I think I'll be buying one of the two drives later today and I don't know which is better. I've read that the Western Digital one has troubles with getting power from a single USB port, but it's also smaller and I think it looks a lot nicer. The Seagate has a longer warranty, and includes a cable with 2 USB ports on the end for data and power. (Neither have a port for a power adapter) So which one is overall better?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Seagate 160GB FreeAgent Go Portable or Western Digital 160GB Passport?
- Thread starter Mammoth
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I have the 160 GB western digital passport, and I have had absolutely ZERO problems with it. It's ultra portable, compact, has great transfer speeds, and has been really reliable so far. No power problems that I can think of. Plus, it looks great too.
If it does come formatted NTFS (Windows-only), then it's not terribly difficult to format it as FAT32 (Windows and OS X compatible) in either Disk Utility or Windows.
hmmm that fat32 could be a problem as my music folder is 64gigs to date. Is there any software out there that would let me put that large of a folder in there. Would I be able to play my music directly from the drive so I can save 60+ gigs of space on my MBP.
A lot of people have complained specifically about problems with using them with laptops. Does your MBP handle it well?
Actually, I've had zero problems running it with my MacBook Pro. I've done some rather large transfers too, so personally I feel I've put my passport through the ringer.
Performance with the MacBook? No idea. But it works great with my MBP.
Performance with the MacBook? No idea. But it works great with my MBP.
My computer HD was practically full when i first got my passport, so the performance was completely lagging. My ibook g4 1.2ghz froze a couple of times tranferring large groups of movies to friends ipods (hope the mpaa isn't reading) and this caused the passport to crash as well... losing several hours of files to corruption. This was really frustrating because handbrake runs deathly slow on my machine and it was an all day thing to rip each movie.
Since i've had my ibook performing well, the passport has been excellent too.
My passport does have an AC outlet on it, is this something they have cut out of later models? (this is the 80 gig purple and silver)
I use my passport to serve up pretty high bitrate .mp4s to my xbox 360 as well. It is great for that.
I absolutely love my passport, as does my dad who has his own.
I plan on buying another as soon as i need one with larger capacity.
Since i've had my ibook performing well, the passport has been excellent too.
My passport does have an AC outlet on it, is this something they have cut out of later models? (this is the 80 gig purple and silver)
I use my passport to serve up pretty high bitrate .mp4s to my xbox 360 as well. It is great for that.
I absolutely love my passport, as does my dad who has his own.
I plan on buying another as soon as i need one with larger capacity.
At Compusa?
I'll have to make a trip to my local one (if it is still open and if they have anything)
I believe you need access to a Windows machine, as Disk Utility does not want to touch NTFS formatted drives or partitions.
Western Digital
I had a 120 GB Western Digital passport drive which just wouldn't work on my 2003 Al Powerbook G4. Apparently they draw 500 Ma and a Powerbook can only supply 350 Ma (or something like that) and you can't easily buy the required dual USB cable. In the end I got a Formac one that comes with a dual USB cable and also has firewire and a AC input. I formated it to FAT32 and it works fine to transfer between my Mac (by firewire) and my PC (single USB)
I had a 120 GB Western Digital passport drive which just wouldn't work on my 2003 Al Powerbook G4. Apparently they draw 500 Ma and a Powerbook can only supply 350 Ma (or something like that) and you can't easily buy the required dual USB cable. In the end I got a Formac one that comes with a dual USB cable and also has firewire and a AC input. I formated it to FAT32 and it works fine to transfer between my Mac (by firewire) and my PC (single USB)
Thats a bummer
I'm going to guess that it would have the same effect on my PB.
I can confirm that. My 2005 1.5GHz 15" powerbook couldn't power the passport either.