WD Passport Essential SE questions...

[benmarian2000]

I bought a WD Passport Essential SE 1 TB yesterday.

It comes with some software, should I use it?

What about the "Turbo" software--useful or not?

Do I need to reformat the drive (it is a generic drive--not packaged specifically as for a Mac)?

If I need to reformat the drive:

1. what format should I chose?

2. does the disc utility allow you to compress the drive and if so should I partition the drive and compress only one partition?

3. would compression not be advised for music or photos?

I bought the drive as my 250GB internal HD was full and I like to keep a large # of pictures and music. Any particular thoughts regarding this?

Does Time Machine endlessly use up a hard drive with endless backups? I have read that some people will partition a drive to keep Time Machine from using all of an external drive.

Thank you for any thoughts and feedback!

Ben

 

[Hellhammer]

HFS+ (Mac OS Journaled) is the best format for OS X but it can also read/write FAT32 and NTFS (needs 3rd party app for NTFS).

I would give Time Machine something like 300GB and leave the rest for other stuff. When TM fills it's partition, it starts to delete backups from oldest to newest.

Use Disk Utility to partition and reformat the HD

 

[Hmac]

I never use the included software in those external HDD and flash memory sticks. First thing I do is use Disk Utility to erase and reformat them in FAT32.

 

[benmarian2000]

thank you

Thank you for your thoughts!