College Freshman: 13" + External HD?

[jlm86]

My daughter getting MBP 13" and she of course has loads of pics and music, and I am thinking she needs an external HD to keep all this stuff, as 250G HD is pretty small comparatively these days....

Some of these External HD are pretty big physically now, so needing small footprint..

Suggestions?

 

[rowsdower]

My daughter getting MBP 13" and she of course has loads of pics and music, and I am thinking she needs an external HD to keep all this stuff, as 250G HD is pretty small comparatively these days....

Some of these External HD are pretty big physically now, so needing small footprint..

Suggestions?

I would argue that an external drive is actually more important so that she can use Time Machine. In my experience, they're all pretty much the same functionally. If you're concerned about the size you can get one with a 2.5" drive internally.

 

[Hellhammer]

How much stuff she has? I would recommend 1TB (2 partitions) or 2 smaller ones (one physically smaller and one for Time Machine).

I have two LaCies (physically quite small, 500GB both) for storing my music, movies and pictures and one 2TB LaCie for backups. I usually carry one of 500GB LaCies with me if I need something from there.

 

[marioman38]

Here or here

1TB offers best Dollar-per-Gigabyte at this time.

Or a 2.5" which yields smaller capacities.

 

[Demosthenes X]

You can replace the internal drive quite easily. Notebook drives currently go up to 500GB/7200RPM, which is a good size. You could also get a 2.5" 500GB drive in an external enclosure. A benefit of smaller external drives is that they don't need a separate power brick, they can be powered from the USB/FireWire port.

But if she really need lots of space, a 1TB external drive is a good solution. I currently have two 250GB drives for my media and backup needs, and am thinking about going to a single 1TB drive instead.

 

[kajitox]

I mean, I would ask first how much she's actually going to need to store her stuff...1TB drives are big and the smaller ones are expensive, I would go for a 500GB drive if she needs a "normal" amount of backup...plug you can find them smaller. Hell, do they have the WD Passport drives in 500GB yet? Those don't even need external power and have a tiny footprint.