iPod External HDD for iTune - USB or Firewire?

[HelixOmnimedia]

Hello

With the release of the AppleTV, which I've ordered WooHoo, I want to add more movies and TV Shows to the collection I already have. The problem is I'm rapidly running out of space on my PowerBook.

I've got: 34GB Movies, 24GB TVShows, 4GB of Music.
I've got 12GB left, but as I said I want to get more movies downloaded (from Paramount), plus there's the rest of Desperate Housewives, Veronica Mars and D!rt - left to download (when they're available).

I'm looking at a 300GB Seagate ExHD. But there are two: One with Firewire and USB or one with just USB. There is a slight difference in price

But was wondering which one was better?

Firewire and USB
http://www.usbtech.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/18_71/products_id/446
Just USB
http://www.usbtech.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/18_71/products_id/450

Or any other suggestion from the models listed:
http://www.usbtech.co.uk/catalog/default.php/cPath/18

THANKS for any help.
Much Appreciated

 

[Case-sensitive]

They seem to be exactly the same but one has firewire?

I would get firewire -small price difference, large speed difference.

 

[Warbrain]

Get FireWire. Because you've got the Powerbook, should you ever need to back-up your data and boot off of it you can through FireWire. USB booting isn't possible on PPC Macs.

 

[HelixOmnimedia]

They seem to be exactly the same but one has firewire?

I would get firewire -small price difference, large speed difference.

Firewire it is then. I just didn't know what the difference was when it comes to USB or Firewire. But if speed is the difference then Firewire is the one, since it only for moving large files from iTunes.

THANKS

Get FireWire. Because you've got the Powerbook, should you ever need to back-up your data and boot off of it you can through FireWire. USB booting isn't possible on PPC Macs.

I didn't know that.
THANKS AGAIN.

 

[EGT]

USB booting isn't possible on PPC Macs.

Out of interest, can Intel Macs boot from Firewire as well as USB or are they USB only?

Go with Firewire. Nice and fast.

 

[adk]

Just as a reference point, I once transferred a DVD-sized file from my computer to an external HD first via Firewire400, then via USB2 to compare speeds. The USB2 took about twice as long to move the file as the FW400 did. If you really care about speed, though, look into firewire 800. It costs marginally more but it is worth every penny if you're planning on storing your music on the external drive.

 

[plinden]

Out of interest, can Intel Macs boot from Firewire as well as USB or are they USB only?

They work with both. USB2 is noticeably slower to boot up than Firewire 400, but I don't notice any difference in use.

Apple's USB2 implementation isn't as good as in Windows or Linux. Transferring data in Windows or Linux via USB2 is still slower than Firewire but is a good deal faster than OS X. (Though that doesn't make me want to switch back from OS X)

 

[HelixOmnimedia]

Just as a reference point, I once transferred a DVD-sized file from my computer to an external HD first via Firewire400, then via USB2 to compare speeds. The USB2 took about twice as long to move the file as the FW400 did. If you really care about speed, though, look into firewire 800. It costs marginally more but it is worth every penny if you're planning on storing your music on the external drive.

Thanks for the advice about the Firewire 800. I've looked into it, and since this early this afternoon have been contemplating this:
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=322613
I don't want to sped £100 on 250gb, and then add my collection of DVDs to then find out that I'm still running low on space.

So what about the one linked to above? Roughly how many movies or tv should that hold?

Thanks for any further advice.

 

[plinden]

Thanks for the advice about the Firewire 800. I've looked into it, and since this early this afternoon have been contemplating this:
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=322613

What Mac do you have? Does it have FW 800? Of course, even if you don't have FW800 right now, if/when you get your next Mac with FW800, you'll have the full speed then.

I have the My Book 500GB with FW400 and USB2. I'm happy with it.

Get the largest external drive you can afford. I had a Dell PC with a 40GB drive before I switched, and I used barely half that. I had a DV camera and it was so hard to get the video onto the PC, and the free editing software was so crappy (yes, I could have paid for better software but I didn't) that I never used it.

So when I got the Mac, I went for the smallest drive, 160GB, thinking I'd never use it. But with iMovie and iDVD, and all the other multimedia stuff that's so much easier to use on the Mac, I started to fill it up and had to get the external drive. If you have the space, you'll find a use for it.

One thing I've mentioned here before, I would advise partitioning your external drive when you get it. I have mine partitioned in three - a large 450GB HFS+ partition for backups music and video, a 30GB HFS+ partition with OS X installed as a backup in case anything happens (like when my wife's MacBook HD failed), and a 20GB FAT32 partition for when I have my work laptop home.

 

[HelixOmnimedia]

What Mac do you have? Does it have FW 800? Of course, even if you don't have FW800 right now, if/when you get your next Mac with FW800, you'll have the full speed then.

I have a PowerBook G4, It supports FW800. I thinking of getting a MacBookPro when the Leopard is released.

So when I got the Mac, I went for the smallest drive, 160GB, thinking I'd never use it. But with iMovie and iDVD, and all the other multimedia stuff that's so much easier to use on the Mac, I started to fill it up and had to get the external drive. If you have the space, you'll find a use for it.

Yeah, I'm doing media film and production course, that's why I switched to Mac. But will all the films I've made and then the iTunes Movies and TV Shows on top of that, I've seen my harddrive asking for more space. So I thought it was time to look into an external.

One thing I've mentioned here before, I would advise partitioning your external drive when you get it. I have mine partitioned in three - a large 450GB HFS+ partition for backups music and video, a 30GB HFS+ partition with OS X installed as a backup in case anything happens (like when my wife's MacBook HD failed), and a 20GB FAT32 partition for when I have my work laptop home.

As for the above slightly .

THANKS for replying

 

[HelixOmnimedia]

Hello,

I've ordered the External HDD, the Western Digital one mentioned above.

I've just a quick questions about using it with iTunes.

If I move all my Movies, and the TV Shows which I've downloaded onto the external drive. When it's not plugged in, do the items still appear in iTunes?

THANKS

EDIT
I should have asked this first:
Can I put some of the Movies and TV Shows onto the external HDD and still have the music and the ones I want to watch remain on my PowerBook - so i can watch them when I'm traveling?
If so how would i go about setting it up to work like this?

Thanks

 

[combatcolin]

Lacie Triple Interface.

FW 800 is of course the fastest, every Mac has normal Firewire 400 and almost every home electronic consumer device has USB.

I bought mine when i was looking seriously into buying a Powermac G5, of course now that fad is dead i still use normal Firewire on my PC and i of course have USB 2 when i take the whole drive round a friends house.

 

[HelixOmnimedia]

Hello,

Can I put some of the Movies and TV Shows onto the external HDD and still have the music and the ones I want to watch remain on my PowerBook - so i can watch them when I'm traveling?
If so how would i go about setting it up to work like this?

If I move some or all my Movies, and the TV Shows which I've downloaded onto the external drive. When it's not plugged in, do the items still appear in iTune? But can't be accessed unless its plugged in.

THANKS

Ok, First of all I hate bumping threads, and I know other people do to. SO SORRY.

But can anyone answer my questions (quoted above), I just can't figure out how to do it?
I'm currently backing up my whole iTunes library to Data DVDs just encase I do something wrong.

THANKS AGAIN

 

[combatcolin]

If you have you iTunes library on an external drive that drive needs to be POWERED and CONNECTED to your computer in order for iTunes to work.
(Don't you just love BOLDING things? )

I used to dismount my ext Lacie at 1st when i wasn't using it, but after a while i gave up, mount the drive again as too slow and noisy.

The power saving on a modern drive will mean its spins down when not used, so it dosn't use that much juice.

 

[HelixOmnimedia]

If you have you iTunes library on an external drive that drive needs to be POWERED and CONNECTED to your computer in order for iTunes to work.
(Don't you just love BOLDING things? )

I used to dismount my ext Lacie at 1st when i wasn't using it, but after a while i gave up, mount the drive again as too slow and noisy.

The power saving on a modern drive will mean its spins down when not used, so it dosn't use that much juice.

There is nothing on the external drive.
I don't know how to just move the bulk of my movies and tv shows but leaving unwatched episodes and the whole music library on the powerbook - so i can still listen to and watch the unwatched episode when i'm away from the external drive.
Can iTunes be set up that way? Or does everything need to be on the external drive?

THANKS

 

[Case-sensitive]

I don't think iTunes will do that for you.

In the preference pane of iTunes go to Advanced: General and you'll see an option for choosing your iTunes music folder location. Here you can specify which folder you want iTunes to use. You will have to set up the individual folders manually but when it's done you can switch between 'new' 'unwatched' 'archived' or whatever categories of media you have set up and these can be on whatever drives you want.

 

[redAPPLE]

firewire, of course.

 

[tivoboy]

how

One thing I've mentioned here before, I would advise partitioning your external drive when you get it. I have mine partitioned in three - a large 450GB HFS+ partition for backups music and video, a 30GB HFS+ partition with OS X installed as a backup in case anything happens (like when my wife's MacBook HD failed), and a 20GB FAT32 partition for when I have my work laptop home.

what is the best way to go about doing this? I have a 500GB external I built, but would like to make 300gb for the MAC HFS and 200 (or whatever is LEFT) for a PC world.