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what external harddrive do you use with your MBP?

D

DKatri

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 2, 2009
475
0
Birmingham, UK
im looking for an external hard drive or solid state drive that i can use to store additional files and partition and use as a time machine.
the only thing that i really want is bus powered, i cant be bothered with carrying round another AC adapter.
any recommendations?
 
Using an Firewire 400 Smartdisk HDD with my MacBook Pro. Will be considering a larger drive with Firewire 800 to replace it soon.
 
DKatri said:
im looking for an external hard drive or solid state drive that i can use to store additional files and partition and use as a time machine.
the only thing that i really want is bus powered, i cant be bothered with carrying round another AC adapter.
any recommendations?
Click to expand...

One of these sweet little rugged things from LaCie:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10036

Bus-powered, 5400 or 7200 RPM, small and light, supports USB 2.0 or FW400/FW800, easy to bring along just about anywhere without grief, and up to 500 GB which is good enough for my on-the-road needs. I think I've seen them cheaper if bought through Amazon but don't recall.

I've split the LaCie drive to two partitions: one data and one time machine. (That way, the TM backups won't eventually occupy all diskspace on the data volume.) Works great. They're roughly the size/thickness of an average American adult male hand.
 
electroshock said:
One of these sweet little rugged things from LaCie:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10036

Bus-powered, 5400 or 7200 RPM, small and light, supports USB 2.0 or FW400/FW800, easy to bring along just about anywhere without grief, and up to 500 GB which is good enough for my on-the-road needs. I think I've seen them cheaper if bought through Amazon but don't recall.

I've split the LaCie drive to two partitions: one data and one time machine. (That way, the TM backups won't eventually occupy all diskspace on the data volume.) Works great. They're roughly the size/thickness of an average American adult male hand.
Click to expand...
I use one of these too, they're great. Some of my friends have them as well. They're small, light, rugged and bus powered.
 
electroshock said:
One of these sweet little rugged things from LaCie:

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10036

Bus-powered, 5400 or 7200 RPM, small and light, supports USB 2.0 or FW400/FW800, easy to bring along just about anywhere without grief, and up to 500 GB which is good enough for my on-the-road needs. I think I've seen them cheaper if bought through Amazon but don't recall.

I've split the LaCie drive to two partitions: one data and one time machine. (That way, the TM backups won't eventually occupy all diskspace on the data volume.) Works great. They're roughly the size/thickness of an average American adult male hand.
Click to expand...

I wonder what kind of drives are in those. We have a LaCie drive that came with Segate HDs in it and one of them is kind of noisy.
 
odinsride said:
WD portable externals are great
Click to expand...

I have a WD drive that "parks" or lifts the heads above the drive if a sensor feels it falling...I drop alot of stuff, so this feature sold me on other WD drives. I even put one in my sisters computer, a MacBook white 13.3in
 
I just bought a Lacie Quadra 1TB drive that I use with FW 800. So far so good. It basically sleeps until time machine wakes it up to back up.
 
I've got a 500gb Seagate FreeAgent Go. Slim and light, save some money by getting a Windows version, and reformat it as a Mac partition
 
Depends on use. If you need a performance drive, get a FW800 drive with an Oxford chipset. I have Oyen Digital FW400 and a Rosewill FW800 cases (each with 2.5" Fujitsu 320gB 7,200rpm drives) I use for Pro Tools, Final Cup Express, and Photoshop CS4.

If you are just using it to back up, any "brand name" USB drive should do.
 
firewire would be best so you save usb ports (unless you actually DO use firewire)
however they will be more expensive (at least $10-$30) more.
I've got a Seagate Free agent (regular version, there is a mac version but its the same and it cost more.... don't throw away your money... UNLESS you actually want to go the FireWire path in which case you got no choice) its quite silent (in fact its like a million times quieter that the internal MBP HDD) its cheap (my 250GB one was like $80 but that was 6months ago, I reckon you could get the 500GB version for about the same or maybe $100) and the silver version goes rather nicely with the MBP aluminum finish (also the white light goes well along with the MBP's white light.)
Its a very nice HDD, you won't regret getting it.
 
xoggyux said:
firewire would be best so you save usb ports (unless you actually DO use firewire)
however they will be more expensive (at least $10-$30) more.
I've got a Seagate Free agent (regular version, there is a mac version but its the same and it cost more.... don't throw away your money... UNLESS you actually want to go the FireWire path in which case you got no choice) its quite silent (in fact its like a million times quieter that the internal MBP HDD) its cheap (my 250GB one was like $80 but that was 6months ago, I reckon you could get the 500GB version for about the same or maybe $100) and the silver version goes rather nicely with the MBP aluminum finish (also the white light goes well along with the MBP's white light.)
Its a very nice HDD, you won't regret getting it.
Click to expand...

is there a reason why firewire is more expensive? is there much advantage of using FW over USB?
 
mikes70mustang said:
Yes, its wayyyyyyy faster. And fw 800 can power ax external drive.
Click to expand...

Yes and no. Depends on how much wayyyyyyy faster for you is. USB will max at ~30MB/s while most 5400rpm HDD are in the 40MB/s mark. In fact theoretically speaking, 5400rpm hdds should not max USB which theoretical speed is 60MB/s, though I did a practical test and my internal 5400 Hitachi HDD does 44MB/s when internally (or in eSATA) and does about 33MB/s on USB.
FW is more expensive probably because of the same reason the "mac version" is more expensive (even if it does not differ from USB.)
If the OP does not mind 10MB/s (which in practical settings its not a lot) USB is a better commitment since is cheaper and you got more compatibility with PC (some still does not have FW ports) if money no issue then FW is better choice.
 
xoggyux said:
Yes and no. Depends on how much wayyyyyyy faster for you is. USB will max at ~30MB/s while most 5400rpm HDD are in the 40MB/s mark. In fact theoretically speaking, 5400rpm hdds should not max USB which theoretical speed is 60MB/s, though I did a practical test and my internal 5400 Hitachi HDD does 44MB/s when internally (or in eSATA) and does about 33MB/s on USB.
FW is more expensive probably because of the same reason the "mac version" is more expensive (even if it does not differ from USB.)
If the OP does not mind 10MB/s (which in practical settings its not a lot) USB is a better commitment since is cheaper and you got more compatibility with PC (some still does not have FW ports) if money no issue then FW is better choice.
Click to expand...

Or you could get an external drive that has both USB 2.0 and FW400/FW800 ports like the LaCie drives...
 
I've got a 320GB and 500GB OWC Mercury 2.5 FW800, both are fantastic. The 320GB is my TM drive, the 500GB has video and virtual machines. I've got a desktop WD FW800 at work as a split TM/Virtual machine drive. I've got 2 USB-only Mercury 2.5 drives at work, with old 80GB SATA drives scrounged out of dead laptops that I keep formatted FAT32 for use in Linux, OSX, and Win.

I've got two Drobos at work with 4 1TB drives a piece, both attached to a DroboShare. Not very fast (even direct connected) but the storage capacity and expandability is just plain awesome.

I've had 4 LaCie D2 drives (2 of them RAID) and they're crap. I'm done with them. I've lost one of them twice; they replaced the first, and then the replacement died in 3 weeks. Crappy luck perhaps, but enough for me not to want to deal with them again.
 
How much free space do you typically leave on your MBP HD, i.e. photos and music, before storing on an external HDD? What percentage of your total photo/music collection do you all typically leave on your system HD compared to your external HD?
 
xoggyux said:
Yes and no. Depends on how much wayyyyyyy faster for you is. USB will max at ~30MB/s while most 5400rpm HDD are in the 40MB/s mark. In fact theoretically speaking, 5400rpm hdds should not max USB which theoretical speed is 60MB/s, though I did a practical test and my internal 5400 Hitachi HDD does 44MB/s when internally (or in eSATA) and does about 33MB/s on USB.
FW is more expensive probably because of the same reason the "mac version" is more expensive (even if it does not differ from USB.)
If the OP does not mind 10MB/s (which in practical settings its not a lot) USB is a better commitment since is cheaper and you got more compatibility with PC (some still does not have FW ports) if money no issue then FW is better choice.
Click to expand...

all i can say is, if you cant see the difference between usb and fire wire, there is something wrong with you.
 
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