I am in a bit of a pickle whether to buy an internal or external harddrive. I am running out of space in both Vista and my mac partition and need the extra space. Which would be the better and more future proof option?
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Internal or external harddrive?
- Thread starter gadgetgirl85
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what computer do you have? if it's the mini in your sig, i suggest getting an external firewire. you can't get many (any?) high capacity internal 2.5" hard drives very cheap. although, is it possible to boot into windows from an external?
Futureproof: An external. You can get bigger, faster, cheaper and use it on your next machine when you replace this one.
Convenient: On a laptop, an internal (unless you are willing to leave some of your stuff at home when you take the portable outside).
other world computing has a toshiba 200 gb 4200 rpm hard drive for $170 and a western digital 250 gb 5400 rpm for $280. you might be able to find them for less at newegg, but installing a hard drive on a macbook pro isn't for the faint of heart. i think it even voids your warranty (if it hasn't already expired). so if you're comfortable with opening up your macbook pro, i say go for the internal. otherwise, get an external.
It will work fine on OSX.
Vista.....well, it's Vista. Need I say more? If you format the HD for FAT32 you should be fine though. FAT32 is what you'll want since it's the only filesystem both Windows and OSX can read and write to. Macs can only read NTFS, and Windows can't do a thing with HFS except whine and tell you to format it to something else.
Vista.....well, it's Vista. Need I say more? If you format the HD for FAT32 you should be fine though. FAT32 is what you'll want since it's the only filesystem both Windows and OSX can read and write to. Macs can only read NTFS, and Windows can't do a thing with HFS except whine and tell you to format it to something else.
The reason I was thinking internal was because Leopard might take up a lot of space and it just seems easier to have it internally? I have a mac mini that I suppose I could back files up to. I really dont know what to do 
I just havent space to install my programs or files because Im so low on space
I just havent space to install my programs or files because Im so low on space
Despite advice I think I might go a 160GB harddrive. I think having an 80GB split each way would be enough plus I could back up my files onto my mac mini?
i have an external 500GB maxtor for my G5 and it cant be recognized on a windows xp computer. i dunno about vista but if you format it for mac as far as i knew you couldnt use it for both. how exactly do you format it for FAT32?
For a MB external drives are getting cheap. i'd consider one of those especially since, like a previous post mentioned, you can take it when you switch computers in the future.
Ok I've decided to go internal. But I was told that somehow my old harddrive can be made into a backup drive?
It can if you get an external enclosure for it. Get one for a 2.5" SATA hard drive.