Advice about external hard drive for MacBook Air

[Oliver Webber]

Could any readers recommend an affordable basic external hard drive for a macbook air, which would also serve as a back-up for my old pc laptop?
I don't need it to be portable, just to serve as back-up at home, though if it doesn't escalate the price too much wireless would be a bonus.
I see there is a vast range of products available at a vast range of prices...any advice gratefully received!
Many thanks
Oliver

 

[flynz4]

I would strongly recommend you look at drive that attaches to your local home network. My preference is wired vs wireless. Often it will be described as NAS (network attached storage)

I base this strongly on the fact that you seem to want to use it on both a PC, and a Mac. Using a direct attach drive (ex: USB) is not very elegent because you would want different formats for the drive depending upon which system you were attaching too. On the other hand, a NAS should work fine with both operating systems.

You can buy drives with wired network connections that only have a modest premium over USB drives. Some routers support a USB attached drive, and effectively makes them into a NAS. I have not had great luck in this regard. Apple also sells routers with built in drives (Time Capsules) but they are quite expensive.

/Jim