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Best External HDD for new MBP?
- Thread starter basqarl
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Until they enable a (stable) way to backup over Airport I would go with the Time Capsule. I threw a drive in an enclosure and trust me, it's an annoyance to have to plug in to backup. Time Capsule would be the easiest solution but possibly not the best for the wallet.
I have a FreeAgent 320 GB from Seagate that I would recommend to anyone. 5 year warranty says a lot about a product and the reviews around the internet were pretty positive.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/freeagent_desktop_data_movers/
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/freeagent_desktop_data_movers/
Seriously, until it ships and someone gets their hands on it long enough to write a review about it would you really want to drop that kind of cash on a backup system? Backups have to work, being the first in line for a new product is always a rush but I would never bet my data on it. Sorry, that's the SAN admin me talking
what do you intend on using your external for? if you're going to put windows on your mac and want to make a partition for windows for installing games then time capsule probably wouldn't be your best bet... can't go wrong with a fw800
Time Capsule looks very promising and is most certainly very convenient being cable free and all.
That said, I am very happy with my LaCie external HDD.
I use a 1TB Western Digital drive in a Rosewill RX81 enclosure. Works great and the design matches the Mac Pro machines.
Can someone explain Time Capsule a bit to me? How does this differ from say a FW800 external drive? Could it be used as a regular external HD, for example? I'm a little confused. It seems like being wireless, it would have bad transfer rates....?
Thanks - MD
Thanks - MD
i suggest not getting a esata express card and connect that to the external i tried it and 3 cards later and a lot of time spent and numerous reformats later doesn't work.
i got a phantom 500gb for 110
works great
and took a caviar ide 120gb in some random enclosure and works well.
try and get firewire as much faster.
its takes forever for my usb drive to load like 40-50 gigs
i go to school and when i come back its done
i got a phantom 500gb for 110
works great
and took a caviar ide 120gb in some random enclosure and works well.
try and get firewire as much faster.
its takes forever for my usb drive to load like 40-50 gigs
i go to school and when i come back its done
those things are sooo expensive.
at least 200
i got similar results for 100
and i have had 2 wd mybooks but have returned them as they were not worth the money
you can almost find 1tb drives for 200
I don't think they're overly expensive and there may be cheaper options out there but they reviewed well and offered me what I wanted (FireWire) so I picked them up.
I have a couple of them bought them ages ago and have had no probs whatsoever.( but like any other
drive you could end up with a lemon) also a 320GB combo and no probs there either.oh and while im
at it my internal a WD and again no probs
They are reliable drives try googling for reviews
I have pretty much the same question as the OP. I've heard the most reliable hard drives are the enterprise level drives like these Seagate ones for example: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/servers/
(of course you'd have to get your own enclosure for them)
Does anyone know, is this true that the enterprise level drives are more reliable than the consumer ones?
Also, Time Capsule is just for back up right? It isn't for additional storage space I don't think.
(of course you'd have to get your own enclosure for them)
Does anyone know, is this true that the enterprise level drives are more reliable than the consumer ones?
Also, Time Capsule is just for back up right? It isn't for additional storage space I don't think.
Please excuse this question if it seems 'dumb' but I am not understanding the difference between Time Capsule and Airport Extreme. Do they both serve as external hard drives? Is it that Time Capsule would then be hooked up to Airport Extreme and perhaps Seagate so that the automatic backups would occur through the Time Machine (new MBP)?
I am just not 'getting it' as I am not at all savvy related to the more technical aspects of these devices.
I am just not 'getting it' as I am not at all savvy related to the more technical aspects of these devices.
I had a look at their spec sheet, and there it says:
Does it mean, in plain language, that the drives are pre-formatted to NTFS?
yes, at least my 320GB seagate freeagent pro was. it was a piece of cake to reformat it to HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) using disk utility
Thanks. I asked the local store and they had no clue ("we don't have anything to do with macs" and "it arrives unformatted").
I hope there's no U3 thing there, though, otherwise it's a pain to remove it.
EDIT: bought a 500GB FreeAgent Pro. It does come pre-formatted to NTFS, but also includes OS X software to format it to HFS+ and install some backup software.
I hope there's no U3 thing there, though, otherwise it's a pain to remove it.
EDIT: bought a 500GB FreeAgent Pro. It does come pre-formatted to NTFS, but also includes OS X software to format it to HFS+ and install some backup software.