Need help - Which external hard drive? MacBook Pro 2008

shandemps said:

Hi. I have a 2008 Macbook Pro that's running Mac OS version 10.5.8.

I know NOTHING about external hard drives, backing up...etc. What is a good external hard drive that I should buy? I'm a novice computer user and mainly use my computers for papers, photos, Rosetta stone software and the like. I don't need the best of the best of the best but I want something trustworthy, reliable and reputable.

Where do I even start to research this? If I hook this external hard drive up to my Pro, can I hook it up to my work computer (2012 Air)? Can I hook it up to a PC? How does this work?!?!

THANK YOU, in advance, for your assistance!

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I am a HUGE fan of western Digital HDDs. The one I am using now is a WD 1TB FireWire800/usb2.0/eSATA drive that I can use on any computer for the most part.

I have had nothing but WD drives after a few failures with Maxtor and Seagate(then they became one and I stayed away from them). I recently sold 2 WD externals as well that are still working for their new owners and I bought those drives in 2008/2009 and used them on a Compaq tower, a Gateway Tower, then my 2009 imac, my wife's 2010 imac, my 2011 MacBook pro, and now my iBook G4(from 2005) connected via a firewire 400/800 cable.

I second....

RedCroissant said:

I am a HUGE fan of western Digital HDDs. The one I am using now is a WD 1TB FireWire800/usb2.0/eSATA drive that I can use on any computer for the most part.

I have had nothing but WD drives after a few failures with Maxtor and Seagate(then they became one and I stayed away from them). I recently sold 2 WD externals as well that are still working for their new owners and I bought those drives in 2008/2009 and used them on a Compaq tower, a Gateway Tower, then my 2009 imac, my wife's 2010 imac, my 2011 MacBook pro, and now my iBook G4(from 2005) connected via a firewire 400/800 cable.

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the suggestion RedCroissant gives you. Your MacBook haves USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800. For maximum compatibility with PC, you have to format any disc you use as exFAT or NTFS. Only problem with NTFS is what Mac computers only can read, no write to NTFS-formatted discs. So you must use some implementation of the NTFS filesystem in your Mac. Paragon NTFS is easy to install but is a paid app.

About speed, FireWire 800 is faster than FireWire 400, which in turn is faster than USB 2.0 But Firewire ports are scarce in PC computers...

So a good combo will be a external with USB 2.0 and FireWire. WD mades good drives, but I think you can consider also LaCie.

Hope this helps.