airport, time machine and final cut express

[TuffLuffJimmy]

I have a few questions. My main mac computer is a black core2duo 2.0GHz macbook with 2GB of ram. I was looking to get an airport extreme base station and hook a hard drive up to it. Any way my first question is what hard drive would be best for this, I'm looking to use the airport to back up with time machine and I had heard that the USB port on the back of the base station wasn't powerful enough to power many external hard drives; what would be the best hard drive for backing up? I was also looking into getting an external display for the macbook for use with final cut express. I was wondering if the poor Graphics card would be good enough for lighter final cut express usage while powering the external display. The display would be used as a second display not mirroring.

 

[Krevnik]

The USB port may not power (electrically) the drive, but most external hard drive enclosures include a power cable for the drive. So that shouldn't be an issue. Transfer speeds will be pretty poor, though... backups could easily take all night if you are doing video work.

As for Final Cut Express, it should be fine, I have used Express on a MacBook, and it does perform pretty well.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

thanks

thanks, I was pretty sure final cut would work fine. Now I just need to find a good hard drive, but I'm not really sure how to shop for the disks.

 

[vicious7]

I think Express was design almost specifically for the MB, so you should be fine.

 

[ZachPruckowski]

Any external SATA HDD at 7200rpm will suit your purposes. It's just a matter of space. A 500 GB HDD should cost under $150, a 750 GB HDD under $250, and a 1 TB will set you back about $400. If you think you need more than that, consider a NAS (network attached storage). A $400 NAS at 1 TB will have two 500 GB HDDs and expansion for 2 more via USB.

 

[polycat33]

Any external SATA HDD at 7200rpm will suit your purposes. It's just a matter of space. A 500 GB HDD should cost under $150, a 750 GB HDD under $250, and a 1 TB will set you back about $400. If you think you need more than that, consider a NAS (network attached storage). A $400 NAS at 1 TB will have two 500 GB HDDs and expansion for 2 more via USB.

Can you post links to hard drives with these prices? I already bought an external hard drive and it was $150 used for 160GB but it's nice and tiny and I think it's a good reliable brand so I was willing to pay the extra bucks... but I'm thinking maybe the SATA thing is what makes them cheaper? Are most hard drives not SATA? How is it that I've never once seen a 500GB hard drive anywhere nearly $150 or less?