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external harddrive?

C

coleg

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 8, 2004
125
0
hi guys.

i'm interested in buying an external hard drive. my powerbook is slowly running out of free space. it'd be nice to be able to keep music and movies on a seperate drive maybe?

do you guys recommend a (kind of) inexpensive external hard drive, maybe firewire, for a college student?

thanks guys,
cole
 
Definitely Firewire.

Depends on your preference, some people prefer pre-assembled drives likethe LaCie D2 and Porsche series, others are OK with building it yourself from an external case and a 3.5" drive mechanism. I like the MacAlly aluminum cases and the Seagate Barracuda drives. If you build your own, you can get a drive with a 5 year warranty to put in it, as opposed to a 1 year warranty on the prebuilts.
 
I like the lacie Tri interface models (F400, F800, USB2), I have a 250GB, but they also come in 500GB and 1TB.

You might prefer a pocket drive for on the go.. I think there is a 'Silverscreen' HDD, which can also plug into a tv to play audio/video. :)
 
I've heard nothing but great things about LaCie drives.

Get one of 'em.

My first is going to be a LaCie (not sure which one though)
 
i have a Maxtor, works great, although CanadaRAM has some good points as well and thats often a better/cheaper solution in the long run as well
 
would it be difficult to build my own external hard drive? i have never been much into building my own computers, so i wouldn't want to be stuck with hardware i'm not sure how to use.

but, if it's cheaper, and more reliable, i'm down with puting together my own external hard drive.

where should i go to check out this type of external hard drive? what are the costs?

thank you guys very much for the help.

cole
 
coleg said:
would it be difficult to build my own external hard drive?
Click to expand...
Put external drive in external drive enclosure. Close drive enclosure. Connect to computer. :p :D
where should i go to check out this type of external hard drive? what are the costs?
Click to expand...
Check out Newegg or similar sites. Many people recommend the Segate Barracuda for the HD. I think the main thing in an external HD enclosure is that it has an Oxford chipset.
 
Get the 250 or 400 GB Seagate Barracuda. It supports both Firewire and USB2 and has a solid casing with it's own fan (which you really need when using it heavily). Also the Barracudas are very quiet in use. All Seagate disks are really high quality and comes with at least 5 years warranty.
 
I highly recommend getting an external firewire enclosure from Newegg.com and putting in a Seagate drive. I've done it and it's very simple. I saw in the paper the other day a 300GB Seagate drive for $99. The enclosure will run you about $50. It's a great and much cheaper alternative to prebuilt external HDs.

Best wishes,
JOD8FY
 
I'm in the same situation.

I have an iMac G4 with a mere 60GB hard drive. It's getting really full now. I reformatted some time ago (before I installed Tiger) and backed up most of my files, but it's really time I got either a bigger or an extra drive.

It's so weird. Before this iMac, I had an original (bondi blue) iMac with only a 4GB drive and I always seemed to do fine with that, although of course I backed up to cd-r regularly. But now that I have 60GB and back up to dvd-r every now and then, I manage to run out of space. Is that because back then I had 56k dial-up internet and now I have ADSL? And that back then I didn't have an iPod and a 35GB music library?

Well, whatever. I'm in the process of deciding wether to get a bigger internal drive or an external one. What do you think is better? An external one is easier, but more expensive. Getting an enclosure and a (cheaper) internal hard drive a good advice, too, but I wonder if there are any enclosures that offer LaCie's connectivity (USB2, Firewire400 and Firewire800).

Any (more) advice? Bigger internal drive (with all the drive cloning hassles), a pre-built external drive (with great connectivity and performance out-of-the-box) or a self-built external drive (that probably has nowhere near the looks of LaCie's D2 design)? Anyways, thanks for this thread so far.
 
I realize that I'm changing the subject. Have a Mercury Elite OWC external firewire. Purchased in July 2002. Just updated with Security update on Saturday. Now at about noon it started to chirp. I turned it off. When turning it off the icon didn't return to my desktop. Tech Tools froze while checking. Doesn't show up with Norton. Comments, but I'm afraid of the worst. :(
 
Tough luck!

wdlove said:
Comments, but I'm afraid of the worst. :(
Click to expand...
Well, that sounds like it's time for a new drive. Tough luck, I'd say. Which brings me to a question that brings this back on topic. It's a question that could make me decide wether to get an external or internal drive.

Is an external drive, when not being toted around to everywhere, likely to die sooner than an internal one?
 
Bengt77 said:
Is an external drive, when not being toted around to everywhere, likely to die sooner than an internal one?
Click to expand...
It really depends on the quality of the drive and the design of the enclosure. Seagates are solid and despite people's disdain, I have had no problems whatsoever with any of my 7 Western digital drives I have had over the last 4 years. The JB series have been solid for me.

Look for 4 things in an enclosure:
  1. Oxford 1394 chipset (arguably the best/fastest/most reliable)
  2. Aluminum construction for increased heat dissapation
  3. Fan for ventilation (not a must have, but VERY good to have)
  4. No stupid blinking lights as bright as the sun. They piss me off.

Also, use firewire when possible because it reduces the load on the rest of the system by using the chipset to handle the data transfers.
 
tuartboy said:
Look for 4 things in an enclosure:
  1. Oxford 1394 chipset (arguably the best/fastest/most reliable)
  2. Aluminum construction for increased heat dissapation
  3. Fan for ventilation (not a must have, but VERY good to have)
  4. No stupid blinking lights as bright as the sun. They piss me off.
Click to expand...
Good advice on the chipset! I was going to choose Firewire anyway, since my iMac only has USB 1.1. Therefore, a USB 2.0 drive would operate at only 12Mbit/s, which obviously is completely unacceptable. An aluminium enclosure and a fan is a good idea too, since my iPod, when operating in Disk Mode for extended periods of time, tends to get really hot. About the blinking lights, as long as they can be turned off it's okay with me. But yes, I hate them just as bad as you do.

Still not sure wither to get an external or internal drive. External is less hassle, but internal takes less space. External means easier copying of existing files (if necessery at all), but internal means swapping drives (after copying everything over) and no looking back. Although, ultimately, external means two drives and therefore more size...
 
Bengt77 said:
Good advice on the chipset! I was going to choose Firewire anyway, since my iMac only has USB 1.1. Therefore, a USB 2.0 drive would operate at only 12Mbit/s, which obviously is completely unacceptable. An aluminium enclosure and a fan is a good idea too, since my iPod, when operating in Disk Mode for extended periods of time, tends to get really hot. About the blinking lights, as long as they can be turned off it's okay with me. But yes, I hate them just as bad as you do.

Still not sure wither to get an external or internal drive. External is less hassle, but internal takes less space. External means easier copying of existing files (if necessery at all), but internal means swapping drives (after copying everything over) and no looking back. Although, ultimately, external means two drives and therefore more size...
Click to expand...
my $.02:

get an external.

it will never be as fast as a new internal, but will be perfect for large backup and storage.

store all of your documents and program files on your internal and back them up to your external nightly. If you know unix, use rsync and cron to set it up and it's transparent and FREE!

this way you get: more storage from having 2 drives, portability, critical files saved on 2 drives for redundancy. All 3 are good things to have.
 
Bengt77 said:
I have an iMac G4 with a mere 60GB hard drive. It's getting really full now. I reformatted some time ago (before I installed Tiger) and backed up most of my files, but it's really time I got either a bigger or an extra drive.
Click to expand...

I would buy a new internal drive and an external closure. Put the new internal drive in the external closure. Copy everything from the current internal drive to the external drive. Remove your drive from the G4 and put the new one into the G4. Then after making sure it works properly reformat your old one and use it as an external drive.

DOug
 
tuartboy, Does the Seagate Barracuda meet the specifications mentioned? The five year warranty sounds great.
 
wdlove said:
tuartboy, Does the Seagate Barracuda meet the specifications mentioned? The five year warranty sounds great.
Click to expand...
I was actually talking about a bare drive and inserting it into an external enclosure. However, I did look the seagate drive up.

  1. The Seagate external hard drives (part numbers 9W2074-500, 9W2874-500 and 9Y7685-500) use the Oxford 911 chip for 1394 communication.
  2. Plastic but, "Designed to run much cooler than other external drives."
  3. Not sure, but I think it's passively cooled.
  4. Blue activity lights.
 
LaCie the way to go?

puckhead193 said:
i have a lacie d2 extreme 250 gig with triple interface, its great!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was thinking about getting that exact one. Although LaCie has that drive in another enclosure as well. It's in the one designed by F.A. Porsche, but then it only has a Firewire400 interface, and not the USB2.0 and Firewire800 ones. Is that a bad thing? I searched for both on Kelkoo and the Porsche model costs €50 less than the D2 model there (€190 against €240).

Is the D2's triple interface worth the extra €50? Also, can the Porsche model operate standing on it's side (it doesn't come with a side-stand like the D2 model)?
 
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