Western Digital External Hard Drives

[rgomes]

Hi!

I was looking for an external hard drive to backup my photos/music collection. I was hoping to stick with Western Digital in 1TB capacity.

Do I have to buy one of their hard drives that says specifically on the box "For MAC" or can I buy any Western Digital Hard Drive.

My concern is that it won't work with Time Machine.

My thinking is that it is only formatted for Apple. You can buy any external drive and format it for use on a mac?

Am I correct?

 

[Mac-Michael]

That's right, the only difference is the partition format. (and probably the color of the enclosure)

 

[spinnerlys]

You can buy any normal external HDD, even if no Mac OS X compatibility is spoken of, as you can simply format the external HDD via Disk Utility with the Mac OS Extended format.

Disk Utility guide: http://macs.about.com/od/applications/ss/diskutilformat.htm


File Systems: http://guides.macrumors.com/Drives_and_Filesystems

 

[mystikjoe]

That's right, the only difference is the partition format. (and probably the color of the enclosure)

you can format it any way you like!

 

[rgomes]

you can format it any way you like!

What do you think is better to go with? My Book or the My Book Studio? (Besides the Firewire port)

 

[mystikjoe]

What do you think is better to go with? My Book or the My Book Studio? (Besides the Firewire port)

if moving alot of files firewire will smoke usb.

 

[rgomes]

if moving alot of files firewire will smoke usb.

I don't think I'll be moving files around a lot....

Just for backup purposes. I'm a photographer so I'm dealing with .raw photo files of 15MB each usually...

Makes me wonder if it is worth the extra $$$ (to get the studio edition)

I can almost buy the regular version in the 2TB!!!

 

[farmermac]

I don't think I'll be moving files around a lot....

Just for backup purposes. I'm a photographer so I'm dealing with .raw photo files of 15MB each usually...

Makes me wonder if it is worth the extra $$$ (to get the studio edition)

I can almost buy the regular version in the 2TB!!!

If you are dealing with lots of those 15mb pictures, I'd shoot for the 2tb version

 

[discofuel]

I just bought the 1.5tb Western Digital Elements drive for $119 delivered - bargain!

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-External-WDBAAU0015HBK-NESN/dp/B002QEBMBY

If you're just using for a time machine backup drive USB will be more than adequate.

Very small too!

 

[undftd]

Can't go wrong with a Western Digital drive, and any normal one will do just need to format it. Do keep in mind that if you plan on transferring large files you may want to consider the WD MyBook Studio which has firewire 800 for a faster transfer. I recently got a WD MyBook Elite for $174CAD with tax which imo is a steal, but I'm considering returning it and get a MyBook Studio as I'm always transferring large video files on there.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Can't go wrong with a Western Digital drive, and any normal one will do"

Better check this thread first:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/873075/

 

[Cave Man]

I don't think I'll be moving files around a lot....

The other, and more important problem for you, is that USB consumes cpu cycles more than FW does, thus if your TM starts while you're editing images you'll lose cpu cycles to your hard drive that you wouldn't lose with a FW drive.

Makes me wonder if it is worth the extra $$$ (to get the studio edition)

I'm no fan of canned drives, and no fan of WD drives in particular. You should consider buying yourself an external enclosure, such as this Macally, and put in a Samsung eco drive, which runs cooler and is more energy efficient and won't be any slower than a 7200 rpm drive in an external enclosure.

The problem with canned drives is that when they fail you have to send the entire drive/enclosure in, even if the drive is fine and the controller has failed (which occurs more often in my experience). If you open it, you void the warranty. If you buy a separate enclosure and hard drive and a problem occurs, you can disassemble it to isolate the problem. If it's the enclosure's controller, then you don't lose any of your data on the hard drive - you just get the enclosure repaired or replaced..

I can almost buy the regular version in the 2TB!!!

Buy as much as you can.

 

[LucasLand]

Forget Wd

based on my experience, i wouldn't get one again. Bought one to store all my music. The thing died after a year. i lost all my music. If you get any HD to store your music, make sure you also back them up on DVD's.