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is it can be geek tiem nao?
Would anyone like to share their experience/suggestions with external hard drives? I am planning on buying possibly two (a desktop and a portable), here are my initial thoughts:
1) A desktop HD of between 350-500GB. Primarily I need something to back up my iMac, which has a hard drive of 300GB. So I will probably need to format it for Mac so it works properly and I can use Time Machine. I'm thinking of getting more than 350GB so that I can either: a) take into account any expansion of my own machine in future, or b) partition it and have about 200GB of archive space for things like movies or TV shows I've already watched, raw vids, etc; and 300GB+ in another partition for the backup.
Currently I have a WD Elements 500GB that I bought in the UK. It doesn't seem to be working properly, though - I've had difficulty formatting, unmounting, even just getting the computer to recognise it. Time Machine won't work on it, and backing up manually invariably hangs after a while.
So I am considering:
* a LaCie 320 or 500GB; I've found some recommendations for LaCie from Mac users, though they are expensive
* a Maxtor 500GB - some mixed reviews, but more affordable
2) I am also after a portable drive of between 150-200GB. I am after something light and cross-platform that I can use to tote around files to and from other people. I am pretty settled on a WD Passport 160GB; it has excellent reviews around the place and is reasonably affordable.
So, considering the above, if you have opinions or knowledge on the following, drop me a comment:
* Firewire. I'm not quite sure what it is, though I think I might have it on this machine, as it is very new and fancy. Should I be looking for this in an external HD?
* What brands can you rec or anti-rec? For Mac, or cross-platform, or in general?
* Any specific products you can recommend from your experience or otherwise?
* Any other considerations I'm missing?
Thank you in advance, o geeky ones, if you have the time/inclination to help me out here :)
1) A desktop HD of between 350-500GB. Primarily I need something to back up my iMac, which has a hard drive of 300GB. So I will probably need to format it for Mac so it works properly and I can use Time Machine. I'm thinking of getting more than 350GB so that I can either: a) take into account any expansion of my own machine in future, or b) partition it and have about 200GB of archive space for things like movies or TV shows I've already watched, raw vids, etc; and 300GB+ in another partition for the backup.
Currently I have a WD Elements 500GB that I bought in the UK. It doesn't seem to be working properly, though - I've had difficulty formatting, unmounting, even just getting the computer to recognise it. Time Machine won't work on it, and backing up manually invariably hangs after a while.
So I am considering:
* a LaCie 320 or 500GB; I've found some recommendations for LaCie from Mac users, though they are expensive
* a Maxtor 500GB - some mixed reviews, but more affordable
2) I am also after a portable drive of between 150-200GB. I am after something light and cross-platform that I can use to tote around files to and from other people. I am pretty settled on a WD Passport 160GB; it has excellent reviews around the place and is reasonably affordable.
So, considering the above, if you have opinions or knowledge on the following, drop me a comment:
* Firewire. I'm not quite sure what it is, though I think I might have it on this machine, as it is very new and fancy. Should I be looking for this in an external HD?
* What brands can you rec or anti-rec? For Mac, or cross-platform, or in general?
* Any specific products you can recommend from your experience or otherwise?
* Any other considerations I'm missing?
Thank you in advance, o geeky ones, if you have the time/inclination to help me out here :)
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Ext drive for desktop - 500 would be good (i don't know your prices but here it's good balance between quantity of Gigs and money.) I prefer Seagate - very good reputation (but i use Windows).
Portable sounds good but i think it's all depend on what you need to use it - do you need only usb ports or external power source is acceptable. Cos Hard drives with ext PC costs less money (but they have bigger size too).
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As for an anti-rec?
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I have a USB, 500GB MyBook (http://urbansemiotic.com/2006/06/14/western-digital-500-gig-my-book-premium-review/).
My iTunes is on there, it starts up if I press play or open a file on it, otherwise it puts itself to sleep till I need it. My last one was a LaCie and it never went to sleep, was noisy and had to be turned on and off from the back of it.
When you plug an external drive into a Mac (at least on mine) it asks to partition it or something with a built in wizard thing, I don't think I had to put anything extra into it at all. you can get it so it'll work with Mac and PCs as well.
Have you tried re-par-whatsit-ing the external drive you have? Disk Utility might help.
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Cheers!
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I'd definately get another one of that brand.It's quiet and pretty light so it's portable. The only thing is it doesn't have a power switch and I think it does need one.
I still haven't filled it yet and I only delete things I don't like.
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Thanks!
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i just dropped by to say hi :) i been away baby-having, and am now off hiatus. s'nice to be back.
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Welcome back!!!
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In the meantime, I have dragons' eggs and hatchlings that all need lots of clicks to help them hatch and grow - please help?
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I have the 60 gig and a 120 gig.
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ETA: I thought someone would have answered this, but apparently not. ;-) Firewire is the type of connection. For example, you have a USB cord which you can plug things together with. "Firewire" is another way and it is much faster than USB. So for backups, high volume transfer, etc, FireWire is better. You must have a FireWire port (plug in) on your machine to use a FireWire cable. Some external harddrives have FireWire, some do not. Mac backups recommend using FireWire as otherwise it kinda takes all night...
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Thanks for the firewire explanation! Hrah for Macs :)
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All three of mine are the d2 Quadra with triple interface (FireWire 400 and 800 and USB 2). The LaCies come already Mac formatted (though you can format them for a PC and then use them on both since the Mac recognized the PC formated drive). If you're only going to use it on a Mac, though, you literally just have to take it out of the box and plug it in and you're good to go.
FireWire is faster than USB and FireWire 800 is nearly as fast as accessing your internal hard drive. Macs have been shipping with FireWire ports for years so if yours is new I'd say you have both types. They look like this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FireWire-46_Diagram.svg) (400 on the left and 800 on the right). One of the things I love about FireWire on the LaCie d2 Quadra is that it is daisychainable. I've got my drives plugged into each other via FireWire 800 cables so I only have to plug one cable into my laptop to make them all show up.
Anyway, I am a big fan of LaCie and Mac together so if you've got any specific questions about the drives or whatever just ask. :)
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SO...if you use yours for pictures or music or anything..you might want to burn CDs every so often, in case of failure.
Because I have four years worth of pics locked away on my harddrive and I'm very angry about it still.
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I've got to get my dad to call the company back again this month because they're supposed to send me a new module for it becuase I'm still under warranty.
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I use a PC, so I don't know how good they work for Macs, but I don't see why there should be any difference. I have a 500gb Seagate and a 750gb Maxtor. I've used the Seagate for years and it rocks. The Maxtor I recently got and I haven't any opinions on it yet. My dad's used both brands without complaints though, and he likes them both.
This is my recommendation on getting an external hard drive: get the biggest one you can afford, because you're getting these for more space, and things take up space, and they add up over time. With bigger ones, you don't need to get as many as often. They sell 1 terabyte ones these days and larger. I got my 500gb one about 4 or 5 years ago, and between music and vids, I've maxed it out already. Media files like what you're thinking of storing take up a lot of space (as you well know), so it's best to get the biggest one that you can afford, as you will eventually end up running out of space, and you will eventually need to either 1) buy a new HD, or 2) get rid of stuff.
When I got my external, my dad recommended to partition it (i.e. split it into sections). This prevents from total hard drive failure. So for instance, I split mine up into 3 parts. So if one part becomes corrupted, the other two parts won't be, and I'd at least have saved some of my data. If I hadn't partitioned my harddrive, then I'd have lost everything instead of just one section.
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We have this one (http://www.lacie.com/jpen/company/news/news.htm?id=10334) for portable, and also a La Cie 500GB. The latter is a bit on the loud side, if whirring noises annoy you.
I guess it boils down to how much of a price difference we're talking about between the two, and how devastated you'd be if you lost data.
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b.x :)
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