looking for a external HardDrive

[BaBayOOsa]

I'm looking for something in the price range of 50$-80$. it doesn't need to be FireWire 400/800 or anything I'm fine with USB 2.0 it also doesn't need to be portable. it will just be sitting at my desk all the time.

now i would like the capacity to be from 500-1000 Gigs nothing less then 500 Gigs. the size isn't that big of a deal it could be pretty big for all i care it doesn't have to look nice or anything i don't need brushed aluminum or anything just so it gets the job done.

also i want it to come out of the box compatible with macs because i don't know how/want to reformat or have to do all that kind of stuff. if it needs a driver then thats fine.

so yeah any suggestions? (oh and it needs to be available from amazon.)

 

[DanielCoffey]

also i want it to come out of the box compatible with macs because i don't know how/want to reformat or have to do all that kind of stuff.

If you would like help formatting a drive for your Mac in an easy to understand way (along the lines of click this, type that then click the other) I am sure we would be more than happy to oblige - just let us know when you have got the drive and you won't have to limit your choices so much.

 

[b-rad g]

Why don't you just use Amazon's own search feature?

 

[BaBayOOsa]

so i take it as formatting a drive isn't to difficult? does it require any thing other then the drive to get it done?

 

[reebzor]

so i take it as formatting a drive isn't to difficult? does it require any thing other then the drive to get it done?

Plug the drive in
Open Disk Utility (Applications->Utilities)
Select the drive in the left hand side
Click the Partition tab
Slect how many partitions you want the drive to be (You will likely only want 1 partition)
Make sure the type is set to HFS and you are good to go.

 

[blevins321]

I would suggest a bare drive. Too many drives these days are starting to come with B/S software included on a flash memory partition that you can't remove. Western Digital Essential, Seagate Passport are two good drives that come to mind that don't force their software down your throat.

 

[talmy]

I strongly agree with getting bare drives and putting them in a case, or at least buying a drive+case where the drive is replaceable (like the ones sold by OWC). They are taking too many design shortcuts to get the prices down on these consumer grade external drives and the quality is suffering.

The downside is you often pay as much for the bare drive as drive in an enclosure, and you still have to buy the enclosure.

 

[Trainwreck707]

Plug the drive in
Open Disk Utility (Applications->Utilities)
Select the drive in the left hand side
Click the Partition tab
Slect how many partitions you want the drive to be (You will likely only want 1 partition)
Make sure the type is set to HFS and you are good to go.

If you don't need partitions, just click erase instead of partition.

Using the partition option and only choosing 1 gives me a strange extra partition each time. What is Microsoft Reserved?

 

[blevins321]

If you don't need partitions, just click erase instead of partition.

Using the partition option and only choosing 1 gives me a strange extra partition each time. What is Microsoft Reserved?

That might be a hidden uneraseable partition that the drive manufacturer put on there for their auto-installing software. If you can return that drive, do it.

 

[Trainwreck707]

That might be a hidden uneraseable partition that the drive manufacturer put on there for their auto-installing software. If you can return that drive, do it.

That partition is not there when using erase rather than partition. I have formatted several drives as one partition and they all ended up with the same small extra Microsoft Reserved partition. After, all were reformatted using erase (except this one) and the Microsoft Reserved partition was gone. It is definitely added during the formatting process.

Do any of you who formatted as one partition see the same?

 

[reebzor]

Do any of you who formatted as one partition see the same?

I always format as one partition and I have never seen that. Are you formatting the drive HFS+ or FAT?

 

[shaun319]

i have been using a seagate free agent go for the last 2 years and it has worked perfectly

 

[talmy]

Microsoft Reserved looks like about 134MB out of 1TB, or a loss of 0.0134%. If you paid, say, $100 for the drive, that would be like losing about a penny.

Not worth being concerned about!

 

[Trainwreck707]

I always format as one partition and I have never seen that. Are you formatting the drive HFS+ or FAT?

HFS+

I just formatted an old drive using one partition and did not get that Microsoft Reserved partition.

The drives this occured on were standard WD internals (500 GB & 1 TB) that came formatted as NTFS I assume. I reformatted using one partition and that mysterious partition appeared. Could it be that reformatting as one partition did not erase all of the preloaded data on the drive while using erase to format did? These are very common drives, so if this was preloaded there would be others here seeing the same thing.

Not worried...just curious!