What portable external hard drives are you using with your MBP?

[Mirabella]

I have a few Lacie Ruggeds and a bunch of Maxtors. None have given me any trouble, yet.

 

[techluvr]

i use a silver seagate freeagent go for time machine and media storage. looks nice with the mbp.

Same here. Wal-Mart FTW. $99 for 500GB

 

[monokakata]

Oyen Digital 2.5" FW800 enclosure, Seagate 7200.4 500 gb.

It's been working perfectly for about 10 months.

I also have a few Macally 2.5" FW400/USB enclosures with Seagate 500 gig 5400 drives in them, and they've been just fine also.

But the Oyen setup is noticeably faster.

 

[Dragonforce]

Did you uninstall the Western Digital software? And if so does the e-label still work?

I uninstalled the Virtual CD, the annoying thing that pops up every time you connect the HDD to the Mac.

The e-label DOES work without SmartWare, but you need it once to put your letters on the drive, then you may uninstall it. Unfortunately, if you uninstall it, the capacity gauge does not work anymore.

I personally have SmartWare still installed, its just a tiny app sitting on my hard drive that you don't have to use at all, and it doesn't bother me as it doesn't auto-start with the Mac or the HDD.

 

[dr4g0n]

I personally have SmartWare still installed, its just a tiny app sitting on my hard drive that you don't have to use at all, and it doesn't bother me as it doesn't auto-start with the Mac or the HDD.

No. It does auto-start. How would it update the capacity gauge if it wouldn't run in the background? 😱

 

[Dragonforce]

No. It does auto-start. How would it update the capacity gauge if it wouldn't run in the background? 😱

That is NOT SmartWare. SmartWare is that ugly GUI that sits in your applications folder. The installation puts 2 files in your /library/LaunchDeamons:

com.wdc.WDDMservice.plist

and

com.WesternDigital.WDSmartWareD.plist

If you call that auto-starting SmartWare, fine. But you won't notice it, and nothing pops up.

 

[fr4c]

LaCie Rugged.

 

[DoorMouse]

Seagate Freeagent Go- 500gb (silver). Small and portable, and matches my mbp (although i guess that isn't a big issue).

I use it for Time Machine and media (movies/tv shows etc). I only wish I had partitioned it before I let time machine reformat it completely- it would be so much easier if it could connect to my friends PCs.