Best external drive?

[hellojamie]

I need to buy a new external drive for my Mac. Previously I had a Western Digital MyStudio on my PC, but it's formatted solely for PC and can only transfer files onto my Mac. (And also somehow between Mac and PC my music got erased.)

I don't use my external drive as anything other than backup and to keep music/other things I feel bad dumping but that I don't want taking up space. I'm not playing music or movies through it constantly, I just use it to keep a backup of my docs. So since I only use it maybe 2-3 times a month, I don't need something heavy duty like what Apple sells, and I don't need something really expensive. I only need 320 gigs since that's my current harddrive on this machine and I don't intend on ever exceeding that.

I was pretty happy with Western Digital, but is there a better brand for Mac? I'm looking for something in the range of $70-$110.

Anyone have recommendations?

 

[spinnerlys]

Have a look here: http://guides.macrumors.com/External_Hard_Drives

 

[Badger^2]

any brand is fine. They all fail eventually, some just faster than others.

although fairly small, this WD drive with firewire (maybe a port you arent using) is a pretty good deal

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/con...5&AID=10659349&PID=552179&is=REG&A=details&Q=

For a few bucks more you could get 1TB for $100, but USB only.

http://www.frys.com/product/6002228

You just missed that drive on sale for $80.

 

[TheStork]

hellojamie, you didn't indicate your preference for interface or hard drive size. So, I'm assuming that you are ok with an USB interface. Next, like CaveMan in another thread here, I like to buy my cases and drives separately so can upgrade the hard drive easily.

I'm personally partial to Other World Computing's (OWC) Mercury Elite-AL external closures. They're good looking and coming with multiple interfaces including eSata. My preference for buying my external enclosures from OWC is that they are a Mac (very) friendly web merchant. Check out their Garage Sale site for occasional bargains:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Price|0&N=0&Ntt=garage.sale

As for hard drives, I've had good luck with all of the mfgrs. So, take your best shot. Newegg tends to have the best prices on all the drives in the world. 🙂 I've got two 1TB Seagates in my D-Link 323 NAS with 3 Macs using it for Time Machine backups. For an external drive, the Western Digital Green series are in flavor. I have a 1TB WD10EADS in an OWC NewerTech V3 enclosure which I have connected my 2009 Mini. The philosophy now-a-days is use a fast smaller drive for your boot drive and a "green" drive (lower speed, auto sleep) for an internal data or external drive.

So, check out Newegg for hard drives and OWC for enclosures.