MBP MID 2010 and external drive

[gonca]

Hi guys,

My internal HD already has limited space so I want to buy a new external drive 3.5 or 2.5 with 3TB or 4TB (the laptop has 2.0 USB so I dont think it matters if the external drive has 2.0 or 3.0 connection. Pls correct me if I am wrong.)

My doubt is if HD movies will have lag/latency playing straight from this drive. It's quite important since I used it mainly as media center.

Thanks a ton.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

For future compatibility, get a USB 3.0 HDD. 2.5" HDDs are cut off at 2 TB currently and cost a lot more than a 2 TB 3.5" HDD.

As for what to get, it depends on your budget, but WD and Seagate and Toshiba HDDs are currently quite good. But since any HDD will fail at some point, you might invest into another HDD for backing up your important data.

As for playback, even USB 2.0 offers more than enough bandwidth for playing back compressed HD video.

 

[nebo1ss]

You will not have any problems with Lag/Latency. Most people keep their media separate because of size problems. i have 3 TB of Movies/TV/Music external.

 

[gonca]

You will not have any problems with Lag/Latency. Most people keep their media separate because of size problems. i have 3 TB of Movies/TV/Music external.

For future compatibility, get a USB 3.0 HDD. 2.5" HDDs are cut off at 2 TB currently and cost a lot more than a 2 TB 3.5" HDD.



As for what to get, it depends on your budget, but WD and Seagate and Toshiba HDDs are currently quite good. But since any HDD will fail at some point, you might invest into another HDD for backing up your important data.



As for playback, even USB 2.0 offers more than enough bandwidth for playing back compressed HD video.

Thanks!!

 

[brdeveloper]

Thanks!!

Does your MBP have firewire? Lacie sells USB3 + FW800 drives, like some models of the Lacie rugged. You'll get nearly twice the performance of USB2 -- or nearly the performance of your internal HDD. There are also FW800 enclosures sold by OWC I guess...

 

[marvin4653]

Hi guys,

My internal HD already has limited space so I want to buy a new external drive 3.5 or 2.5 with 3TB or 4TB (the laptop has 2.0 USB so I dont think it matters if the external drive has 2.0 or 3.0 connection. Pls correct me if I am wrong.)

My doubt is if HD movies will have lag/latency playing straight from this drive. It's quite important since I used it mainly as media center.

Thanks a ton.

You'd be fine even with a movie stored as an uncompressed Blu-Ray. Just do the math for something like the worst case scenario--a dual layer BD disc (50GB) filled to capacity with a movie with a run time of an hour and a half.

The maximum theoretical bandwidth (assuming no limitations from the BD format) would be 50GB x 1000 = 50,000 MB / 1.5 = 33,333 MB/hour / 3600 = 9.25 MB/s

Any USB 2.0 hard drive should have no problem sustaining that transfer rate.