Seagate or Western Digital?

kayleee said:

Image

on their website,seagate states it works with both windows and mac without feformatting

is it the same with western digital external drives?

also,which one is better western digital or seagate?

I recently had a Seagate hard drive fail i think and i still don't have the data I lost yet..

well,not sure if WD is any better..

Click to expand...

I just had a Western Digital external HD fail so I'm in the same place as you, considering which of the two to get.

kayleee said:

on their website,seagate states it works with both windows and mac without feformatting

is it the same with western digital external drives?

Click to expand...

All external drives work on both Windows and Mac without reformatting as long as it is formatted in a compatible format (like FAT32, not NTFS or HFS+).

also,which one is better western digital or seagate?

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You'd come up 50/50 on this question. There is certainly more variation in quality among the different lines within one brand than there is between brands.

i recently had a seagate hard drive fail i think and i still dont have the data i lost yet..

Click to expand...

Always make backups.

USB and/or FireWire external drives will work on both Windows and Macs. Buying one marketed specifically for Macs will yield no advantage.

As to which brand is better, everyone will have a different preference and you will never get a conclusive answer since everyone will have different experiences and different opinions.

Take a look at the drives offered by Apple at their online and retail stores. That will give you an idea of what Apple is willing to endorse.

You'll find a number of brands that Apple is willing to sell.

Sure, the prices may be premium, but Apple may take some care as to what they are will to support by selling them.

Sometimes you can find the same models at other internet and retail outlets for lower prices, or exercise your options with various education and business discounts Apple sometimes offers. Apple is not going to sell products that cause issues with Macs.

If you're using only Vista SP1 and up, and Snow Leopard and up, just format it as exFAT. Don't use older FAT.

If you want journaling, you will have to look at some non-default solution.

kayleee said:

Image

on their website,seagate states it works with both windows and mac without feformatting

is it the same with western digital external drives?



also,which one is better western digital or seagate?



i recently had a seagate hard drive fail i think and i still dont have the data i lost yet..

well,not sure if WD is any better..

Click to expand...

You would want to format it it in ExFAT format if you want to move it back and forth between Windows and OS X.

As for which. Internal drives from either manufacturer are OK. For external drives get a Seagate. Or get an internal drive from either manufacturer and put it in an external case of your choice.

Two year old Seagate Go Flex Ultraportable HD USB 3.0 has not fail on me.

Which hard drive are we talking about here, 3.5" or 2.5"?

One big advantage of the Seagate Backup Plus hard drives is that you can pop off the USB adapter and replace it in 5 seconds. Lots of people complain about failed enclosures rather than the hard drives themselves - this fixes the problem.



You can also replace the USB 3.0 adapter with one featuring FireWire 800 (probably useless in 2014) and Thunderbolt (overkill for a hard drive and only one port). All those adapters work with other SATA drives as well - they just have a standard SATA connector.


Western Digital on the other hand has the MyBook Ultra, which has automatic cloud backup that doesn't work on a Mac, and "Turbo drivers" of which everybody who had installed them wasn't too fond of.


From a Mac user's point of view, the 7200RPM 2.5" hard drive crown might very well go to the Seagate Backup Plus - easily replaceable "enclosure logic", no weird drivers, no nonsense.

If you want a slim hard drive: WD MyBook Air or Seagate Slim - pick one.


The inexpensive 5400RPM option? WD Elements or Seagate Expansion - pick one.


Or build your own, or upload your data to the cloud, or create your own cloud with a NAS. Unlimited possibilities.

kayleee said:

Image

on their website,seagate states it works with both windows and mac without feformatting

is it the same with western digital external drives?



also,which one is better western digital or seagate?



i recently had a seagate hard drive fail i think and i still dont have the data i lost yet..

well,not sure if WD is any better..

Click to expand...

I have two WD drives. One is for my iTunes library, it's connected by firewire and it works great.

The other is 4TB ShareSpace drive that was network connected to be used for Time Machine backups. That one is a complete waste of money because - since Mountain Lion - WD have decided that they don't want this drive to work for TM backups. They have not updated the soft/firmware to track Apple's OS updates, and essentially have bricked a $500 NAS.

They used to pretend that an update was coming, but now they don't. It's a moot point anyway as OS updates have routinely disabled the ability of WD drives to work with TM, and even when WD used to bother to fix it, it took a good few months. Do not buy a WD drive for TM backups!

kayleee said:

also,which one is better western digital or seagate?

Click to expand...

Neither really. Although you'll get plenty telling you that one or the other is better based on anecdotal evidence.

kayleee said:

i recently had a seagate hard drive fail i think and i still dont have the data i lost yet..

well,not sure if WD is any better..

Click to expand...

Any brand of drive can fail. As always, if it's important then back it up. Don't rely on the brand name alone as a safety measure.

Can I simply reformat it?

Hello all,

Silly question - but hoping someone can clarify?

I have a new Seagate Backup Plus Slim. I've just plugged it in, but have done nothing with it as of yet. I want to use it purely as a CCC backup for my two internal drives (SSD and HDD of my MBP) - can I simply reformat this drive, and partition it?

Will it then just run as a standard drive? I'm nervous that Seagate's bloatware might brick the drive if I try the format? Anyone done something similar?

Much obliged!

I always like getting just a case and then adding my own drives or SSDs. This way if the drive goes bad I can always replace the drive.

By the way you never said if this is for a laptop or a full Mac.

I don't trust Seagate. I've had a few of their drives fail on me within several months. I'd stick to basic WD for backup. I use G-Tech drives for performance and use one for my photo drive for editing and storing.

Cassady said:

Hello all,

Silly question - but hoping someone can clarify?

I have a new Seagate Backup Plus Slim. I've just plugged it in, but have done nothing with it as of yet. I want to use it purely as a CCC backup for my two internal drives (SSD and HDD of my MBP) - can I simply reformat this drive, and partition it?

Will it then just run as a standard drive? I'm nervous that Seagate's bloatware might brick the drive if I try the format? Anyone done something similar?

Much obliged!

Click to expand...

Yes, just reformat it.

Also, when you have a new question, start a new thread rather than posting off-topic in an existing one.

Cassady said:

Hello all,

Silly question - but hoping someone can clarify?

I have a new Seagate Backup Plus Slim. I've just plugged it in, but have done nothing with it as of yet. I want to use it purely as a CCC backup for my two internal drives (SSD and HDD of my MBP) - can I simply reformat this drive, and partition it?

Will it then just run as a standard drive? I'm nervous that Seagate's bloatware might brick the drive if I try the format? Anyone done something similar?

Much obliged!

Click to expand...

Don't install the seagate software and yes you can reformat it.

Razeus said:

I don't trust Seagate. I've had a few of their drives fail on me within several months. I'd stick to basic WD for backup. I use G-Tech drives for performance and use one for my photo drive for editing and storing.

Click to expand...

Your experience is purely anecdotal. Western Digital products are not inherently more reliable than Seagate.

G-Tech was bought by Hitachi. Western Digital bought the Hitachi hard drive division.

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Bear said:

Don't install the seagate software and yes you can reformat it.

Click to expand...

I cannot stress this enough. Never install the software that comes with either Western Digital or Seagate portable drives. The guys that had the WD learnt that lesson when they upgraded to Mavericks. My WD portable kept working perfectly.

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talmy said:

Yes, just reformat it.

Also, when you have a new question, start a new thread rather than posting off-topic in an existing one.

Click to expand...

But make sure to format with the GUID Partition Table partition scheme.

Bear said:

Don't install the seagate software and yes you can reformat it.

Click to expand...

theSeb said:

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I cannot stress this enough. Never install the software that comes with either Western Digital or Seagate portable drives. The guys that had the WD learnt that lesson when they upgraded to Mavericks. My WD portable kept working perfectly.

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But make sure to format with the GUID Partition Table partition scheme.

Click to expand...

Thanks - nuked it, and all working perfectly!