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Any recommendations for a 2.5 Portable HDD for a DJ?

MacBOS

MacBOS

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 18, 2009
365
3
New York, New York
I'm looking for a fast HDD, 2.5 within the 1-2 Terabit range, I'm a DJ, I spin with Serato Scratch Live, and i use a 13" Macbook Pro with Thunderbolt capability. A friend was recommending this particular one:

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini

the 1T 7200RPM option is looking good, but i was wondering if there are some other options i need to look at.

Bottom Line, it needs to be fast, Thunderbolt and or Firewire, can take a beating on the road and the more storage the better.

thanks in advance:D

Update: A friend just gave me the bright idea to get a 3.5 HDD 2T or 3T firewire and use this for production by making it bootable so that the mac can run under that hard drive wile i am making music. I will still update the HDD to a 1T 7200RPM and manage my music in the internal with the DJ software but by doing this i will have plenty of space to manage and my production software stays in a separate HDD at home just hit F in the boot screen. i wonder what all of you think about this.
 
Last edited:
I'm a DJ myself and I went through the process of choosing and using an External drive (firewire for speed in my case). My recommendation would be to hook yourself up with a bigger internal drive. If you've got a Retina display MBP it'll cost loads to do that, so external is the cheapest option. But if you've got an older style just get a 1TB drive. Hitachi do a 1TB 7200rpm and fits a Non Retina 15" MBP.

I recently bought the 2012 MBP so I could have a bigger drive and possibly expand in to the CD bay when the 1TB fills up. Its a real shame Apple discontinued the standard MBP in favour of the Retina displays only.

While I used the external it was another object that could get bumped or knocked during a set. The last thing you want when you arrive at venue is another device to setup and take up space.

Once I upgraded the internal drive I never looked back!

----------

Out of interest I bought this:

http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-drive-mini

Great drive and speed through Firewire cable but Firewire just doesn't hold in the slot as hard as USB or Thunderbolt. I still stand by the fact that you'll be much happier setting up and gigging without an external drive to worry about. Not to mention the moments where tracks fail to load because of where the location is etc...
 
ChrisERoots said:
I'm a DJ myself and I went through the process of choosing and using an External drive (firewire for speed in my case). My recommendation would be to hook yourself up with a bigger internal drive. If you've got a Retina display MBP it'll cost loads to do that, so external is the cheapest option. But if you've got an older style just get a 1TB drive. Hitachi do a 1TB 7200rpm and fits a Non Retina 15" MBP.

I recently bought the 2012 MBP so I could have a bigger drive and possibly expand in to the CD bay when the 1TB fills up. Its a real shame Apple discontinued the standard MBP in favour of the Retina displays only.

While I used the external it was another object that could get bumped or knocked during a set. The last thing you want when you arrive at venue is another device to setup and take up space.

Once I upgraded the internal drive I never looked back!

----------

Out of interest I bought this:

http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-drive-mini

Great drive and speed through Firewire cable but Firewire just doesn't hold in the slot as hard as USB or Thunderbolt. I still stand by the fact that you'll be much happier setting up and gigging without an external drive to worry about. Not to mention the moments where tracks fail to load because of where the location is etc...
Click to expand...


I totaly understand what you are saying, my problem is the fact that I use my laptop for production and between samples and all of that I am stuffed as it is and my music collection... Forget about it is massive, I have it stored in a external 500G and it's almost full. So if I were to have a 1T drive installed to my MacBook I wold still need some more room I wold consider a 2T for the internal drive but does that mean i'm going to have to compromise on speed? Or is there a 2T that runs on 7200RPM? Thanks for the input this does sound like the better move I just don't want to compromise on the speed and the fact that watever I buy to replace the macs HDD is going to Handel everything.
 
If fast is what you really want, then put a 1TB SSD in your primary drive slot, and more your current drive to optical bay.
 
phoenixsan said:
is helpful:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0007970 600361789&IsNodeId=1&name=1TB - 1.9TB


LaCie and WD are my preferred brands. No problem with WD drives, internals or externals. Only mantain yourself away from any software the drive have originally.....:confused:

LaCie is a reputable brand. But many people had gotten bad drives from them. And LaCie hardware have a premium in price, too.....:eek:


:):apple:
Click to expand...

Ok, I did hear about LaCie being one of those 2 out of 5 and wish you are not one of the 2 types
 
You can get a regular 4TB 3.5"

Or you can now also build a 6TB 3.5" for around $900 theoretically (HGST He6). Brand new enterprise at premium+ price.
 
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