External Hard Drive??

[polevault139]

I will be getting a Macbook for college in a few months (I like to plan ahead), and I was going to get a 2.0 Ghz, 2GB RAM, and 120GB HDD. I wanted to keep most of my music and picture library separate.

So what do I need to have an external hard drive? I am new at this so I have no idea.

Also if you could recommend some brands that would be appreciated.

Thanks alot

 

[balamw]

Also if you could recommend some brands that would be appreciated.

It would help to know a little more...

How much do you want to spend?
Will you plan to take it with you occasionally or leave it in one place all the time?

B

 

[polevault139]

Money is not that much of an issue right now as I want to see what I need.

I would plan on keeping it (the hard drive) in one place and taking my notebook around with me.

 

[balamw]

You'd want to get a 3.5" drive with Firewire 400 and USB 2.0. Try to find one that spins at 7200rpm.

Popular brands are Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor, LaCie in no particular order.

Something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144340
perhaps. $114 for a 250GB external drive.

Too bad Macbooks don't have eSATA yet....

B

 

[erickkoch]

I would get an external drive that is at least as big as the one on your laptop.

What I do is make a bootable copy of my HD every few weeks and put it in my fire safe. That way if my laptop is ever stolen/lost or if the hard drive goes bad I can boot up from the external drive.

My safe is small so I use a Firelite. It's a very small drive and fits in my safe easily, it's powered by the USB cord so it doesn't need an external power supply.

 

[polevault139]

I would get an external drive that is at least as big as the one on your laptop.

What I do is make a bootable copy of my HD every few weeks and put it in my fire safe. That way if my laptop is ever stolen/lost or if the hard drive goes bad I can boot up from the external drive.

My safe is small so I use a Firelite. It's a very small drive and fits in my safe easily, it's powered by the USB cord so it doesn't need an external power supply.

Thanks for the quick replies. So how do you make a bootable copy of your HD?

 

[balamw]

It's a very small drive and fits in my safe easily, it's powered by the USB cord so it doesn't need an external power supply.

That's why I was asking the portability question. You'll get much better performance from a 3.5" 7200 rpm drive than a 2.5" 5400 like the one in the notebook itself, but you'll need a power brick and more desk space.

You might even want to boot off of it more regularly, like many Mac Mini users who will boot off an external to get more band for their buck.

Thanks for the quick replies. So how do you make a bootable copy of your HD?

http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html

B

 

[polevault139]

Thank you both for all you help. I have a pretty good idea of what I need now.

Thanks again

 

[JZ Wire]

You can check this out and it might be of some help to you. You'll see some charts with some brand names and price comparison and also gives you some pros and cons. Im not sure if you wanted firewire 800, 400, or usb but it goes over several different options. Good luck!

http://www.macworld.com/2005/10/reviews/firewiremain/index.php

 

[Irish Dave]

I will be getting a Macbook for college in a few months (I like to plan ahead), and I was going to get a 2.0 Ghz, 2GB RAM, and 120GB HDD. I wanted to keep most of my music and picture library separate.

So what do I need to have an external hard drive? I am new at this so I have no idea.

Also if you could recommend some brands that would be appreciated.

Thanks alot

I would recommend a 250 Gb 3.5" 7200 external drive with firewire 400 connection.

Firewire is slightly faster than USB2.

Go with any of the well known makes: LaCie or Maxtor are good

Dave

 

[JDN]

LaCie are great. Everyone i know has LaCie hard drives. They are pretty much bomb proof, you always feel safe knowing your info is on one.

 

[excalibur313]

I would recommend that you build your hard drive from a case and an internal hard drive. It is a lot cheaper and the warranty will be for 5 years intead of 2-3. Installing only takes a few minutes and it looks just as slick as one that comes assembled. I've had a lot of good luck with macally cases but make sure that you get one that has firewire because it really is significantly faster than USB 2.0.