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Need external hard drive and spekers, HELP!!!!

londonmystery

londonmystery

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 1, 2009
483
14
London, UK
Thanks in advance to all who answer.

I am a new user to Mac computers and need a little help. I need an external hard drive and a decent set of speakers for my 13" MBP. Hard drive will primarily be used for storing photos from Canon 450D, Hi Def video from Panasonic HDC HS9, music and all my course work.

I have £200 - £250 to spend combined at the moment.

Thanks again for any help.:):)
 
Help Yourself and Search!!!

Seriously these are two of the most talked about discussions on here...

As for the Hard Drive:
Obviously you are going to want a Firewire Drive given the media...

If you are looking for a specific brand, Western Digital is sorta the brand iThink that most people first look into it, and they are fairly cheap, have a decent warranty, a lot of options, etc and would be my recommendation if you have no clue.

A couple of other notes: Firewire is not needed, but better, if you are solely backing-up say via Time Machine, it prbly is not necessary. I'd stick to a powered drive. Remember that the disk speed is important, but the cache can often hinder performance. Building your own will likely be cheaper, but some chose not to go that route.

Everyone has their own experiences, but I imagine that most of them are positive. Sure, there are these threads about how person x's drive failed and person y wouldn't buy anything but them. I own three drives that there are plenty of horror stories about.

No one would ever post: "I love my Western Digital 1TB Drive", unless someone posts a horror story about one. Companies ship tons of drives daily, not everyone will be perfect.

The best advice is to find one that has a good warranty and excellent customer service. And then avoid reading these threads so you don't lose any sleep.

Or you could be OCD, anal and paranoid like me and have two back-up drives...

1TB is prbly a good size to start at it, I would say most people looking for non-mobile externals start at that size, here is a recent thread about that...
More literature found here.
Here, is another thread on 1TB Hard Drives
This one is about LaCie...
Here is another, there is some more discussion about LaCie in there...
Here is one on USB 1TB, I'd stick to Firewire...
And if all else fails, MRoogle


Speakers Discussions Are Rampant:
Here is one thread for $100 USD. Good Discussion.
USB Speaker Discussion Here
Here is another discussion
Wireless Thread Here...although it diverged.
2.0 DiscussionHere
$200 DiscussionHere
 
thegoldenmackid said:
1TB is prbly a good size to start at it, I would say most people looking for non-mobile externals start at that size, here is a recent thread about that...
More literature found here.
Here, is another thread on 1TB Hard Drives
This one is about LaCie...
Here is another, there is some more discussion about LaCie in there...
Here is one on USB 1TB, I'd stick to Firewire...
And if all else fails, MRoogle


Speakers Discussions Are Rampant:
Here is one thread for $100 USD. Good Discussion.
USB Speaker Discussion Here
Here is another discussion
Wireless Thread Here...although it diverged.
2.0 DiscussionHere
$200 DiscussionHere
Click to expand...

Thank you for these links.
 
thegoldenmackid said:
Help Yourself and Search!!!

Seriously these are two of the most talked about discussions on here...

As for the Hard Drive:
Obviously you are going to want a Firewire Drive given the media...

If you are looking for a specific brand, Western Digital is sorta the brand iThink that most people first look into it, and they are fairly cheap, have a decent warranty, a lot of options, etc and would be my recommendation if you have no clue.

A couple of other notes: Firewire is not needed, but better, if you are solely backing-up say via Time Machine, it prbly is not necessary. I'd stick to a powered drive. Remember that the disk speed is important, but the cache can often hinder performance. Building your own will likely be cheaper, but some chose not to go that route.

Everyone has their own experiences, but I imagine that most of them are positive. Sure, there are these threads about how person x's drive failed and person y wouldn't buy anything but them. I own three drives that there are plenty of horror stories about.

No one would ever post: "I love my Western Digital 1TB Drive", unless someone posts a horror story about one. Companies ship tons of drives daily, not everyone will be perfect.

The best advice is to find one that has a good warranty and excellent customer service. And then avoid reading these threads so you don't lose any sleep.

Or you could be OCD, anal and paranoid like me and have two back-up drives...

1TB is prbly a good size to start at it, I would say most people looking for non-mobile externals start at that size, here is a recent thread about that...
More literature found here.
Here, is another thread on 1TB Hard Drives
This one is about LaCie...
Here is another, there is some more discussion about LaCie in there...
Here is one on USB 1TB, I'd stick to Firewire...
And if all else fails, MRoogle


Speakers Discussions Are Rampant:
Here is one thread for $100 USD. Good Discussion.
USB Speaker Discussion Here
Here is another discussion
Wireless Thread Here...although it diverged.
2.0 DiscussionHere
$200 DiscussionHere
Click to expand...

Lmao another thread just like yesterday :D
To the OP, you should get a 1TB Western Digital Hard Drive and Logitech z4 Speakers.
 
I want to build my own enclosure and choose proper hard drives. Any tutorials? I followed all of thegoldenmackid's links and read the threads but there is no concrete recommendation.
 
miles01110 said:
Head over to newegg.com and navigate to the hard drive section. Read the reviews- newegg is pretty good at showing both sides of a particular drive.
Click to expand...

I do this everyday. I'm just trying to decide what's the best solution for my media only and then of course for my data. Should I have 2 drives then?
 
I have three LaCies and been satisfied with 'em. As for speakers, I have Logitech Z-10s but X230s are very tempting
 
I have the Iomega eGo Helium 500GB mostly because it comes formatted to HFS+ and it is the same style as the UMP's
 
By the way: you should definitely go for a Wester Digital drive.

Also as a tip: If you go for a 500GB/1TB Western Digital Essential be aware that _SOME_ people had issues but just in form that the power cable broke after couple of months but they will replace it in no time ;-)

Western Digital Rules!

-Val
 
chkdg8 said:
I do this everyday. I'm just trying to decide what's the best solution for my media only and then of course for my data. Should I have 2 drives then?
Click to expand...
Depends on what your needs are. Go to NewEgg, enclosures should be fairly easy, NewEgg does a good job of doing reviews, just make sure you don't cut corners too much by purchasing something with a tiny cache.

MacMini2009 said:
Do you have your posts saved on Pages or something? lol.
Click to expand...
Not yet, I do actually change them, as it would be double-posting if I did not. i also do tend to read what the OP is looking for and then make some suggestions.
 
Thanks for all the tips and info guys.
Will probably pick one up at the weekend along with a set of Harmon Kardon speakers.

Cheers again for all the help.:):)
 
thegoldenmackid said:
Depends on what your needs are. Go to NewEgg, enclosures should be fairly easy, NewEgg does a good job of doing reviews, just make sure you don't cut corners too much by purchasing something with a tiny cache.
Click to expand...
Well, here's the deal. I want to have a solid solution for all of my data on my mac and then I'm building a mac mini media center where I will be storing all of my HD video library so that's why I want to do my research now. I was looking at the Drobo but I heard that even at FW800, its writing speed is rather slow and 720p and 1080p video tends to skip at bit. If that's the case, I rather not go the Drobo route but then again I read great reviews as well.

As far as my imac is concerned, I don't think I'll need and external enclosure because I'm not looking to build on it. I just need it for Time Machine so a 1TB external should suffice. Once the Mini is set up, I'll be moving over my HD content to whatever you guys could recommend. Thank you for the advice thegoldenmackid!
 
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