via Ethernet, then shift to wireless. There's also a fairly involved procedure where you can do the first directly-attached, then change, but it's a bit tricky and involves a lot of back and forth.

Recommend An External Drive (FW800 or eSATA)?

Hi everyone
I wanted to see if people had any recommendations for external drives... I'd like to get one with FW800 - eSATA would be a bonus to future-proof myself but not necessary...
So far, I've tried the NewerTech miniStack v3 and am rather disappointed with it... its fan comes on on frequently, even if I'm not accessing the drive...
So far, I've seen the Seagate FreeAgent for Mac and the WD MyBook... what about GTech's products?
Thanks!

If you are going to utilize the ODD sata ports, then yes the newertech esata adapter + mercury elite dual drive esata only.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MESATATBEK/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MPQXES2/
Make sure you get the right dual-drive esata only one. OWC updated it, as it used to be all black. There's a usb one that can be confusing.
As for WD drives, right now they are on top of their game. Giving best speed, quietness, cooling, AND cheap. WD Blacks are the best all around everything.
They are fast (gives Velociraptors decent competition imo), 32mb cache, very quiet, run cool, 5 year warrranty, and most of all dirt cheap. $69 for 640GB and $99 for a high performance 1TB.
I used to like Hitachi's enterprise class long time ago for raids, but I think they have just started to fall off.
The reviews from newegg of WD Black pretty much say it all:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

HT202807 I have a MB Air 128gb and a Time Cap.802.11AC. My HD is maxed out because of 30GB of photo storage after migration to 10.3.3 Photos. Please recommend an external drive best for connecting to TC and moving the iPhoto Lib off my HD

I have a 13" mid 2011 MB Air 128gb and a Time Cap.802.11AC. My HD is maxed out because of 30GB of photo storage after migration to 10.10.3 Photos. I have reduced apps and files as much as possible so the only thing left is to move the photos. Please recommend an external drive compatible for connecting to my TC 802.11ac and moving the iPhoto Lib off my HD which will free approx 15 gbs. of space. I don't plan on using it for any other purpose so a small capacity drive will suffice. I know the "optimization" is supposed to adjust for this condition but I don't trust that assertion.I only have 2gb free space remaining.

I don't plan on using it for any other purpose so a small capacity drive will suffice.
If you really only want such a small capacity drive.. what about just buying a 32GB or 64GB USB memory stick.
You should still have a back up to the internal hard disk of the AC TC.
Or just buy a WD Passport.. don't waste your money buying 500GB as it is only a bit more to buy 1TB and a bit more again for 2TB.. For future use if you do buy a USB hard disk buy 2.5" type.. and buy 1TB or if the budget stretches 2TB..

Can I disable trash for external drives?

Hello,
Is it possible to disable the Trash for external drives so that files from external drives are completey deleted automatically, or else moved to the trash on my internal hard drive? The problem that I am trying to solve is, for example, when I download pictures from my camera, if I want to make more space available on the camera, I have to first delete the pictures from the camera, and then empty my trash, since deleting the pictures from the camera only moves them to a hidden folder called ".Trash". I would prefer if I didn't have to empty the trash every time I wanted to free up room on my camera external hard drive.
Thanks very much,
Adrian
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.1)

It isn't without its risks, but another option may be to ⌘-drag the files to the hard drive, which will simulate a "move" by copying the files to the hard drive then deleting them from the external. If something goes wrong during the transfer, it may be difficult in some situations to determine which files were being copied at the time - ie. which ones were potentially corrupted. It might be ok as a cleanup procedure after the files have been imported normally, but then you end up sitting through the process of copying them to the hard drive a second time - you might as well just toss them in the "Trash". Also, if a large number of files is involved, just don't accidentally drop them on the "Desktop" because the "Finder" can't handle it. Obviously, I'm not a fan of the method, but it's there as an option...

Recommendations for External Hard Drives?

This is the first time I am buying an external Hard Drive. I am looking for a 200GB-300GB
What would be considered the best of the best? good? fair?

I use and recommend the Mercury Elite Pro drives from OWC found HERE. They do ship internationally, but if you do not want the customs hassle, look for a drive that features the Oxford 911 chipset and avoid at all costs the cheaper and more common Prolific chipset that has shown itself to be unstable with Macs and PCs alike.

Need recommendation for external DVD burner drive!

I'm one of the officers for a film club at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Recently, I discovered that we had, in our offices, a fully-functional, if not somewhat dated, iMac G4. After getting the neccessary OS X upgrades (it's now running the latest version, 10.4.8), I need to upgrade the CD drive, which is currently just a CD burner drive. It can't even play DVDs, much less burn them, both things we need to have working if we want people in our organization to be able to use this computer.
Since I don't want to physically remove the drive and replace it with an internal DVD burner drive, I'd like a recommendation for a good external one. I noticed that there's only one option on the Apple Store, the LaCie d2 DVD+/-RW Drive, and that doesn't look like it's been getting very good reviews. Does anyone have any other options I could choose from?
iMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Good point Keith.
I have no experience of this model but this one from OWC (a company who get very good press on these boards) promises iDVD 5 and 6 support. It's somewhat cheaper than the Lacie in the Apple store but doesn't have Lightscribe.
mrtotes

Recommendations for external backup hard drive...mirrored

My external hard drive that I used with Time Machine to backup my MacBook has bit the dust.
Ideally, I would like to get one that has hardware mirroring. At least 1gb. and Firewire 400 compatible.
It's the mirroring feature that I'm having trouble finding. Anyone have a drive they are happy with? Or can you point me in the right direction?
Thanks

My favorite mirroring or cloning application is SuperDuper! which can be downloaded [Here|http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html].
As far as an external drive is concerned, I've had tremendous success with Western Digital drives. I've used several desktop models but recently purchased a portable (2.5") 750Gb Passport Essential SE because of it's size and portability. After formatting it for Mac, I remember that I needed assistance from the Internet for instructions to remove the pesky windows only WD backup software from the disk. It was simple to remove but it involved an update in order to get rid of it.

Best setup for external drives and backup

I'm using Aperture to organize several thousand photos. I've gotten good advice her before about how to get started on this. I'm not a professional and I'm not an experienced user of Aperture, so don't assume a lot of knowledge when you answer. I'm wondering what the best way to set up the file storage would be. I use a MacBook Pro, so obviously that's out for storage, and financially, purchasing a more powerful desktop is out for the time being. I was thinking of purchasing a mirror drive system, like this: http://www.newertech.com/products/gmax.php
But then, there still remains the problem of backing up the photos in case of a fire or theft, etc. I have many of them on DVD, but not with all the metadata that I've added. Can I back the external drives up to a cloud-based storage system through the wireless on the MacBook?
Or, is the answer none of the above? What recommendations do you folks have for managing this?

more:
Paula-
Mirror drives are very much less than ideal for images backup. Mirroring occurs in real-time, so errors, breaks, etc. simply get copied. With images work (unlike fanancial work, for instance) we do not need real-time backup we just need regular accurate backup. Just have 2-3 external drives and rotate them regularly, always having one drive off-site (could be in your car or whatever). Back up manually rather than automatically so that you can be reasonably certain that the backup is not backing up something that just broke.
I suggest the below workflow. Note that most important is that original images from the camera card are copied to two locations before reformatting the card and before importing into Aperture or any other images management application.
Original images never change, so I prefer to manually copy them to two locations asap after capture: one location is the computer drive and the other is an external backup HD that itself gets backed up off site regularly. That assures me that "the pic is in the can." Until two digital files exist on different media I do not consider the pic in the can.
Then reformat the card in-camera, not before.
The Masters then get imported into Aperture from the Mac internal drive by reference (i.e. "Storing Files: in their current location" on the Mac internal drive). After editing is complete (may take weeks or months), from within Aperture I relocate the referenced Masters to an external hard drive for long-term storage.
I do use Time Machine routinely on the MBP, but for the daily-volatile activities going of the MBP. I prefer not to have TM be my backup-of-originals protocol. Instead TM backs up the Mac internal drive on the TM schedule and I back up original images asap based on my shooting schedule. Also the TM drive is a different drive than the drives used for long-term original image files archiving.
TM does back up my Library because the Library lives on the Mac internal drive but I do not assume that TM works for Library backup. I back the Library up to Vaults (on the same drives I put archives of Masters on) independent of TM. IMO one should back up image files and back up Vaults manually after verifying that what is being backed up is not broken, because automatic backup will just back up a broken Library or whatever.
Note that Masters need only be backed up once (but to multiple backup locations) and that backup should happen immediately after copying to the hard drive from the camera card, before involving Aperture or any other images management app.
Sorry for the redundant verbosity above but some was copied from previous posts. Also, I reinforce what Léonie said about DVDs. DVDs are way too slow, unreliable, etc. Instead rotate multiple hard drives to achieve redundancy.
HTH
-Allen

Need recommendation for external HD

I need one that can boot my iMac externally since my seagate goflex will automatically go to sleep whenever I boot it from there where it will shut down my Mac.

Basic Backup
Get an external drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Although you can buy a complete external drive system, you can also put one together if you are so inclined. It's relatively easy and only requires a Phillips head screwdriver (typically.) You can purchase hard drives separately. This gives you an opportunity to shop for the best prices on a hard drive of your choice. Reliable brands include Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Fujitsu. You can find reviews and benchmarks on many drives at Storage Review.
Enclosures for FireWire and USB are readily available. You can find only FireWire enclosures, only USB enclosures, and enclosures that feature multiple ports. I would stress getting enclosures that use the Oxford chipsets especially for Firewire drives (911, 921, 922, for example.) You can find enclosures at places such as;
Cool Drives
OWC
WiebeTech
Firewire Direct
California Drives
NewEgg
All you need do is remove a case cover, mount the hard drive in the enclosure and connect the cables, then re-attach the case cover. Usually the only tool required is a small or medium Phillips screwdriver.

Recommendations for External DVD Burner compatible with 10.5 Leopard?

We still have an older MacBook that we bought in 2007, it works great except for the CD/DVD drive. I need to be able to burn DVD's, could anyone recommend an External DVD Burner that would be compatible with 10.5 Leopard? Or at least give me an idea of what I need to look for to know if it should work before I buy it? Thank you!

Hello,
Biggest thing you want to avoid is Bus powered ones, here's one good suggestion...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/VLU2SD24XLS/

Recommendations for external hd for Time Machine backups

After having my 1TB G-Tech G-Drive Q desktop external h.d. crap out on me for a second or third time, this time for good, I give up on G-Tech. (I also had a faulty 500GB G-Tech portable which had to be replaced.)
For many reasons, my iMac's Time Machine backups have to be stored on an external hard drive. Two or three times, the external h.d. has become corrupted or something and has had to be reformatted, losing all the previous backups and starting all over again. This time, since the external h.d. is toast, I have no backups at all.
My MAIN question: Do any of you have a recommendation for an external hard drive - probably desktop, but not necessarily - preferably 1TB - which is RELIABLE?
Is this h.d. corruption/repeated failure a function of Time Machine? The hard drive itself?
What good is Time Machine if we lose backups all the time?

limerick2010 wrote:
Sorry to butt in, but I'm on the lookout for a solution to make a secondary, offsite back-up of my company's data. I was also looking at the usage of external hard disk for the purpose but am stumbling at a very basic question.
If the first disk(say 1TB) runs out of space and I connect a new hard-disk, wouldn't Time Machine back up all the stuff previously backed up, all over again on the new disk?
Exactly. Bt you're talking about two very different things: secondary backups vs. not enough room for primary backups.
The whole point of secondary backups is having a second, separate set, so if something happens to the primary set (lost, corrupted, disk fails, etc.), you have another complete set. As noted in the link in my previous post, it's also a good idea to use a different app for the secondary set, in case there's a problem with the primary app.
If your Time Machine disk gets full, you have three choices:
Let Time Machine start deleting old backup(s) automatically, to make room for new ones. You don't need to keep them forever -- a few months should be plenty for most users.
Get a new disk and start backing-up to it. Keep the old one "on the shelf" until you're sure you don't need the old backups any longer. You can always view and restore from them via the +*Browse ...+* option, per #17 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
Get a larger disk, copy the old backups to it, and continue backing-up to the new one. See #18 in the FAQ.

Recommendations for hard drive enclosures

Hi,
My G5 1.8ghz Dual Power Mac finally died today after eight years good service. I'm looking to remove the hard drive and wondered if anybody had any recommendations for enclosures that I could put it in? Is there anything I need to bear in mind when buying the enclosure or are they all pretty standard?
I've already purchased a new iMac as a replacement computer - I just want to be able to access the data in the old hard drive.
Thanks in advance

After going through several, I can only recommend those from OWC (Kappy's last link). I just stripped down a Western Digital Sudio Mac Edition external with a quad interface i bought seveal years ago to recover the bare drive becasue the enclosure's been nothing but a royal PITA.
The drive itself is fine but the enclosure uses a very Mac-unfriendly set of hardware that has sleep issues, lock-up issues, noise issues, won't properly mount to the Desktop, runs hot, and so on. Until I get a new OWC enclosure for the bare WD drive, I moved an older OWC external to take over the backup functions and it works like a dream. And it has a slower interface (FireWire400) but takes little longer to backup than the WD with FW800.
WD makes great internal drives--we have many in our menagerie of Macs--but their enclosures are just cheap and not Mac-friendly, even though I bought the "Mac Edition" version.

UPS Energy Saver on MacBook Pro for External Drives

A search here has shown this topic come up before -- such as at https://discussions.apple.com/message/1886738#1886738 and https://discussions.apple.com/message/8162836#8162836 -- but I can't find a resolution, so I'm bringing it up again.
I have multiple FW drives connected to my MacBook Pro. The MBP is connected to an APC Back-UPS RS 1200. OSX does not make the UPS Energy Saver autoshutdown preferences available on the MBP, the reasoning being that a laptop shouldn't need UPS autoshutdown because it has its own battery which is likely to run for far longer than the UPS would.
That's all well and good for the MBP itself, but it doesn't account for the multiple FW drives which are attached to it for backups and other purposes. In the event of a power outage, without UPS autoshutdown, the UPS will run down, and the drives will abruptly power off, exposing them to potential data loss and damage.
It's also not a solution to suggest that I manually power things down once there's a power outage, because the power can go out while I'm away for more than the few minutes of UPS battery back up time. The only real solution is to have UPS autoshutdown available on all portable machines. Unless and until Apple offers a (surely very simple) OS update to make that happen, I'm still interested in a solution.
APC's own software for autoshutdown stopped being updated long ago, so there is no version compatible with Snow Leopard.
The only potential solution I've found so far is http://www.apcupsd.org/ -- but its documentation is overwhelming and it appears that it may need other supporting software, a fair amount of Terminal usage, etc., all making it not very user-friendly for the very simple usage I'd want to make of it.
Does anyone know of any other solutions, software that can run on a MBP to add UPS autoshutdown functionality?
Re: Apcups, is anyone using it successfully on a MBP? If so, does anyone know if the version listed here -- http://mac.softpedia.com/get/System-Utilities/Apcupsd.shtml -- is a simple application that I can easily install and configure like regular Mac apps? If yes, then I'll likely be very happy with no need for the following question. If no, can anyone provide simple instructions to set up Apcupsd to do what I want?

"You are not doing anything on the computer so no files should be writing to the drives."
Big assumption there. With today's notebooks so capable of acting as desktop substitutes, they are often left running unattended to complete demanding tasks overnight or while the user does other things.
To be able to suspend such activities and gracefully power down an external drive or drives in the event of a power outage, the Mac would have to have instructions from each third-party application or process that is running about how to interrupt its activity safely and without jeopardizing the integrity of whatever hard disk directories are in use. Then it would need to unmount the drive(s) and, if they were bus-powered drives, turn off the power to each of them at the port to which it was connected. I bet it would be possible for all app developers to write such instructions into their apps' code, but where's the incentive for them to do so? This isn't a feature that most users would gladly pay extra for, I suspect, and the cost of adding it to apps that don't have it now and testing it for reliability and proper function under all conceivable circumstances would not be trivial.
If the drive(s) were AC-powered, the computer wouldn't be able to power them down itself -- the UPS would have to do that, or simply leave them on and power them until its battery was depleted or the AC was restored. It wouldn't matter which happened as far as the drives and their contents were concerned, because once the computer stopped using them, powering them off would be safe at any time.

Step by Step Guide needed for external drives.... Help!

I know this has probably been done to death already but I can't seem to make any of the suggestions work in this case. I guess what I need is someone to tell me like I'm a 5 year old on how to do this.
I want to move my music library to an external drive as my main drive is getting full. I have iTunes on my c: drive and want to move my music to an external drive (h:) so it can play and be stored there. I have tried a couple of times to move it and tell iTunes where to find it but for some reason a couple of things happen...
1. iTunes changes the location back to the c: drive, even after I have pointed it to a folder created on the external drive.
2. if it does look to the external drive it doesn't find the library... the music is there but iTunes doesn't display it in the library.
I must be doing something really wrong or this isn't possible... any advice would be a great help.

You might find this article useful: iLounge - Transferring your iTunes Library to Another Drive

Recommendations for external drive?

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