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What External Hard Drive should I get?

Mondays

Mondays

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 5, 2008
97
0
Illinois
I wasn't exactly sure where I should post this, but anyway. . .

I just ran out of space on my current external hard drive so I need to get a new one so I can back up everything on my mac.
My iMacs hard drive is 1 TB so I'm looking to get a hard drive of equal size, currently I still 838gigs left on my iMac so It's not like I'll be running out of space anytime soon.

I was looking at this,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148405

it has a $10 off promo and for $70 thats pretty good.

Anyone have any suggestions? or cons about this hard drive?

Just thought I'd ask for peoples thoughts before I make the purchase :)
 
I have a seagate 750gb external drive from about 3 years ago. I've had it networked on my AEBS for almost all of that time and **knock on wood** it hasn't had a problem yet. I paid almost twice that price. I think its a good product and you won't be disappointed.
 
I say put it together yourself and go with Firewire.

When you buy a bare drive, they typically come with 3 or 5 year warranties. Pre-built externals typically have 1 year warranties. Drives die far too frequently and easily nowadays and the extra warranty can prove useful.

USB speeds are horrible, at best. You won't be sorry going with Firewire.
 
As stated, make your own drive. More secure that way. Take a look at OWC, they have some cheaper FW800 enclosures than that Macally one. Not as good looking, but as effective.

I use a WD My Book Studio 1TB, but that's just because shipping one of those enclosures from the US was not worth it. :(
 
Yes, it's very easy. Once you have the enclosure and the drive, just plug the drive in to the connectors in the enclosure and screw everything in. Done.
 
pastrychef said:
Yes, it's very easy. Once you have the enclosure and the drive, just plug the drive in to the connectors in the enclosure and screw everything in. Done.
Click to expand...

Very cool, thanks.

I think the case and HDD I chose, linked above, are pretty solid choices so I'll be ordering those today most likely.
 
You might also consider something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=usb+sata+dock&x=0&y=0

Then buy one or more "bare drives" from the supplier of your choice.

You can then swap them out as needed.

The "docks" are very handy -- you can even boot from them when necessary.

Only serious limitation is that almost all of them are USB2 only. Other World Computing sells their "Voyager" dock in a version with USB2/firewire400/firewire800, but it's a little more money than the "USB2 only" docks.
 
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I am thinking of doing the same thing.
I need a 2tb drive. Any recommendations which to get? I intend to convert all my DVDs with Handbrake and store them on the new HDD. I already have a 1.5tb drive that I use with TimeMachine. This new one will have to be connected via USB as my iMac only has one Firewire port.

Hisdem said:
As stated, make your own drive. More secure that way. Take a look at OWC, they have some cheaper FW800 enclosures than that Macally one. Not as good looking, but as effective.(
Click to expand...

Something like this? http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEPM934Q1BOB/

or would I be better off with the Macally enclosure posted above? http://www.macally.com/EN/Product/ipod4show.asp?ArticleID=337

Any advice would be really appreciated.

thanks,
R ;)
 
rediffusion said:
I am thinking of doing the same thing.
I need a 2tb drive. Any recommendations which to get? I intend to convert all my DVDs with Handbrake and store them on the new HDD. I already have a 1.5tb drive that I use with TimeMachine. This new one will have to be connected via USB as my iMac only has one Firewire port.



Something like this? http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEPM934Q1BOB/

or would I be better off with the Macally enclosure posted above? http://www.macally.com/EN/Product/ipod4show.asp?ArticleID=337

Any advice would be really appreciated.

thanks,
R ;)
Click to expand...

Look for a Firewire enclosure that has two Firewire ports so that you can daisy chain devices. This way, you will still have an open Firewire port even if your external hard drive is already using the only port on your iMac.

USB is REALLY, REALLY slow.
 
pastrychef said:
Look for a Firewire enclosure that has two Firewire ports so that you can daisy chain devices. This way, you will still have an open Firewire port even if your external hard drive is already using the only port on your iMac.

USB is REALLY, REALLY slow.
Click to expand...

OK thanks, I didn't know that was possible. So do the two enclosures I linked above both allow this? What about the HD itself? Do I need a particular one to daisy-chain.
Sorry for the questions, I haven't done this before.
 
They both have two Firewire 800 ports so both can daisy chain.

It doesn't matter which hard drive you put in the enclosures. Just make sure they are SATA drives.
 
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As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Just to illustrate how badly USB2 sucks... One of the 1TB hard drives in my Mac Pro was starting to fail. So I decide to copy all the data (about 700GB) off it to another 1TB drive. I had the replacement drive in a USB2 dock. OS X estimated that it would take a whopping 18 hours to complete the copy!!

I decided to plug in a JMB360 based eSATA PCI-e card in to my Mac Pro. I replaced the failing drive while I was in there. Then, I plugged the failing drive to the eSATA card and started copying the data to replacement drive. OS X estimated 2 hours to finish!

USB2 is glacially slow. Thank goodness I didn't pay for this dock that I have (it was free with the purchase of a hard drive). I'm probably going to hack up this dock and bypass USB2 to convert it in to an eSATA dock.
 
pastrychef said:
Just to illustrate how badly USB2 sucks... One of the 1TB hard drives in my Mac Pro was starting to fail. So I decide to copy all the data (about 700MB) off it to another 1TB drive. I had the replacement drive in a USB2 dock. OS X estimated that it would take a whopping 18 hours to complete the copy!!

I decided to plug in a JMB360 based eSATA PCI-e card in to my Mac Pro. I replaced the failing drive while I was in there. Then, I plugged the failing drive to the eSATA card and started copying the data to replacement drive. OS X estimated 2 hours to finish!

USB2 is glacially slow. Thank goodness I didn't pay for this dock that I have (it was free with the purchase of a hard drive). I'm probably going to hack up this dock and bypass USB2 to convert it in to an eSATA dock.
Click to expand...
I hope you meant 700GB, instead of MB. Because 2 hours to copy 700MB is pretty :eek:
 
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