External HDD

[Fonzijr1964]

I have had my iMac for a few months and i need a good HDD to hook to my Airport Extreme to use with time machine and possibly to store files for my Vista partition. I was looking at the My Book Studio but i would like to hear your experiences and suggestions.

thanks

[gixxerfool]

I have been digging and digging for a good HDD for TM and everything I have found has been generally people love them or hate them. Thats all HDDs not just the WD My Book. Best Buy has these on sale this week I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get one. Only thing I can recommend is to stay away from Seagate drives these seem to have a higher reported failure rate then WD or maxtor, from what I can tell at least. Its still a moving part it's a gamble. Im sure that you will get a hundred different answers on this one. Good luck.

[richard.mac]

i use the OWC mercury elite pro which will match your aluminium iMac. its been great for me and uses the Maxtor 6 L250R0 hard drive.

its a 3.5" desktop hard drive so it has a power brick so if you want it to be BUS powered (no power brick) get a passport external drive i.e. 2.5" notebook hard drive. OWC has the On-The-Go 2.5" external drive, but its see-thru which i find to be so late 90s :D.

also as its only going to be connected to your Airport Extreme just get Firewire 400 + USB to save the cost http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/400+USB2/. but if you want just a USB external go with that!

[Fonzijr1964]

yeah i have a passport but i put my own HDD in it (i just bought the shell) I think i should just get the My Book studio because it is silver like my imac and i can put it behind it or lay it down as apposed to the option the most recent poster gave.

[Leon Kowalski]

IMO, it's best to buy the external enclosure and drive separately. That's about the
only way to be sure you're getting a high-performance drive -- and it's often less
expensive than a "pre-assembled" external with an "economy" drive mechanism.

With a separate external enclosure it's easy to upgrade or swap drives (without
voiding the warranty) -- you also get the drive manufacturer's full warranty
coverage (5 yrs for Seagate drives). ...just TRY to open a MyBook sometime!

There are lots of good SATA-based enclosures (look for an Oxford OXUF924/934
chipset). Here are my favorites -- good prices, handy slide-in trays, quiet (fanless),
and simple assembly (four screws, no messing with internal cables/connectors):

Icy Dock USB/FW800 enclosure @ $80 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198006)

Icy Dock USB/FW400 enclosure @ $45 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198004)

Icy Dock review & photos (USB/FW400 version) (http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=986&pageID=2689)

Some FAST drive mechanisms: (> 100 MByte/sec sustained R/W)

500 GB: Seagate ST3500320AS, Samsung HD502IJ

750 GB: Seagate ST3750330AS, Samsung HD753LJ

1000GB: Seagate ST31000340AS or Samsung HD103UJ

Any FW800 external will work on a FW400 port (with a cheap 6-pin to 9-pin
firewire cable). So, more expensive "quad interface" drives have no advantage
over simple USB/FW800 units. (The eSATA interface is useless with iMacs.)

LK

[Fonzijr1964]

but i am going to plug it into a APX so it only can use usb so it will be slow anyway

[Leon Kowalski]

but i am going to plug it into a APX so it only can use usb so it will be slow anyway

Then consider this one. You won't find a better price on a top-quality, SATA-based
USB enclosure -- and the eSATA interface is essentially free. (It might even have
some 'future-proofing' value for PCs.)

Icy Dock USB/eSATA enclosure @ $30 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198003)

LK

[Fonzijr1964]

i just want to buy it and have it work i dont want to take anything apart again and it wii not match