External Hard drive on Mac Mini (10.3)

[Yossarian]

I'm trying to help out my parents from 500 miles away to backup their photo collection from their Mac Mini. I want to order them an external hard drive and have it as simple as possible, i.e. one that they just connect over USB and it shows up as a drive to copy onto...

Most of them seem to say they need Mac OS 10.4, my parents only have 10.3. Is this 10.4 requirement likely to be for their custom software? So if i order something like this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=467198433&pf_rd_i=468294

...and they connect it to the Mini will it actually show up as a writable drive even though they only have 10.3?

They're currently backing up some of it to CD but it's a huge library...

Thanks a lot.

 

[madog]

Any drive that can interface with the computer will work. I'm also fairly positive that all Mac Mini's shipped with USB 2.0, so that won't be a factor (FW 400 is labeled as slower, but actually outperforms USB 2.0, but generally adds $20-50 to a drive).

The system requirements are just for the manufacturers software that they include with the hard drive, of which I always recommend to stay as far away from as possible.

Also, unless you are buying a "Mac" drive, the most work that will need to be done to the drive will be to format it with the correct partition map and volume format. I would recommend doing this regardless in order to clear away any most-likely troublesome software they include (typically ends up being more of a hassle than anything), and to make it solely Mac compatible. It's not easy for someone who doesn't know how, but it can easily be explained over the phone (assuming they know how to listen, my parents don't when it comes to computers). You can find info about by searching this forum.

 

[Yossarian]

Thanks for the advice!