External harddrive suggestions

[Harp77]

I need an external portable harddrive to move my 20gigs of pics off my Windows PC (running XP) that is slowly on its way out.

I want to get a Macbook so need to be able pull up the pics from the external onto the Mac.

Any suggestions on what to look for, avoid, etc.

Thanks

 

[jdblas69]

If you are wanting to get those pics off right away before your PC dies, why not use a usb flash drive for now so at least you do not run the risk of losing them?

 

[Harp77]

I need an external portable harddrive to move my 20gigs of pics off my Windows PC (running XP) that is slowly on its way out.

I want to get a Macbook so need to be able pull up the pics from the external onto the Mac.

Any suggestions on what to look for, avoid, etc.

Thanks

never thought of using a flash drive. Are they as trusting as an actual external hardrive?

 

[iamgalactic]

cloud storage?

20gig isn't a lot. Google Drive will give you 15Gb for free - if you can trim it or compress your files that would work. Or you can pay for a bit extra - if it's only a temporary measure then it won't work out a lot.

I'm a big fan of Dropbox though and prefer this. But you only get 2Gb of free space - 100Gb on the pro account will cost you $100 a year...

If it's mainly photos, what about uploading them all to a flickr account - any other files you could stick in one of the above solutions.

However, it sounds like you don't currently have any kind of backup solution. When you get your Mac, you should keep up to date backups via Time Machine - so might be worth buying a decent USB3 drive for that now that will be useful later.

 

[Harp77]

nope. I refuse to post any pics via a cloud without having an alternate back-up in place.

 

[phoenixsan]

You can go with.....

a USB pen drive, say 16 GB if you do the trimming and cleaning of your archives. Dont have time or not so inclined ?....A 32 GB pen drive will suffice. Kingston and SanDisk make good ones. See the pen drive as a bus stop before buying the external one. In this way you will have your backup, in case your Windows machine fails.

You can go with a USB 3.0, a FireWire or even a Thunderbolt external. Because you appears to use Windows computers, seems to me right to advice buying a USB 3.0 FireWire are mostly limited to Macs and seems going the way of the dodo. And Thunderbolt ones are pretty fast, but also priced over average....

 

[Harp77]

so something like this would work:

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...spx?path=58f183c4e01dce62b5a1faffa934b46aen02

 

[jav6454]

I need an external portable harddrive to move my 20gigs of pics off my Windows PC (running XP) that is slowly on its way out.

I want to get a Macbook so need to be able pull up the pics from the external onto the Mac.

Any suggestions on what to look for, avoid, etc.

Thanks

Western Digital MyPassports are very good and cheap.

 

[jdblas69]

so something like this would work:

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...spx?path=58f183c4e01dce62b5a1faffa934b46aen02

Yes this would work, however it supports USB 2.0 only, when you buy a macbook it will be USB 3.0 so you may want to buy a USB 3.0 flash drive.

 

[iamgalactic]

nope. I refuse to post any pics via a cloud without having an alternate back-up in place.

if you think having you're pictures on only one external drive is a backup then carry on.

did you bother reading the other part of my post?

 

[m98custom1212]

Yes this would work, however it supports USB 2.0 only, when you buy a macbook it will be USB 3.0 so you may want to buy a USB 3.0 flash drive.

all he doing is moving pictures relax.. a 2.0 would work

 

[jdblas69]

all he doing is moving pictures relax.. a 2.0 would work

Of course it will work as I said in my first four words!

 

[gnasher729]

so something like this would work:

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...spx?path=58f183c4e01dce62b5a1faffa934b46aen02

That will work. I'll recommend the Kingston SE9 for a completely non-technical reason: You can put it onto your keyring, and it is absolutely impossible to lose. And for a USB flash drive, that is the most important consideration: They don't wear out, they don't have problems, people just lose them. You can't lose the Kingston SE9.

 

[silvershamrock]

I'm confused - are you looking for something to back up your photos, or are you looking for a solution that can be used to transfer them from a PC to a Mac somewhere down the road?

If you're just looking for a backup solution, then anything would work (even an SD card, they are available in sizes up to 128GB. A 32GB card -- or an equivalent thumb drive as others have suggested -- would work perfectly).

But if you also want something that you can use to transfer these photos to a new Mac, you'll need to find something with dual-platform capability (so that the PC can write the files and the Mac will be able to read them later).

There aren't many of those. In particular I personally have not found any thumb drives that will transfer files between Macs and PCs (could be some out there, maybe someone else has seen one???). But there are a few external drives that will: Apple's Time Capsule is one, SeaGate Go-Flex is another. Both drives can be fully accessed from either a Mac or a PC, and files saved from a PC can be opened on a Mac, and vice versa.

Many cloud services also let you do the same thing: upload files from a PC, download them to a Mac.

 

[Bilalo]

I need an external portable harddrive to move my 20gigs of pics off my Windows PC (running XP) that is slowly on its way out.

I want to get a Macbook so need to be able pull up the pics from the external onto the Mac.

Any suggestions on what to look for, avoid, etc.

Thanks

Dude 32 gb usb costs like $20. I just got a 64gb for $40 and they're more reliable than hard drives, they're just easier to lose