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Nice Hard Drive for Aluminum iMac

GradientMac

GradientMac

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 5, 2007
206
0
Canada
Hello!

I'm going to be in the purchase of a 20 inch aluminum iMac soon, and I'm in need of a nice external hard drive that looks aesthetically beautiful with the iMac, but I'm not in need of something over 100 GB, I have had a laptop for a year with an 80 gig hard drive and never filled it, so I don't expect that to change much.

I'm very OCD about having my computer look nice, I've given up on this crappy PC because it's not humanely possible to make an overpriced Gateway waste of money look good. People say Macs are over priced, and this thing was $999.99 for an 80 gig hard drive, a 1.7 GHz processor and 500 MB of ram [My system information says 480, I'm rounding.]

[I'm being honest- I had a little fun with editing the image, but none of the content that mattered, Windows crashed and I lost everything so I'm not exactly happy with this thing. Look:]

2000865819907445653_rs.jpg

See if you can find everything I changed :)

Anyway, I've gotten off track, [ADD?] but I need someone to help me find a [cheap if possible] nice looking hard drive that will fit very well with an aluminum iMac.
 
Get yourself a Western Digital My Book 320Gb 2.0 USB for less than $90 at Bst buy, Circuit City and numerous other places.
 
Bobioden said:
Get yourself a Western Digital My Book 320Gb 2.0 USB for less than $90 at Bst buy, Circuit City and numerous other places.
Click to expand...

Gahhr. Don't need that much space. Do they even sell them with 100GB/under? And that one doesn't fit it that well in my opinion, too boxy and either too black, or too light of a silver for it- they're really, really nice they just don't really fit the aesthetic design of the iMac very well. The one that they use in the guided tour of leopard is very nice, but I heard it's $200 dollars.
 
look at the WD passports they are real small and come in several colors. mine is white but i know they come in black, red, green, etc.....
Just don't be to picky:D
 
I was looking at the Lacie drives personally, or freecom seem to look okay. i use a fair bit of drive space though so stack-ability is one of my priorities
 
The Improvements you did to your winslows box, are really nice :D
(But I still think that eXtra Pitiful sounds a bit better :cool:)
:apple:
The pleiades series of external disks match the MacPro, but they still look really cool.
 
GradientMac said:
Gahhr. Don't need that much space. Do they even sell them with 100GB/under? And that one doesn't fit it that well in my opinion, too boxy and either too black, or too light of a silver for it- they're really, really nice they just don't really fit the aesthetic design of the iMac very well. The one that they use in the guided tour of leopard is very nice, but I heard it's $200 dollars.
Click to expand...

You might now need that much space today.. but when you buy a drive, expect to have it for a few years. Now think about how much you data is already expanding, 320gb is really not that much. You will be very happy with a mybook- very sleek and they work flawlessly.
 
GradientMac said:
I'm going to be in the purchase of a 20 inch aluminum iMac soon, and I'm in need of a nice external hard drive that looks aesthetically beautiful with the iMac, but I'm not in need of something over 100 GB ...
Click to expand...

Ignoring capacity for the moment, if you care about performance (speed),
you should be looking for something with a 3.5", 7200 rpm drive and a
FW800 external interface (or at minimum, FW400). That puts you in the
$120-$150 price range, and you're unlikely find a pre-assembled firewire
external with a drive smaller than 250 GB to 320 GB.

Rather than a pre-assembled "external drive," I'd suggest considering an
"external enclosure" plus the hard drive mechanism of your choice. If you
go that route, be sure to get an enclosure designed for SATA drives --
rather than the soon-to-be-obsolete IDE/PATA drives.

I'm very OCD about having my computer look nice ...
Click to expand...

Here are two you might like (identical except for FW800 vs. FW400). They
also come in high-gloss black; see the icydock.com link below for photos.
The ALU/white model matches the style of the ALU keyboard perfectly --
how well the keyboard coordinates with the rest of the iMac is debatable.

I have two of of 'em (ALU/white model), and they're the highest-quality
external enclosures I've ever owned or seen. Very fast. Extremely quiet.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198006

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198004

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=986&pageID=2689

http://www.icydock.com/product/mb559ueb-1s.html

Regardless of which route you take, check http://newegg.com for good
prices and possibly the widest selection of external drives & enclosures
you'll find anywhere -- plus extensive reviews, from a fairly tech-savvy
customer base.

...shop 'til ya drop,

LK
 
that high gloss black enclosure with the aluminum accents in the drive tray etc looks like it would compliment the imac beautifully! The one with AL and White is nice too, but I think the black would be much classier and a better accent to the new imac. I vote to go that route :)
 
ktbubster said:
The one with AL and White is nice too, but I think the black would be much classier and a better accent to the new imac. I vote to go that route :)
Click to expand...

Happily, my iMac is a white C2D -- so I wasn't even tempted to
pay the 30%+ premium for a glossy black paint job.

BTW, the slide-in trays are extremely convenient, "installing" the
drive literally requires only 4 screws to attach the HD to the tray.
Spare trays are only $16, so it's cheap and easy to keep several
drives "on tap" for specific purposes. Swap drives in 30 seconds
with no tools, no messing with cables or connectors.

LK
 
sbornia said:
Take a look at OWC's Mercury Elite-AL drives.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/800+USB2/
Click to expand...

OWC has a reputation for good quality, but I'd suggest sticking with the new Quad
Elite-AL; it's the only one that uses SATA drives (Oxford OXUF924DSb chipset). The
other Elite-AL's are all IDE/PATA-based (Oxford 911/912 chipsets) -- and IDE/PATA
is a not-long-for-this-world technology. SATA already has a strong advantage WRT
price/selection/availability, and the gap will only grow.

LK
 
Personally, I just ordered this LaCie 500GB external, and have heard good reviews, and the aluminum matches the iMac, so....

hd_porschedesktop.jpg
 
Personally I like the G-drive i bought from the apple store. It looks sweet, awesome 2 year warranty, and its reliable. They are probably the best externals you can buy.
G-Drive-3-4.jpg
 
scubasteve3715 said:
Personally I like the G-drive i bought from the apple store. It looks sweet, awesome 2 year warranty, and its reliable. They are probably the best externals you can buy.
G-Drive-3-4.jpg
Click to expand...

That is absolutely gorgeous- that's incredibly beautiful and I'm going to check out prices right now.
 
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