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External drive for Mac?

Nyy8

Nyy8

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 12, 2011
524
198
New England
Hi everyone!

Tomorrow I will be going to staples to grab a new external hard drive for my mac, with my iTunes library being now 200gb in size, and a 100gb bootcamp partition my 500gb hard drive doesn't feel so big anymore.

So, I am looking to get a 1TB, 2TB, or if I can pull it off 3TB external hard drive. Any "Brands" I should be looking for? I know some hard drives say "Work with Mac" on them, and others say like "PC Compatible". I hear Western Digital is a good brand. Budget is $120 and my iMac only has USB 2.0 ports sadly.
 
If you can find one with with a Firewire 800 / USB 2 interface you'd be better off. The Firewire would be almost twice as fast as USB 2.

I think I've seen this Western Digital Drive at Staples. (2TB for $121)

What Year is your iMac?
 
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I would just get whatever USB 3 drive is on sale at the best price. They are all pretty much the same as far as brand. No need to get a "Mac Only" drive, you can format any drive to the Mac OS Extended format.

I suggest USB 3 since it really does not cost any more than a USB 2 drive and it would be faster if you ever want to use on a newer machine.
 
I got a WD passbook ages ago. It's got USB and Firewire 800. Worked well on my 2007 iMac and then I moved to the late 2012 model with a Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter. It's been a good buy.
 
I can wholeheartedly recommend the Freecom Quattro 3.0 drives. (I have the 3TB one).

http://www.freecom.com/Products/External-Hard-Drives/Desktop-Hard-Drives/Hard-Drive-Quattro

Freecom_HardDriveQuattro_DS2.jpg


It has USB 3.0, esata, firewire 800 and firewire 400 connectors. So you can use Firewire now, which will be much better than USB2 on your iMac. And USB 3.0 if you ever upgrade, or if you connect the drive to a USB laptop or whatever.

Furthermore, it is quiet, well built, looks great and compliments the Mac beautifully. It has no fan, so is much more quiet that the G-Tech drives for example. And much more reliable than LaCie, imho. The LaCie D2 drive is known for issues.

I use mine on USB 3.0 and get around 180MB/s read and write speeds, so it is incredibly quick too.

I could not recommend it more highly. It even comes with all the cable types, USB, firewire and esata!
 
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