Would you buy an external hard drive ???

[igmolinav]

Hi,

I have been thinking about buying an external hard drive. I started to think about it since I had started to burn the first few DVD´s with music files. As I am spending time here in Germany, my new friends have shared me with many of their audio books and music. I have in those first three DVD´s the equivalent to 12 GB plus like 10 GB more in itunes. The computer that I have is an ibook with a 60 GB hard drive.

The management of the music in the DVD´s is not as friendly as in the itunes folder but it is also not very troublesome, besides I have not had to spend yet the 150 on the new drive. I also got a DSLR, a Nikon D50 and will be taking many pictures of buildings. I don´t know if it´ll be really worth it to buy it. The model I saw was the La Cie Porsche 250 GB.

Please advise me, thank you very much in advance,

Ignacio.

 

[bigrell486]

Well, do you want to fumble with DVDs all the time that could get scratched up, or do you want everything in a faster, more easily accessable, higher storage capable, & more reliable drive?

I say go for the Hard Disk.

 

[Le Big Mac]

Well, do you want to fumble with DVDs all the time that could get scratched up, or do you want everything in a faster, more easily accessable, higher storage capable, & more reliable drive?

I say go for the Hard Disk.

Ditto that. If you're doing photos and have music, you'll need one eventually. Even sooner if you do video. If necessary, save up. The good thing is that storage is getting cheaper every day, so the longer you wait, the less it will cost.

 

[miles01110]

Do not buy a pre-made external hard drive, and if you ignore that piece of advice DO NOT buy LaCie. Western digital if you have to, but I wouldn't even recommend that.

IMO, your best bet is to buy an internal drive plus an enclosure. You'd probably be looking for a 3.5'' drive- I recommend Seagate. After you buy the enclosure, it takes all of 5 minutes to install the drive in the enclosure (you just have to take out a few screws, connect the cable, and re-screw the screws).

Taking this route is also much cheaper- I've saved 30-50% on drives buying internal + enclosure as opposed to pre-made external.

 

[Passante]

And don't forget an external drive for backups!

 

[inlimbo]

Do not buy a pre-made external hard drive, and if you ignore that piece of advice DO NOT buy LaCie. Western digital if you have to, but I wouldn't even recommend that.

IMO, your best bet is to buy an internal drive plus an enclosure. You'd probably be looking for a 3.5'' drive- I recommend Seagate. After you buy the enclosure, it takes all of 5 minutes to install the drive in the enclosure (you just have to take out a few screws, connect the cable, and re-screw the screws).

Taking this route is also much cheaper- I've saved 30-50% on drives buying internal + enclosure as opposed to pre-made external.

Ditto on that. Thats what I did. I got a larger drive and still saved a heap over the pre-made drives.

Get an external. Im so glad I did. It will be a perfect solution to your DVD problem.

p.s. and buy SuperDuper to run backups. It rocks!

 

[emotion]

Get an external.

I've got two Lacie's (D2 not the crappy Porsche ones) and contrary to the above I've had no probs at all.

edit: I should qualiify that external cases seem to be harder to get hold of and more expensive here in the UK). I'd like to be proven wrong though.

 

[bucho]

On a related note, can anyone tell me the advantages of going with firewire over USB2? I always get the impression that firewire is better, but haven't figured out why.

 

[emotion]

On a related note, can anyone tell me the advantages of going with firewire over USB2? I always get the impression that firewire is better, but haven't figured out why.

Better sustained (not peak) data rates.

 

[gnasher729]

On a related note, can anyone tell me the advantages of going with firewire over USB2? I always get the impression that firewire is better, but haven't figured out why.

One unexpected advantage could come if you use Windows using Parallels software: It seems that you can install Windows using Parallels on an external Firewire harddisk, but not on an external USB drive. (Well, you can install it on a USB drive, but it doesn't work...)

 

[inlimbo]

On a related note, can anyone tell me the advantages of going with firewire over USB2? I always get the impression that firewire is better, but haven't figured out why.

If u want to boot from the external you need FW. I have heard the speed difference between FW400 and FW800 is negligable. I went with a case with two FW 400 ports and a USB por (in case I want to hook it up to a PC). Picture here (post #5417)

 

[cuts]

Dont Buy La Cie

which ever option you choose, DON'T BUY LA CIE. their products are rubbish, and thier "support" is to simply brush off customers. there are many other brands to choose from. thats my opinion.

 

[MGLXP]

If u want to boot from the external you need FW. I have heard the speed difference between FW400 and FW800 is negligable. I went with a case with two FW 400 ports and a USB por (in case I want to hook it up to a PC). Picture here (post #5417)

While it is true you can only boot from an external Firewire drive on the PowerPC macs, with Intel-based macs you can boot from USB and Firewire drives. But I would get a firewire drive over a USB 2.0 drive since the real-world speed of Firewire is a lot higher than USB 2.0. Just as a side note, make sure you get a external firewire drive with a good firewire chipset (like the Oxford series) since Firewire can be quite flaky (and slower) with other lower quality chipsets.

 

[tech4all]

which ever option you choose, DON'T BUY LA CIE. their products are rubbish, and thier "support" is to simply brush off customers. there are many other brands to choose from. thats my opinion.

Couldn't disgree more. The power adapter on my LaCie d2 went bad, I emailed LaCie regarding the problem and filled out all the needed information and within a day or two they replied saying that they had shipped a new replacement power supply for it. Got it delivered, and worked great (and still is btw). In my experience, they have great customer service.

 

[uaaerospace]

You may wish to shop around for cases. Many will come with both USB 2.0 and Firewire. I got a case with both, and I use Firewire on my Mac. However, if I go to my Dell at home with only USB, I can use the drive. Two ports, a definite plus.

 

[CrackedButter]

If u want to boot from the external you need FW. I have heard the speed difference between FW400 and FW800 is negligable. I went with a case with two FW 400 ports and a USB por (in case I want to hook it up to a PC). Picture here (post #5417)

The difference between FW400 and FW800 is 400 megabits per second, hardly negligible.

Also to the person who rubbished Lacie external drives. I have 2 160GB drives and have never had a problem with either. I've also never heard anything negative from from anyone else either.

With regard to FW vs USB2. FW isn't as processor intensive either, so system performance won't be affected if your FW drive stalls. Unlike USB2 which doesn't have it own microprocessor, it being processor dependent. Think of it like a software modem compared to a hardware modem.