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Recomend External Hard drive please!

J

john_satc

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 14, 2005
398
0
B'ham Uk
Well i am looking to get an external hardrive for use with my iBook - i.e. backing up and storing music and pictures. i would also use it for my future iMac, again for backin up. i don't have lots of money to spend, max. of 70 pound (my pound size won't work on PC!), possibly up to 100 pounds. i nead hopefully 100GB or more.
any recomendations?

i found this one on ebay i thought would be good, and it looks great!
any reviews?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5175492556&fromMakeTrack=true
 
I recently bought the 160GB USB2 LaCie Hard Drive, Designed by F.A. Porsche (UK Link). What's very cool is that it comes with a backup utility that wakes my G5 up in the middle of the night - backs up - then my Mac goes back to sleep :p

Anyways, the drive looks nice, is affordable and is compatible with Apple stuff. That drive would be my recommendation even though it's a little over your budget.
 
Cooknn said:
I recently bought the 160GB USB2 LaCie Hard Drive, Designed by F.A. Porsche (UK Link). What's very cool is that it comes with a backup utility that wakes my G5 up in the middle of the night - backs up - then my Mac goes back to sleep :p

Anyways, the drive looks nice, is affordable and is compatible with Apple stuff. That drive would be my recommendation even though it's a little over your budget.
Click to expand...

hey thanks this one looks really good. just a quick question, can i partition the hard drive (i think thats the right phrase - don't really know much about hardware), and back up my iBook on one section, future iMac on another, and a PC on the third section. i.e using the one hardrive on Mac AND windows. thanks ! oh an thanks for the uk link - handy. :)
 
john_satc said:
hey thanks this one looks really good. just a quick question, can i partition the hard drive (i think thats the right phrase - don't really know much about hardware), and back up my iBook on one section, future iMac on another, and a PC on the third section. i.e using the one hardrive on Mac AND windows. thanks ! oh an thanks for the uk link - handy. :)
Click to expand...

Partitioning the drive for Mac-only is fairly easy. Just use Mac OS X's Disk Utility to create 2 HFS+ partitions for iMac and iBook, for instance (although frankly, I would juse create 1 HFS+ partition with 2 directories, iBook and iMac).

Creating Windows partition, on the other hand, is tricky. Mac OS X can only read NTFS partition and read and write FAT32 partition. If you don't need iBook or iMac to write to Windows partition, I recommend creating an NTFS partition (it's more robust and efficient). To create NTFS or FAT32 partition, along with HFS+ partition, you need to follow this hint:

Create HFS+ and FAT32 partitions on one external drive.

WARNING: Back up any data on your external drive first. You will lose everything on it.

To create an NTFS partition for Windows, after following the instructions, reformat FAT32 partition with NTFS (in Windows).

In order to mount HFS+ partition(s), you will need to issue hdid from Terminal which is a bit tedious.
 
nutmac said:
Partitioning the drive for Mac-only is fairly easy. Just use Mac OS X's Disk Utility to create 2 HFS+ partitions for iMac and iBook, for instance (although frankly, I would juse create 1 HFS+ partition with 2 directories, iBook and iMac).

Creating Windows partition, on the other hand, is tricky. Mac OS X can only read NTFS partition and read and write FAT32 partition. If you don't need iBook or iMac to write to Windows partition, I recommend creating an NTFS partition (it's more robust and efficient). To create NTFS or FAT32 partition, along with HFS+ partition, you need to follow this hint:

Create HFS+ and FAT32 partitions on one external drive.

WARNING: Back up any data on your external drive first. You will lose everything on it.

To create an NTFS partition for Windows, after following the instructions, reformat FAT32 partition with NTFS (in Windows).

In order to mount HFS+ partition(s), you will need to issue hdid from Terminal which is a bit tedious.
Click to expand...

wow! well thank you for all of this, i think i deff. will get the hard drive you mentioned but stick to using it with my macs as that looks way to difficult for me. but thanks loads for your help!
 
Are those Lacie porsche drives USB only? On the apple site they have Firewire ones, but they are about double the price (on the Lacie site the USB 2 160GB one is 70 quid, on the apple site the FW 160GB is 160 quid educational!!)

I'd prefer USB for my PC, but I'd rather use Firewire with my Mini because of the lack of USB ports.

I like that idea of automatic backup tho. Too often i've forgotten to back stuff up till its too late :(
 
pulsewidth947 said:
Are those Lacie porsche drives USB only? On the apple site they have Firewire ones, but they are about double the price (on the Lacie site the USB 2 160GB one is 70 quid, on the apple site the FW 160GB is 160 quid educational!!)

I'd prefer USB for my PC, but I'd rather use Firewire with my Mini because of the lack of USB ports.

I like that idea of automatic backup tho. Too often i've forgotten to back stuff up till its too late :(
Click to expand...
There's quite a selection of LaCie Firewire Drives Here.
 
Another question about partitioning Lacie hard drive

nutmac said:
Partitioning the drive for Mac-only is fairly easy. Just use Mac OS X's Disk Utility to create 2 HFS+ partitions for iMac and iBook, for instance (although frankly, I would juse create 1 HFS+ partition with 2 directories, iBook and iMac).

Creating Windows partition, on the other hand, is tricky. Mac OS X can only read NTFS partition and read and write FAT32 partition. If you don't need iBook or iMac to write to Windows partition, I recommend creating an NTFS partition (it's more robust and efficient). To create NTFS or FAT32 partition, along with HFS+ partition, you need to follow this hint:

Create HFS+ and FAT32 partitions on one external drive.

WARNING: Back up any data on your external drive first. You will lose everything on it.

To create an NTFS partition for Windows, after following the instructions, reformat FAT32 partition with NTFS (in Windows).

In order to mount HFS+ partition(s), you will need to issue hdid from Terminal which is a bit tedious.
Click to expand...


I actually just purchased this exact hard drive and am getting ready to install it for the first time. I am wondering if there is an advantage to partitioning. I am mainly going to use it for extra storage for large photoshop and imovie files but could possibly be working on these files directly from the hard drive. Would it be better to just switch it to the HFS+ format and leave in one big section or to make into smaller partitions? It is unclear when reading the instruction manual.

If you do suggest partioning, how many, what size each do you suggest? What do you mean when you refer to two directories in one partition above?

Thank you in advance for your response. I am sorry for so many questions.
 
EZQ

I know that I'm in the minority and that Lacie fans are all over, but I just love EZQuest. I have an old CD burner, a DVD burner, and an external hard drive from them. They're a Mac-First company, their drives are beautiful (metalic covered with a clear polycarb), and they're built solid as a rock. You can practically toss these things across the room, and they'll still work. They never skimp on packaging, wires, etc. Great company! I'm sure they'd be wonderful to work with if I had any technical problems, but I've never had one to test that theory out. :)

http://www.ezq.com
 
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