Too little hard drive space to go around

[SophiaViolet]

I have over 300GB of iTunes movies on my 500GB MacBook Pro hard drive. This paired with apps, music, and documents leaves me with 10GB of free space left. I'm looking to relocate my iTunes movie collection somewhere other then my hard drive (freeing up precious space), but I am worried that it will make it difficult/impossible to view those movies.

Does anybody have any suggestions? External hard drive? Mini mac? Bigger hard drive?

Thank you for your help!

A

 

[AlphaDogg]

If I were in the same situation as you, I would go for a 1tb+ hard drive. I just can't rely on something outside of my computer. I don't want to have to grab an external hard drive just to listen to my iTunes. If I want to listen to music on the go, I don't want there to be a possibility that I could forget the external hard drive. I want to be able to do whatever I want on my computer without having to rely on bringing something else with me (other than the power cord... Well even then, I wish it was integrated into the computer ). Just get a 1tb HDD for your MBP, install OS X, migrate all your data and forget about it.

Hope I helped

 

[treestar]

1. External HDD
2. Internal HDD
3. Network Attached Storage

I don't see why you need to carry 300 GB of movies everywhere, so I'd suggest an external HDD, FW based and bus powered. The new fad is to put small SSDs in a MBP and use an MCE OptiBay, OWC Data Doubler, or an external drive. I don't know what your budget is, but those are things you should consider before jumping on a new 1 TB internal that doesn't fit in your future plans. Still, I don't think a 1 TB internal is a bad idea.

I found myself listening to a lot less music when I stopped storing my library on my MBP. That sucked.

And the Mac mini is not cost effective in the least. A time capsule would be better.

 

[jbyun04]

Go for an SSD + 1TB HDD combo! You'll love it.

 

[velocityg4]

I'm all for the 1TB replacement as well. Just get the drive and a cheapo USB external enclosure to temporarily place the 1TB drive in. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the 500GB on the the 1TB drive. Once it is done just shutdown your Mac and pop the 1TB in.

You can find all the installation guides you need at iFixit. They will also list any tools you will need. Which is usually just a precision screwdriver for a hard drive other parts usually require a Torx and occasionally some specialty tool.

For hard drives this Samsung has the best customer reviews on Newegg. If you are willing to spend extra this Seagate is a much faster drive at 7,200RPM.

If you wanted to add some pep to your Macbook. You could replace your current drive with an SSD for your Apps and booting. Then replace your DVD drive with an Optibay knockoff to install a 1TB drive for storage. This is quite a bit more involved but the end result will be a much peppier computer.