My new imac will be arriving in the next day or so and I need to purchase an external hard drive to back everything up. I am so confused after reading so many different threads... I want to be able to put all photos and videos on one external and then back up both my machine and my photos/videos... So - am I correct in thinking to get maybe a 500GB external drive for my photos/videos and then a 1tb for the back up of both the machine and the external drive? My machine has a 320 GB hard drive. Help? Does this sound right? I have never backed anything up in my life but want to start out using my mac correctly. I was also looking at iomega drives....any thoughts? I want something small and tidy - hence my purchase of my imac.
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External Hard Drive Question
- Thread starter vermonter16
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The FireWire 800 external drive are now so cheap that, maybe, you can use 2 x 1TB external drive. You will have a lot of space for your photos and for your backup. 
Ok, now I'm lost....FireWire is a way of connecting right (never heard of it before I cam on this forum)...it's not a brand of drive? You see what a dunce head I am when it comes to this...
Did I do the right thing by getting a 320GB Hard Drive? Everyone said to get the smaller drive and just have a bigger external drive...I'm really going to be mad with myself if I screwed up. I probably should have just gotten the biggest hard drive anyway....arrrggghhh...
Right now I have an 80GB hard drive at home....using very little of it. However, I want to store music now and HD videos... I guess I'm concerned with the HD videos....however, I know that I wouldn't be storing those directly onto the computer hard drive anyway...so maybe I did do the right thing...wow, I just confuse myself more and more....
Did I do the right thing by getting a 320GB Hard Drive? Everyone said to get the smaller drive and just have a bigger external drive...I'm really going to be mad with myself if I screwed up. I probably should have just gotten the biggest hard drive anyway....arrrggghhh...
Right now I have an 80GB hard drive at home....using very little of it. However, I want to store music now and HD videos... I guess I'm concerned with the HD videos....however, I know that I wouldn't be storing those directly onto the computer hard drive anyway...so maybe I did do the right thing...wow, I just confuse myself more and more....
Yes
FireWire is a way to connecting external HD to your iMac. I suggest FireWire 800 first because is fast and second because you can daisy chain your drives, opposite to USB where you need an HUB.On back of your new iMac you should find FireWire ports ...
A lot of brand produce FireWire external HD ... Western Digital, Maxtor, LaCie, etc. etc.
You know ... really depend on you
There is not the "perfect" size for the internal HD ... all depend on your usage !And NO, there is not a rule for which ... "Smaller is Better"
What do you guys think about this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822186126
I like it because it's stackable and the point of getting the imac was that I didn't need all kinds of extra things hanging around...didn't know I'd need all this back up storage
Maybe I should up to a 750GB for the other external and use the 1TB to back up both the other external and the internal drive? I'm getting my husband an HD camcorder for Christmas...should have thought of this before!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822186126
I like it because it's stackable and the point of getting the imac was that I didn't need all kinds of extra things hanging around...didn't know I'd need all this back up storage
Maybe I should up to a 750GB for the other external and use the 1TB to back up both the other external and the internal drive? I'm getting my husband an HD camcorder for Christmas...should have thought of this before!
Nice, I did not know this ... I normally use Western Digital, but they are not stackable.What do you guys think about this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822186126
I like it because it's stackable and the point of getting the imac was that I didn't need all kinds of extra things hanging around...didn't know I'd need all this back up storage
Iomega is a reliable brand, but please note that this one have FireWire 400 which is slower than FireWire 800 (also if ... for backup ... is not really important)
... remember ... the hard disk space is never sufficient, so ...
Thanks gpb01 for bearing with me. I do like it for the stackability but yes, I did see that it was running only at 400. I'm also considering the My Book Studio.... Not sure which to go with....the My Book can transfer through FW at 800....but the Iomega is very neat looking... I guess you are right about never having enough space.
If you don't "work" on external drive and use it just for backup ... FireWire 400 is not a problem. If you want to use your external HD in an "interactive" way ... think to FireWire 800.
Get a look to _THIS_ one ...
I think I've narrowed my choice down between the Lacie brand and Western Digital My Book.... I'm looking for firewire 800 compatibility and high speed! I plan to store lots of videos and photos on one external drive and have a second external drive to back up both the internal hard drive and 2nd external. I know this can be done but will it be super hard? Can anyone help me decide? Please Thanks.
Thanks.
I suggest LaCie (very reliable) ...
... please note that I have all Western Digital, but in less than one year of their life, I have had 2 broken disk (... totally I have on different systems 8 unit)
You can buy a case from a place specializing in Mac stuff, like OWC, and pick the internal drive that you prefer. If you buy any random case, it might not work properly.
There's people who bought a ready-made external and when it failed they were given 2 options:
- Send the whole thing back to the vendor and lose their data
- Send the drive to a data recovery company and lose their warranty.
There's people who bought a ready-made external and when it failed they were given 2 options:
- Send the whole thing back to the vendor and lose their data
- Send the drive to a data recovery company and lose their warranty.
LaCie is specialized for Mac
I was not talking about your LaCie ready-made drive in this respect.
I would go the other route...but right now I am technologically inept. I'm struggling to learn everything new about this Mac... My older brother is always building computers and helping me out...but not with the Mac...that would be like asking him to drink Pepsi over Coke - he just won't do it. Now I have to learn everything on my own....which includes backing up my system.
You just need to plug and screw-in the right kind of drive in the right kind of case.
Which would be a FW800 enclosure for "SATA II" or SATA 3Gbps drives and any SATA disk of the corresponding size (3.5" in your case, as you're not looking for a portable solution).
There are currently some issues with the Seagate 1.5TB drive, so I just avoided it recently.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-terabyte-1tb,2077.html
Which would be a FW800 enclosure for "SATA II" or SATA 3Gbps drives and any SATA disk of the corresponding size (3.5" in your case, as you're not looking for a portable solution).
There are currently some issues with the Seagate 1.5TB drive, so I just avoided it recently.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-terabyte-1tb,2077.html
Will this enclosure work?
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/FWU2ESMSV3/
and what is the difference....
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/MS3S7S10TB32/
(this one looks like it comes with the hard drive?)
And, say I go with an internal hard drive in an external enclosure - are the steps the same to connect it to my imac? One for photos and videos, the other to back up both internal and photos/videos drives? Or is it going to be more difficult?
Remember, I am a complete novice whose brother used to do everything for me..... I'm, let's say, an idiot when it comes to this stuff.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/FWU2ESMSV3/
and what is the difference....
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/MS3S7S10TB32/
(this one looks like it comes with the hard drive?)
And, say I go with an internal hard drive in an external enclosure - are the steps the same to connect it to my imac? One for photos and videos, the other to back up both internal and photos/videos drives? Or is it going to be more difficult?
Remember, I am a complete novice whose brother used to do everything for me..... I'm, let's say, an idiot when it comes to this stuff.
There are some ready-made external drives that have a button and software for "one touch" backup. There are some for Mac.
Besides those, there might be some other regular Mac-oriented externals that already come formatted.
With a generic external, or a self-made external, you'll have to format it in Disk Utility (the Mac asks you if you want to initialize it when you connect it, and you can just Erase with the defaults, probably giving it a different volume name).
Those Mac mini-styled enclosures that you show are the same. One already has the drive. For their own enclosures, OWC sells them empty or with a variety of disk options.
OWC uses good drives, and their own branded cases are good. If you're not extremely picky that the mechanism that you want precisely is not offered, a ready-made OWC drive is a good option, as it will not only be cheaper than buying parts separately, but they also include several software packages which cost many $$. As they use normal cases, you should be able to just swap the disk without effort in the future, which cannot be said from all ready-made drives.
The enclosures you showed are not just fine, it's very nice that they are quad-interface (and while the eSATA will only work at 1.5 Gbps as usual, it's written there that it supports "SATA II" drives, so it's not old tech).
Besides those, there might be some other regular Mac-oriented externals that already come formatted.
With a generic external, or a self-made external, you'll have to format it in Disk Utility (the Mac asks you if you want to initialize it when you connect it, and you can just Erase with the defaults, probably giving it a different volume name).
Those Mac mini-styled enclosures that you show are the same. One already has the drive. For their own enclosures, OWC sells them empty or with a variety of disk options.
OWC uses good drives, and their own branded cases are good. If you're not extremely picky that the mechanism that you want precisely is not offered, a ready-made OWC drive is a good option, as it will not only be cheaper than buying parts separately, but they also include several software packages which cost many $$. As they use normal cases, you should be able to just swap the disk without effort in the future, which cannot be said from all ready-made drives.
The enclosures you showed are not just fine, it's very nice that they are quad-interface (and while the eSATA will only work at 1.5 Gbps as usual, it's written there that it supports "SATA II" drives, so it's not old tech).
This is the usual quad-interface 1TB ready-made drive from OWC:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEAQ7H1TB32M/
There's a rebate on it, so it will be cheaper.
But for the ready-made you showed, there's a special offer to buy some additional software (which the manufacturer claims is used at the Genius Bar).
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEAQ7H1TB32M/
There's a rebate on it, so it will be cheaper.
But for the ready-made you showed, there's a special offer to buy some additional software (which the manufacturer claims is used at the Genius Bar).