Recommendations for External Hard Drive?

Would appreciate hearing people's suggestions for an external hard drive to use with my current Mac. I see that some brands have longer warranty than others, and some may have bundled software for Mac use, while others don't. Reliability is essential.
I'll be using the the drive to back-up files for safety, documents and especially photos. I think a drive 500GB or greater is probably appropriate.
Eventually I'll upgrade to a newer, faster machine, so buying a drive that works with what I have now as well as the computer I move to in the future would be nice.
Please let me know if I need to provide you with any other information to help you make your suggestions.
Thanks!

dflow:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
Excellent move. Regular backups is the best thing you can do for your valuable data. A 500 GB HDD will give you plenty of space for quite a while. You want to be sure to get a drive with an Oxford chipset. The firewire bridge is usually the first thing to fail in a firewire HDD, and the Oxford chipsets are the most reliable available. The previous poster mentioned OWC. I agree. The Nepune is their economy version, but a very reliable drive. The better quality Mercury Drives offer a wider range of options and the same rock solid reliability. You can choose Firewire or Firewire/USB, as well at Firewire 400/800 depending on your computer.
Once you have the HDD you will need to format and partition it, but more of that later. Look through the offerings above and post back with questions.
cornelius

Similar Messages

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.

Recommendations for external hard drive for excite pro please

As above please folk,I'm in the uk

You may want to contact Toshiba UK. This is the forums for Toshiba USA. You could check the Toshiba Europe forums.
- Peter

Thunderbolt Dock for External Hard Drive

Hi there,
I'm trying to find a Thunderbolt Dock for External Hard Drive.
One of these http://www.topbuy.com.au/tbcart/pc/External-SATA-Hard-Drive-Docking-Station-USB- Interface-937p3180.htm
But with Thunderbolt connector instead of USB, Firewire, eSATA etc.
Do these exist?
The only thing I could find close is the Seagate Go Flexi Adapter, but that only works for those drives.
Thanks,
Grant

I would suggest this:
http://www.belkin.com/thunderbolt/
It will do more than you need and require, and you still would need to get an eSATA docking station, but that's what you really want anyways.
Thunderbolt is a bleeding edge tech still (as evidenced but the fact that nobody yet has a good dock for it) but if you go the modular approach you can still pickup your docking station with eSATA and FW800 and USB etc. and take it to a friend's and have more chance of being able to plug it in. and since you're getting a dock and not a drive you want it PC/Mac friendly because you can swap drives to ones formatted for the system. Plus this accessory will be really great if you ever get a Mac Book Air or Retina Display MB Pro that just don't have ethernet or eSATA or even firewire anymore.
And i know that tbolt is faster than eSATA natively, but if you're plugging in a SATA HD then, well i don't think i need to finish that sentance.

AC cords for external hard drives?

okay! everyone uses external hard drives, yes?
It's great that they connect to computers via standardized ports & cables: USB, firewire, eSATA.
but why is it that the power cords for external hard drives are completely unstandardized?
I have an external USB enclosure that I can't use because I misplaced the AC cord (my bad!)
my question: is there a chart somewhere that shows the different types of power cords for hard drive enclosures (they're the same batch of options for monitors, external CDR burners etc, optical drives etc.)
thanks
Will

I think nerowolfe was referring to the types of AC "mains" appliance power cords, specifically to the connector on the end that attaches to an AC powered device like a computer or power brick. While there are a lot of connectors used for this, there are only a few commonly used in the computer industry. The two most common are the "universal" 3 blade ones used on Mac & most PC desktops & the "figure 8" two pin ones used on many laptop power bricks, as shown below.
It would be no problem to find one of those at a Radio Shack or similar store, but as Network 23 says, most external hard drives use separate DC power supplies, & they can be fitted with one of many types of small plugs. Gumsie's advice more or less applies to these, with the following important exceptions:
• Most drives require DC, not AC power. (Thus the plus & minus polarity markings.)
• The DC power supply characteristics are not completely specified by voltage & current numbers. Some power bricks supply a well-filtered, electronically regulated voltage that doesn't vary with the current drawn from it; others a poorly filtered voltage with substantial AC "ripple" components and/or an unregulated voltage that varies from well above the rated one at zero current down to the rated voltage at the rated current. The second type is intended for devices that do not have critical voltage requirements or contain built-in filtering & regulation. They will most likely damage or cause mis-operation in voltage-sensitive devices like hard drives even if their nominal ratings are correct.
• It is not always easy to tell the two types of power bricks apart but in general the regulated types use switching supply technology & as a result are much lower in weight than the cruder ones, which use relatively heavy iron core transformers. Also, because switching supplies can easily be made that accept a wide range of mains voltages, essentially all of the "universal" power bricks rated for 100 to 220 VAC inputs use switching supplies & often are fitted with a "figure 8" type mains connector so the same brick can be sold in different countries with a mains power cord supplied with an appropriate plug for that country's wall outlets. Typically, cheap "wall wart" supplies like those sold at Radio Shack are not the regulate kind & should be used with caution with sensitive electronics. It is especially important when using them to match both current & voltage rating as closely as possible to avoid the over-voltage problem.
• A few of the more sophisticated external supplies have special features like "fold-back" current limiting. In most regulated supplies, if an over-current situation is encountered, the supply limits the current by reducing the voltage to whatever level causes its maximum rated current to be supplied. This protects the supply but not necessarily the powered device, which may be damaged by a sustained low voltage condition. (This is particularly true for electric motors.) Fold-back current limiting basically shuts down the supply until the over-current condition is corrected, which protects the powered device more completely.
• Because of all of the above, it is always safest to use the power brick furnished as original equipment with the drive or to obtain a new one as a replacement part from the vendor. If you use anything else, you do so at your own risk & you may very well damage the drive if you are unlucky enough to make a bad choice.
• A little humor to lighten this up a bit: Did you know that all electronics devices are really smoke-powered? It's true! This explains why, if you let the smoke out, they quit working!

Recommend an external hard drive for a backup for me?

For the first time since I've owned any computer PC or Mac, I need to purchase a external hard drive so I can back up my computer. Over the years I have never backed anything up and have lost some things which at the time wasn't too important. But now with this computer I have lots of music and some very important pictures to me and videos of my grandson I do not want to lose, internet bookmarks etc. etc. I have a program called Time Machine on this computer which I assume is to back up my computer contents. I know nothing about external drives for the purpose of backups. Can someone recommend a reasonably priced one for a beginner and where do I purchase it? Online? Through Apple?
Thanks

I have two LaCie drives - you can check them out here:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10033
Depending on which brand you decide to purchase, you may have to format them for a Mac, which is very easily accomplished by using Disk Utility (Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility). At that same time, you may also want to partition it which will create 2 or more partitions on the same drive - each one will act as though it is a separate hard drive. I have mine partitioned and use one just to drag and drop (copy) an extra copy of important pictures or files on it. I use another partition to create a bootable clone using either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner (simple version is free). A bootable clone means that if there is a major problem with your internal hard drive and you can't start up with it, you can start up with the bootable clone because it is an exact and complete copy of your entire system. Then there is the option to use Time Machine; personally I don't use it, so someone else will need to chime in with it. It copies a lot of things and does it automatically every hour or so I believe, but you cannot boot up your computer with it (that is why I've decided not to use it).
Again, depending on the brand you buy, you should not have to install any software that comes with it. An external hard drive should simply show up as an icon on your desktop once you attach it; after that, open up Disk Utility and make sure it is formatted correctly and partition it if desired.
Also, as far as speed is concerned, an external hard drive with Firewire is faster than with USB connections, so keep that in mind. Mine is both Firewire 400 and 800 as well as USB, so I am covered no matter how/where it want to plug it in.

Can you recommend an external hard drive for me?

I have a white macbook- nothing special. the cd burner is broken for the zillionth time so apple will be mailing it away for repairs. they suggested i back everything up before turning it over to them. there isnt much on it except my itunes library, some pictures, and a few word/excel docs. here are my questions:
1- what size external hard drive do i need?
2- is there a cheaper/easier way to do this?
3- is there a recommended brand for macs? i heard western digital was good, but several mac users gave it terrible reviews.
thanks so much!!

If you aren't sure how big your computer's drive is, select the hard drive icon on the desktop and Get Info from the File menu. At the top of the Get Info window you'll see the icon and below that some disclosure triangles - the second one pointing to General. If the triangle isn't pointing down, click on it and you'll see information about your drive. Look for Capacity and that is the formatted capacity.
You'll want a drive that is at least as big as your computer's drive so you can back up everything. Some people only back up their data but that, in my opinion, is silly. Look for a drive that is slightly larger that your drive's capacity. For example, you might see your capacity is 78.7 GB so get at least an 80GB drive. I say at least since you might want to consider using this new external drive with TimeMachine so you can always have an up to date backup. With TimeMachine you should get a drive that is at least twice as large as the data you are backing up.
The cheapest way to do it is to run down to your local discount store and pick up whatever they are selling. That's the cheapest but not necessarily the best. I strongly recommend that you buy a drive that includes FireWire - getting one with FireWire and USB ports will provide a good deal of flexibility. I also strongly recommend that you buy a drive with an external power supply. I recommend drives that derive their power from the computer only when the drive needs to be portable too. A backup drive isn't usually portable.
Name brands such as Seagate, Iomega, and Western Digital are all easy to find and okay. I think everyone has been burned by one brand or another so just about every manufacturer will get slammed with a particular horror story.

Any recommendations on external hard drives for Air?

The couple of external hard drives I used for time machine etc. are firewire based. (The alternatives for making them usb friendly do not work with the Air.) Any recommendations on a good, self powered external, about 500gb? Thanks.

I only buy 2.5" internal drives and place them in Macally enclosures. I've had store bought all-in-one externals and they have not been reliable, and many are installing all kinds of software on them, via firmware, and you can't do much about it. I've never had one problem over the years going this route, and drives are so cheap now, you can get the enclosure plus a 500GB drive for just over $100.00 at macsales.com
The Macally's have FW/USB interfaces. I have the new MBA, and use USB.
Bryan

Any recommendations on external hard drive for making bootable backup?

Hello,
I wish to make a bootable backup of my MBP before upgrading to Mavericks.
Are there any external hard drives that are better suited for making bootable backups? I use a WD for making Time Machine backups but I have read that WD is not ideal for making a bootable back up - is this correct...?
Thanks,
pinkguava

your WD will of course,..work fine as a boot clone
Quality 1TB drives are $50 per TB on 3.5" or $65 per TB on 2.5"
1TB for $68
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005J7YA3W/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379452568&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+toshiba
best for cost:
2.5" USB portable High quality BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba "tiny giant" 2TB drive (have several of them, LOT of storage in a SMALL package) $100
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Connect-Portable-HDTC720XK3C1/dp/B00CGUMS48 /ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1379182740&sr=1-4&keywords=2tb+toshiba
*This one is the BEST portable external HD available that money can buy:
HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive
http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Mobile-Portable-External-0S03559/dp/B009GE6JI8/ref=sr _1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383238934&sr=8-1&keywords=HGST+Touro+Mobile+Pro+1TB+USB+3.0+7 2 00+RPM

Backup for External Hard Drive

Hello,
I really love Time Capsule but it's limited in terms of backing up my external hard drive. Basically I have too much data on my 1GB External HD to back up to my time capsule. I'm going to get another external drive to basically act as a mirror to my existing HD. Can anyone recommend software that will back up on drive to another on a scheduled basis?
Thanks,
Tim

The two most common ones are CarbonCopyCloner and SuperDuper. They're most often used to make "bootable clones" of OSX volumes, but work on data-only drives as well. CCC is donationware, so you can use it for a while, then send some $$ so they can keep it up to date. SD has a free version that will do a full replacement, but you'll need the paid version (about $30) to do updates or scheduling. Either is easily found via Google.
Edit: While you're at it, make a second partition on the drive and also make a bootable clone of your internal HD on it. That way, you're protected against a failure of your Time Capsule.
Message was edited by: Pondini

Password protection for external hard drive

is anyone aware of a good, reliable program which allows you to protect data on your external hard drive with a password?

Actually, there's really no reason to make the disk image the size of the whole hard drive. It would make it convenient in a way, since the disk image would have plenty of room on it, but it would also make backups a major pain in the arse, since one minor change to one file inside the image file means the whole thing has to get backed up. If you've got a 150 GB drive, that means a change to a 4 k file requires that you back up 150 GB. (And where do you back up several incremental backups of a 150 GB file to, anyway?)
What I would recommend is to use many smaller disk images. For example, if you've got 10 projects on the drive, each taking up, say, 150 MB, then you could make 10 disk images that are 200 MB (or more or less, depending on anticipated growth of the projects), and put the files for each project inside one image. Change one project, you only have to back up one image file, which is only a fraction of the total size of the drive. Even if you made each image file 1 GB -- an order of magnitude larger than the project files -- it would still be something you could easily back up onto a DVD, and all 10 disk images would still only take up less than 7% of a 150 GB drive.

.exe drivers for external hard drives

I just bought a external hard drive case that supposedly supports Macs. However, the driver on the included CD is an 'Autorun.exe' file - there are no included OSX files on the CD. Is there a simple way that I can get this external drive up and running or do I need to run an emulator, like QEMU, and a copy of Windoze? The enclosure is an Eagle/Consus ET-CSWESU2-BK which accepts SATA drives and outputs them thru USB2.0.

I'd just format the drive. (All the .exe will give you is crapware...)
To format it for a Mac, open up Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities), click the drive (as in the orange icon further to the left than others) and now you have two choices.
1. If you want just one partition, click the Erase tab. Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and give the thing a name. Then, from Security Options choose any of the choices except the first (the 3rd and 4th will take longer but are better, I recommend the third). Finally click Erase and be patient.
2. If you want partitions, do the above, but choose Free Space instead of Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Then go to the Partition tab and do what you want there.

Reocommendations for external hard drives

I need to back up my 40G powerbook G4 and need a recommendation for a good external hard drive. The ones for sale at the Apple Store online get frightening reviews but I am reluctant to go elsewhere because of compatibility issues and I wonder if the results would be any better. Are all of them questionable and I just need to take the risk?
I was specifically looking at the LeCie p3 160 GB for $140.
Any advice? I really don't need much space and I don't want to spend a fortune.
Thanks!

If you're just using it for back-ups I think it would be a good idea to get an external 2.5" hard-drive and clone the PowerBook to it weekly. Then invest in a separate 3.5" external hard-drive for extra files, movies, more regular back-ups etc.
It's usually cheaper to buy the enclosure and buy a drive rather than buy the whole unit. I prefer Western Digital drives at the moment, and any enclosure that's FireWire (don't get USB) and uses the Oxford 911 or 922 chipset.
Matt

Reccomendations for External Hard Drive

What brand and other specifics are recommended for ease of use with the 17". It seems there is a few problems with a number of models connected by USB rather than firewire, but which brands are recommended?

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
I would recommend you build you own. Sounds daunting, but it's really very easy. The benefit is that you can use a hard drive with a 3 year warranty, unlike most complete units that only have a 1 year warranty.
It's really as easy as this: Buy the drive you want (I'm currently using a 3.5" Western Digital 320gb drive. Generally I've found the Western Digital drives run cooler than others), buy the case you want for the size drive you want (I use a Rosewill case), take the cover off the case, insert the plug from the electronics in the case to the hard drive, insert the power plug in the case to the hard drive, attach 4 screws to hold the hard drive in the case, reinstall the cover, done!
You're correct that you really want an external drive with a firewire connection, for two reasons. One, that you cited, has to do with USB power. The second is that you can't boot from a USB device on a PowerBook, only from a firewire device.
I use, and would recommend, the program SuperDuper to back up data. It's available at http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html . If you buy a complete external hard drive, it may come with backup software.

Disk repair for external hard drive

Hi, I gave my son an external hard drive to back up his school work, besides the normal backups of on the Time Capsule. So how he managed to hget the external hard dirve disappear from the screen while there is no back up left on the TC.
I have tried disk utility an number of time on several computers to get the External hard drive working. No luck there. I have tried restore in disk utility, but I cannot get the source and destination righty for a reason.
I have read an advice of Francine Schwieder dating back to 2007 where she advised to run terminator, this is the result I get while the xternal hard drive was connected to my Imac.
Last login: Sun Oct 9 22:14:37 on ttys000
imac-chf-baak:~ charles2008$
Last login: Fri Dec 7 20:58:20 on console
iMac:~ charles2008$
iMac:~ charles2008$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk0
   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1
   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            999.3 GB   disk0s2
   3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
/dev/disk1
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk1
   1:                  Apple_HFS lucas hard drive        1.0 TB     disk1s1
iMac:~ charles2008$
Last login: Fri Dec 7 21:19:20 on ttys000
iMac:~ charles2008$
With my limited knowledge, was a partition placed on this external hard drive ? I cannot see or acces the external hard drive.
Is there anyone who can help me with this ?
Hope to hear from you.
Charles
Francine Schwieder Southern Cal

If you wan to give Data Rescue 3 a spin (I'm testing it out now for the first time) you can get it - and a number of other apps - for $50 from MacUpdate's December Bundle.
Because I have redundant backups, I've never used either DiskWarrior or Data Rescue 3 - but I wanted to try it so that I will be able to know how well it works (or doesn't).
Clinton

Recommendations for External Hard Drive?

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