I need more hard drive space. What's the best way to go about installing more on my 2006 iMac? I've heard it's hard to do internally. If I get an external hard drive and put my movies on it, would I have to bring it back to the internal hard drive to view it? I really need a continuation of my internal hard drive. How should I do this?
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More Hard Drive Space
- Thread starter soccersquirt82
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an internal HD will always run faster than an external, generally speaking. Though if you are using USB 2.0 or FireWire for the external there shouldn't be much of a problem. And even if you do have to transfer the movie from the external to the iMac, that'll only take about a minute. I can't imagine it would be much bother.
you can replace the internal on an iMac (I think it's actually a little easier to work on an iMac than a Mini), though it's not something you'd want to do if you haven't done that kind of thing before.
In an external, I always have to keep moving the files back and forth. I would love to do it internally, but I've only done that on a PC before.
Don't worry, Invest in a 1tb external HDD connect via firewire, it'll work ok, just choose what movies you wanna watch, drop in you movies file and watch, you would be amazed just how much can be stored on a 1tb drive.
Get an external. Make sure you invest in a Firewire drive enclosure, it will have a more consistent data throughput than an USB overall.
Unfortunately there's no eSATA on Mac's because it's getting harder to find good firewire enclosures that don't cost an arm and a leg, because more and more enclosures are being made with eSATA.
Another thing with Firewire is you should spend the money on an enclosure that uses a quality chipset, such as an Oxford Chipset. Generally regarded to work the best with Mac hardware.
http://macally.com/EN/Product/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=216
Something like that would be great.
Then throw one of these in there:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152100
or if you want 1tb find one online and just buy it OEM.
This is also another good option for the price:
http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=41205571&source=k9470&source=k24799
Unfortunately there's no eSATA on Mac's because it's getting harder to find good firewire enclosures that don't cost an arm and a leg, because more and more enclosures are being made with eSATA.
Another thing with Firewire is you should spend the money on an enclosure that uses a quality chipset, such as an Oxford Chipset. Generally regarded to work the best with Mac hardware.
http://macally.com/EN/Product/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=216
Something like that would be great.
Then throw one of these in there:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152100
or if you want 1tb find one online and just buy it OEM.
This is also another good option for the price:
http://www.ecost.com/detail.aspx?edp=41205571&source=k9470&source=k24799
Wow! Thanks so much. Just a couple of questions:
-Should I put all my files on the external?
-If I want to view a movie that's on the external, would I have to bring it to the internal HD before I can view it? How long would this take if using firewire?
-I have a 500GB Western Digital external for Time Machine. Can I partition it without losing all my Time Machine Backups? (Leopard, 2006 iMac)
-Should I put all my files on the external?
-If I want to view a movie that's on the external, would I have to bring it to the internal HD before I can view it? How long would this take if using firewire?
-I have a 500GB Western Digital external for Time Machine. Can I partition it without losing all my Time Machine Backups? (Leopard, 2006 iMac)