External hard drive for 2011 MacBook Air.

[hypertc13]

I have the mid 2011 Macbook Air. My hard drive is filled up completely already and I need more space. I have a go pro camera and like to take lots of videos while biking, wakeboarding and snowboarding. Seeing how most of the videos I take are in 1080p at either 30 fps or 60 fps the files take up a lot of room. I'm looking for an external drive that would be quite portable to take on the road with me. I would like to be able to store all of my go pro videos on the external and be able to play them back on my air.

Problem is my air doesnt have USB 3.0 but does have a thunderbolt port. It seems like the USB 3.0 drives are so much cheaper than the very few drives that actually have thunderbolt. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks

 

[bhags8]

Lacie makes a thunderbolt AND USB 3.0 RUGGED external HD. Sizes are 1TB, 500GB, and 120SSD, 256SSD.

 

[chabig]

Any of the USB 3 drives will plug into your Air's USB 2 port and work.

 

[hypertc13]

Any of the USB 3 drives will plug into your Air's USB 2 port and work.

Yea, I'm just worried USB 2.0 wont be quick enough for what i want to do.

 

[durruti]

Yea, I'm just worried USB 2.0 wont be quick enough for what i want to do.

GoPro. Nice. External HD via USB 2.0 should playback 1080p video without issue.

 

[jdechko]

Maybe look for a drive with a triple or quad interface like the Lacie (something that includes USB3.0 and Firewire 800 at least). Then pick up a Thunderbolt-FW800 adapter.

Both cost and performance will fall somewhere between USB2.0/3.0 drive and a Thunderbolt drive.

 

[bhags8]

this is the one I was talking about. Should have posted a link.
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10599
Im buying one of these for my music collection. 120gb SSD probably.