BUYING A NEW 17 inch MACBOOK PRO AND NEED ADVICE QUICK!!

As a Recovering Windows User, I like to right click, so I have a wireless Microsoft mouse instead of the Apple one.

For DVD software, I like Toast. (And I got the Eye TV Hybrid to turn my MBP into a DVR. They work well together.)

I have 2 LaCie externals, a Western Digital Passport, and 2 Maxtors. My Time Machine uses one of the LaCie drives. My music resides on another. The others are for redundant backups. Better obsessive now than unhappy when the drive crashes.

 

Did you really need the caps and exclamation points? Doesn't seem that urgent.

Anyway, those are probably pretty good hard drives, I know Lacie is of good quality, and Iomega doesn't have a bad reputation. I generally try to stick with Seagate though.

 

If you have a choice, take a Firewire drive over a USB only drive.

The Western Digital MyBook drives have a reputation of problems when connected to Macs by Firewire.

 

make sure its a fire wire drive and if you go with Lacie make sure its a single drive not a raided one, you will know if its raided if the enclosure for it is bigger than a dvd box

 

get...

...the eSATA - it connects thru your expresscard slot; you'll have to buy an expresscard eSATA adapter (look on eBay - you can get one for 1/2 the price by buying a non-branded OEM kind - there's a US dist. who sells 'em) - if the drive is the LaCie, it'll come with the eSATA cable - 3g/per sec is so fast, i just can't express to you how extraordinarily slow everything else seems in comparison.

if you don't plan on using the drive to move big data files (video, music, w/e), then eSATA's not that critical. iomega's ok, too.

 

For eSATA use (faster data transfer rate than FW800) you'd need an ExpressCard34 adapter, such as:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_express34.html

Oops, smacky! beat me to the punch.

I haven't noticed the d2 Quadra being noisier than any other LaCie external drive. I'll try to fire it up again tonight and pay closer attention to noise, but with it sitting right next to my MBP, I wasn't about to "chuck it out the window".

 

sorry - didn't see this part - yup, it's 'noisy'. mine makes these weird clicky noises from time to time (and it's not the drive failing, checked it numerous times) while moving large files thru usb2; usually doesn't happen when i use the 400/800 or the eSATA connection, tho'...odd.

also, im not a big fan of LaCie's power connectors or their ports; poorly designed. but the enclosure is rock-solid to say the least. i will say that the drives they use are VERY solid and not prone to failure, esp. since i've got experience using them with high school kids! yikes! (sorry, if you're a high school kid, but they really manhandle the tech sometimes!)

 

yeah, but..

...2jaded you included a link, so props to that! haha!

 

We have multiple LaCie drives here without problems, running 24/7 for 2+ years. Personally, I'm not a big fan of Iomega products since the old Zip drive days. Look into the OWC Mercury Elite Pro drives too. These are what we're soon replacing the LaCie drives with.