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recommendation for an external hard drive

J

josta

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 2, 2006
56
0
Hi everyone,
I've used the search function to try to find all I can about external hard drives. I know I will be ordering from newegg, that much I have gathered. FYI, I have a MBP, C2D 2.16 with 1gb ram installed.

What I am looking for is a 250-320gb external hard drive. I imagine down the road I will be running larger apps off of it, for now it will be used to hold my thesis data (mostly photoshop files, but also illustrator and various other files). I would like to spend between 100-150 (less is better).

I am trying to decide between a Seagate and a WD. I don't have a particular preference between the two. I like that they both have multi-year warranties.
Given that I foresee running apps off of it in the future, is it best that I find one with a firewire drive? Or will USB be ok for that?

Also, given the back up programs that will be coming out with Leopard, does it matter how easy (ie one touch vs programs etc) it will be? I don't mind doing things manually for a while, but know that I tend to forget to back up so am very excited by the new feature in Leopard.
Thanks all for your recommendations
 
You can get one for under $100....this list was compiled by a user in another thread in the buying tips forum:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/3828493/

That has an enclosure and a hard drive list...it's usually cheaper to do it seperately than to get one directly from a company like WD or Seagate. That said, you can usually find a decent one on sale. Check NewEgg.com as well for ones in enclosures already if you don't want to put it in yourself (it's pretty easy though).

FW is generally the way to go due to its sustained transfer speed, but I have had no issue running apps from USB as well. I generally get FW if possible.
 
The enclosure in the above link does not support Firewire 800... you want Firewire 800, it's the only way to go!

I have two of these and they work great:
>> NEWEGG <<
 
I just bought the 500gb WD My Book pro HD that Huncta mentioned. I will be getting it tomorrow or Monday, but from what I've read, seems to be the best deal for FW 800 (and stylish aswell)
 
I'm about to get a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB drive (from Newegg, http://tinyurl.com/2mhytt) and pop it into a quad-interface SATA enclosure from OtherWorldComputing (http://tinyurl.com/3xjpde). It may be a bit more expensive than commercially available 500GB external drives, but I prefer having the flexibility of building my own external drive especially when I can use whatever interface I need. The only quad-interface external drive I could find out right now is the LaCie d2 Quadra and its reliability is still untested which, while still being $30 less, doesn't sound like a good alternative to me. Plus the LaCie warranty is 1 year while Seagate's is 5 years, big plus there.
 
I ended up buying a Mercury On-The-Go drive from OWC http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go - the 250GB 5400rpm triple interface model. I'm really happy with the drive and it's great that it's bus-powered, so there's no bulky power supply to carry around. The drive inside is a Western Digital Scorpio.

They also now have a 200gb 7200rpm model, but I figured the higher drive speed wouldn't make that much difference and went for the higher capacity.

I also got a promo email from Apple yesterday advertising for the Maxtor Onetouch, it's greater capacity (still triple interface) but requires a power supply. It's also under £100 with the discount at the Apple store.

Good luck whatever you choose.
 
im also looking for an external HDD myself. are the lacie extreme drives any good, compared to the WD mybooks?
looking for about 500 - TB, to share between a powerbook and MBP any recommendations? i know its going to be a pain having to swap the firewire cable each time either of us want to use it.
 
huntca said:
you want Firewire 800, it's the only way to go!

I have two of these and they work great:
>> NEWEGG <<
Click to expand...

I was looking at those yesterday. I think they look like the right solution for me.

Anybody else have experience with the LaCie drives? Just out of curiosity because my student store has a pretty good deal on them. I will probably favor the WD...the 3 year warranty is a major plus.

I'm sure I will be glad I went with firewire 800 down the road! Thanks for all your input guys. :)
 
I have two Seagate 750gb drives and love them both. One FreeAgentPro, and one Push-Button Backup.

Pricing was reasonable, but the thing that sold me on Seagate was a 5-year warranty. That's the longest I've seen. Almost twice as long as WD (3 years). I think LaCie warranty is only 1 year.
 
Flobber88 said:
I just bought the 500gb WD My Book pro HD that Huncta mentioned. I will be getting it tomorrow or Monday, but from what I've read, seems to be the best deal for FW 800 (and stylish aswell)
Click to expand...

Is there any reason why the HDD in this enclosure could not be upgraded to a 1 TB drive or larger later on when prices come down and/or I need the extra space?
 
one more vote for the WD my book pro, great drive, light and most important, it matches the mbpro color :D
 
I have been looking for drives all week, and I think I am going with a Quad drive (esata,usb,f400,f800).. The OWC Mercury AL Pro Quad seems like the best deal for sure, but I think I will be getting the G-Drive Quad cause it sure looks sweet and has no noisy fan.... but then again.. it's really expensive.. hmmm... :mad:
 
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