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gnychis

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 24, 2009
399
2
What external hard drives is everyone using with their air? I am planning on getting an Air, but the 128GB will simply not suffice, and I do not want to pay $300 for double the space on an SSD, and I do not want the weight of a Macbook Pro. So, I am looking to get an external hard drive for time machine and everything. I do not know of any major thunderbolt drives out yet, does anyone? Also, the air only seems to have USB 2.0.
 
What external hard drives is everyone using with their air? I am planning on getting an Air, but the 128GB will simply not suffice, and I do not want to pay $300 for double the space on an SSD, and I do not want the weight of a Macbook Pro. So, I am looking to get an external hard drive for time machine and everything. I do not know of any major thunderbolt drives out yet, does anyone? Also, the air only seems to have USB 2.0.

There are no consumer Thunderbolt drives out yet (just a $2000 RAID tower). The Air is USB 2.0, so USB 2.0 drives are your only options for now. That may change over the next 6 months now that the entire Mac line (apart from the Mac Pro) has Thunderbolt ports.
 
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If you want something that works across the network instead of USB, you can always look into a NAS.

WD makes the My Book Live which is easy enough. I wanted something more robust, so I bought a Synology DS211j. I will use it to serve all my photos and put my iTunes library on there. Takes two drives so the data is protected in case one drive crashes.
 
I have the Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1TB (silver - no fingerprints like the glossy black ones). The price fluctuates for the silver every now and then. I was able to get mine for $85. Note that this is the newer USB 3.0/2.0 version.

Don't let the "Mac" version of these hard drives fool you. They all work on the Mac. The "Mac" versions are sometimes more expensive.

If you're in a PC and Mac environment like I am, I'd suggest using Disk Utility (Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility) and format the hard drive as exFat. This gives you native read/write support on Mac OS X 10.6.5 and above, as well as Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 (and higher), and Windows XP SP3 with a Microsoft provided update. I believe the Xbox 360 can read it as well.

All the current Macs can't take advantage of the USB 3.0 speeds, but the PCs I use do. There may be a future option for a Thunderbolt->USB 3.0 dongle. Since you can find the USB 3.0/2.0 drives just as cheap as the USB 2.0 drives, I suggest going for the newer USB 3.0/2.0 ones.
 
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I just bought the Buffalo Couldstor 2TB drive which uses PogoPlug to create a media library available to all of my families iPad's and all of our laptops, including my new Air (which I LOVE). Its the reason I didn't spend the money on the 256 GB drive. I will store my entire iTunes library on it so I can have it anywhere I go.

If I am anywhere without internet access, the world has ended, so I thought it was a good move.
 
Shame my nice new USB3 2.5" enclosure will be to waste when used with the Air :(

Hopefully someone will come out with a Thunderbolt -> USB3 adapter.
 
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