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Which external hard drive is best?

R

robstene

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 25, 2008
4
0
Hi,

I'm wanting to get he right external hard drive that will allow me not to worry when I am editing projects in Final Cut Express..

Can anyone recommend a good external hard drive...and any tips that I'll need to remember when installing it???

Many thanks..

Rob
 
I have three Wester Digital harddrives that works great. Buy a studio edition which has FireWire 400/800, USB2 and e-sata connections, and formatted to Mac OSX Journal right from the start.
 
I have a Lacie 500GB external that has FireWire 400/800, USB 2.0, and eSATA. I got it for about $130, and it was a great deal! I don't know how big you want it to be, but if you think 500GB will be enough, I would recommend this one (it also comes in 1TB and possibly 2TB but I don't remember).
 
I have (~2 years) a Seagate, 500 GB, with both USB and Firewire connections. Never had a problem.


Just as a hint: your colored font is almost impossible to see, at least for some of us old codgers. :D ;)
 
Here's another vote for WD. I have the my book studio edition and it worked great right out of the box.
 
And another vote for Western Digital (I have 2 X 320 GB Passport). Working very well and fast.

Ivan
 
WD, Seagate, LaCie, had them all, at least one of each broke.
So my lesson is: don't trust HDs.
Instead of having a big one, have more than one, so that one can back up the other. Taht, until you can afford a fast and bg enough SSD drive.

As to the connectivity, eSATA is technically the fastest thing but: does it run as nicely as firewire 400/800 when doing pro audio or video, or it's just a fast burst of data a la USB 2.0 ? Would like to know that.
 
i'm no on western digital. at least the my book home edition. had to force mount it due to "invalid content". now i'm in the process of evacuating 300 GBs of data from it so i can reformat. pain in the ass
 
WD.
I have a Western Digital Passport External Hard Drive 160GB.
It is amazing.
I have never had any problems with it.
Last year my mom got found it on Black Friday on sale for only $70.

Unfortunately I ran out of space so I'm most likely going to get a Western Digital Desktop External Hard Drive 640GB.

Whatever you do, don't get a Seagate.
There have been many problems with then lately.
 
Anyone heard anything about the Fantom green drives? I see they're beginning to appear on retailers sites more frequently now.
 
drewsof07 said:
Anyone heard anything about the Fantom green drives? I see they're beginning to appear on retailers sites more frequently now.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't recommend buying a drive that is new to the world and is just now starting to get popular.
If you're still interested in it, wait a few months and see the reviews.
If it just recently got out to retailers then give the drive some time to fail on it's buyers.
 
iParis said:
I wouldn't recommend buying a drive that is new to the world and is just now starting to get popular.
If you're still interested in it, wait a few months and see the reviews.
If it just recently got out to retailers then give the drive some time to fail on it's buyers.
Click to expand...

Yeah I was definitely going to wait a bit. Says its a "fanless system that uses around 40% less power than current models without sacrificing performance"...
The prices are very competitive though, and I'm all for quieter externals, AND a cheaper electric bill (even if it is pennies).
 
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