Recommend for external hdd

I heard WD Passport is awful I don't know if you have search threads about WD Passport has some issues with rejection during sleep or something like that. I use Seagate Ultraportable GoFlex USB 3.0 HD. It worked great for 3 years now. It also allows me to upgrade cable to firewire 800/Thunderbolt in the future. Great investment.

Since thunderbolt is pretty damn expensive, i'm left with firewire.

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Be careful with FW....it is a dying protocol that Apple is dropping. Bite the bullet and get a TB external drive.


For $199 you can get LaCie rugged 1TB with USB 3 and TB for $199.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822154657

I had my WD passport plugged into my mac for two years doing time machine without one single problem. Externals are like the Chevy/Ford debate as far as brands go. Some love seagate, some love WD. i love what has worked for me and that's WD.

mabok said:

I've set my eyes on Western Digital My Passport Studio. Any users care to comment?

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I've got this exact drive, 1 TB. It has performed flawlessly for me, with one partition for some backups, and another for bittorrent use. I believe it would be fast enough for video and graphics editing use, but haven't tested it specifically for that.

I'm on a different machine right now, but when I get back to my iMac I'll try to do a disk speed test on it...

mabok said:

'Upgrade' as in using an adapter for firewire?
I'm not a fan when using adapter. Performance may affected maybe?

My Seagate region site,
they are selling new products. No more Goflex.
Such as:
Slim Portable Drive for Mac
Backup Plus Portable Drive for Mac USM
Backup Plus Portable Drive for Mac with Thunderbolt

From what i see, most of them are USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt(damn expensive T.T) .

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The successor of the GoFlex is Backup Plus. About the adapter: you can change the connector on the Backup Plus drives from USB3 to FireWire to TB. I have a Backup Plus USB3 and I find it is great. Stable and speedy, even when used with a USB2 connection on the computer. It gets about 60/ 70MB/s.

mabok said:

Thanks for your reply though.
So yeah, please do tell me how's the performance using WD Passport Studio for video editing application and such.

Is firewire enough for me or go for thunderbolt.
As i head firewire is going to be 'dead'. So i'm not sure whether it is worth to invest or not.

While my other option are probably LaCie 1TB Thunderbolt from newegg site.

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I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how it would be for video editing, but the popular Blackmagic Design "Disk Speed Test" shows I'm getting about 55 MB/s write and 62 MB/s read on my WD My Passport Studio connected to my old (2008) iMac via Firewire 800 (third in the FW chain, if that matters). (See screenshot.) I expected a bit better, as that's only around 480 Mb/s.

I thought FW800 was pretty much the standard for video work before Thunderbolt came out, so I'm guessing it would be sufficient, if not ideal. Certainly the Thunderbolt drive will be a lot faster (say, twice as fast if it has a HDD in it, as it would be the drive mechanism limiting performance in that case, not the interface).

How about buying an enclosure, and installing your own drive?

Since you only have USB2 and firewire right now, I'd suggest you consider enclosures that have BOTH USB3 (backward-compatible with USB2) and firewire 800.

Examples:
http://www.amazon.com/MiniPro-FireWire-External-Enclosure-12-5mm/dp/B00684WPW8
or
http://www.macally.com/EN/?page_id=8511
or
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

These cost a little more than a USB3-only enclosure, but for the extra $$$ you get compatibility with firewire 800 now, and forward-compatibility with USB3 when you eventually get a USB3-equipped Mac.

You may have not bought a "do-it-yourself" drive enclosure yet. Although most folks buy "pre-packaged" drives, buying the enclosure and drive "separately" and then assembling it yourself is BY FAR the better way to go. ANYONE can do this. And once you put it together, if you ever have a problem, you'll know what to do to dis-assemble it and get things going again.