Regarding External HDs

[Andy348]

I was looking to get something like a 500GB external drive for Christmas until I thought of something... I've got a decent gaming PC just sitting around that I never use. If I took that 250GB HD and bought an enclosure, could I use that as an external drive? Could I boot my PC off of it (wishful thinking!)? If not, what would I need to format it into?

Thanks!

 

[miles01110]

Yes it would work if you pulled it out and stuck it in an enclosure. Not sure if you could boot the PC from it, but I don't really know about that.

You'll have to have the drive formatted as Mac OS Extended Journaled if you'll be using it as a Mac-only external drive (for storage or Time Machine) or NTFS if you want both your mac and PC to read it. With NTFS you need something like Macfuse so the Mac can read it.

 

[thunderboltspro]

I was looking to get something like a 500GB external drive for Christmas until I thought of something... I've got a decent gaming PC just sitting around that I never use. If I took that 250GB HD and bought an enclosure, could I use that as an external drive? Could I boot my PC off of it (wishful thinking!)? If not, what would I need to format it into?

Thanks!

firewire would be the way to go, I think usb would be to slow.

 

[Badger^2]

booting with USB is fine.

Using it via USB2 will be fine as well, unless you are planning on using on a regular basis for disk intensive work.

If you just need more storage, then I would just drop a new drive into your Macbook.

320 gig 5400 RPM drives are plenty cheap, starting at $60 (or spend another $15 and get 7200 rpm http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc= ), and would give you 3X the space you have now, and are super simple to install. 8 year old could do it.

need more? 500 gigs runs $90. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

pickup a firewire 2.5" case for your original drive and use it for backup, tunes storage, etc, etc -- $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=