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Reccomends - external Hard Drive?

bluetooth

bluetooth

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 1, 2007
662
1
Toronto
Shopping around for an external har drive. I am looking for something in the area of 100GB - 160GB. Mainly for backup and transport.

I have read a lot of bad reviews regarding Lacie so I am starting to shy away from that brand.

I have read some good reviews on the SmartDisk FireLite 100GB Portable FW400 Hard Drive. The only negative comments I have read are that it is relatively fragile due to its small size.

Any experiences or reccomends out there?
 
bluetooth said:
I have read some good reviews on the SmartDisk FireLite 100GB Portable FW400 Hard Drive. The only negative comments I have read are that it is relatively fragile due to its small size.
Click to expand...

I have three FirelLite drives (USBFLB80) and I've been banding them together (not while running!) in my backpack for about a year. No problems at all. The discs inside are Toshiba and (I think) Hitachi. I'd buy this brand again. Yes.
 
I am really a fan of the Western Digital MyBook Pro. It's a really nice drive. Gives you USB2.0 and firewire 400/800. THe 1TB version that I have can get a little loud but the 160G-500G versions don't have any fans. I used to have a few Lacie, but after the controller boards went out Lacie refused to do anything about it, even though I still had 4 months of warranty left. To me that was unacceptable.
 
The My Book series is excellent.

The Pro line is the same as the standard one, but you're paying more for the disk utilities that come with it -- I think there's some backup and configuration stuff. It isn't really necessary if you know how to format drives and back up by yourself.
 
you can always build your own. I have a 320gb external running on firewire. It is a seagate w/ 16mb cache and all, 3.5" in a vantech (nexstar 2 firewire/usb) enclosure. Cheaper than the pre-built boxes.:) Fast and cheap.
Just a thought.
 
synth3tik said:
I am really a fan of the Western Digital MyBook Pro. It's a really nice drive. Gives you USB2.0 and firewire 400/800.
Click to expand...

I have a 500GB WD and it works well so far. Just two months old. :D Firewire 800 is MUCH faster than USB (especially on Macs!). It's about $230 at Buy.com right now. :p
 
Smart disk FireLite

I would not recommend the Smartdisk Firelite external hard drive. I'm in the process of trying to get files of mine. I've been told that it's fired, but I'm not giving up, however, I won't buy another one. I have an IMAC (1 year old) at home, the drive was working on friday, however, I brought the drive to work on Monday to transfer files, and the drive would not mount, brought it back home, and it would not mount at home either. I lost a few freelance jobs that I backed-up on it, and a ton of home photos and misc personal stuff.
 
I have 2 WD MyBook Studio Drives that I'm very pleased with. You can get a 500GB drive in the $135-160 range or a 750GB for $160-190 range and they are formatted for the Mac and come with USB/FW400/FW800/ESata Options.

WD made a 320GB version of the MyBook Studio but I have not seen them in stores in a while.
 
cybermar said:
I would not recommend the Smartdisk Firelite external hard drive.
Click to expand...

Well, I have three and have never had a problem with them while using my Mac. I have an older Alienware that must not deliver enough energy through USB because it powers on and of and on and off enough to make it sound like it is crashing. But formatted for Mac it works with out issues. Strange.

I will say that I have had two WD drives die on me in just a few months. One completely died (HD is DEAD) and the other (that I mentioned in one of the posts above) had the Firewire controller die. The USB works but the Firewire died. WD drives are a POS! :mad:
 
Thanks for the recommendations.

I'm looking at a couple of models on the MyBook website and I'm a little confused. Is an Ethernet connection better/the same than/as Firewire? They seem to be about the same in price but the World edition only has Ethernet whereas the Studio version uses Firewire/USB/eSATA... :confused:

I'm leaning towards the Ethernet edition simply because the Firewire one comes pre-formatted for Mac but I'd like to use this thing with a PC as well.

Thanks, guys.
 
i didn't want to deal with an external power source

i also wanted to have some mobile storage.

i opted for WD My Passport 320GB

i have a 240GB partition for my time machine backup
and an 80GB Fat32 partition to store / transfer files from mac/win
 
Does the eHd have to be in a mac format? can i use it with both mac and pc at the same time?
without deleting the content everytime. thanks
 
gorebeast said:
i didn't want to deal with an external power source

i also wanted to have some mobile storage.

i opted for WD My Passport 320GB

i have a 240GB partition for my time machine backup
and an 80GB Fat32 partition to store / transfer files from mac/win
Click to expand...

Good choice. I have a WD 2T disk, 500 and 2 passports. Very happy with them all.
I talked to the guy at my camera rental house and he told me they have the most trouble with LaCie and Maxtor disks
 
You say you're looking at 100-160. I'd get one at least twice the size of my hd if I were you. Secondly, I bought a WD 1TB for $180.
:)
 
I have a Simpletech portable drive that works really well. They're small and look nice and are cheaper than brands like WD, definitely worth looking into.
 
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