Suggestion on external drive for a MBP.

[FN in MT]

Absolutely new to MAC's and hardly literate in the PC world either.

I need an external HD for Lightroom work, lots of files from years and years back. Finally going to get them all in one place and start working on them in Lightroom.

A 2-4 TB drive was suggested.

Are there drives specifically set up for the Mac OS? I looked at Seagate drives, price is right, etc. But it mentioned not set up for a MAC, would require reformatting.

Suggestions on a 2-4 TB drive $150 or so max.

Then all I'd need is a usb 3 cable correct?

Thank You.

 

[campyguy]

How about 8TB for around $150? Best Buy's easystore 8TB external drive. QED, done and dusted.

I own a few. Decent read/write speeds. The internet secret is the drive inside - WD NAS drives that are either WD Red or White NAS or HGST White NAS drives, often with bigger caches than the bare NAS drives. My 3 personal units include 2 Red and one HGST White NAS drives - and the easystore price is around $70-$100 less than the bare drive alone. BB ships, no need to go to a B&M store.

The differing capacities generally don't include NAS drives. Google "easystore 8TB shucked" or "easystore 8TB NAS" and you'll get plenty of feedback.

 

[Fishrrman]

If you're going to use an external drive for (what I would call for lack of a better term) "primary external storage" -- you need to buy TWO drives.

By "primary external storage", I mean files which will be kept on the external drive, which will NOT also be kept on the internal drive. Is this correct for your situation?

If so, you need the second drive to backup the primary external drive.
If these files are important, you must not risk having them on only ONE drive !!!

What do you anticipate your storage needs will be?

If 2tb will do, I'd buy 2 2.5" form-factor drives.
I'm not sure if you can get "larger than 2gb" in 2.5" yet.

I generally DO NOT recommend buying "ready-built" platter-based hard drives.
Rather, I suggest one buy a bare drive, an enclosure, and then "build it yourself". Usually this takes only a screwdriver -- some enclosures just snap together.
When you do it this way, you know what's inside, and you also know how it goes together (if you ever have need to take it apart).

But that's just me.

Insofar as -which- drive to buy, I'd avoid WD and Seagate.
I'd suggest Hitachi (HGST).

Keep your primary external connected to the Mac.
Keep your "external backup" DISconnected, connect it only when backing up.
For backup, I would suggest periodically cloning the primary to the backup using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. Do it this way, and the backup will be an EXACT copy of the primary drive.

 

[FN in MT]

If you're going to use an external drive for (what I would call for lack of a better term) "primary external storage" -- you need to buy TWO drives.

By "primary external storage", I mean files which will be kept on the external drive, which will NOT also be kept on the internal drive. Is this correct for your situation?

If so, you need the second drive to backup the primary external drive.
If these files are important, you must not risk having them on only ONE drive !!!

What do you anticipate your storage needs will be?

If 2tb will do, I'd buy 2 2.5" form-factor drives.
I'm not sure if you can get "larger than 2gb" in 2.5" yet.

I generally DO NOT recommend buying "ready-built" platter-based hard drives.
Rather, I suggest one buy a bare drive, an enclosure, and then "build it yourself". Usually this takes only a screwdriver -- some enclosures just snap together.
When you do it this way, you know what's inside, and you also know how it goes together (if you ever have need to take it apart).

But that's just me.

Insofar as -which- drive to buy, I'd avoid WD and Seagate.
I'd suggest Hitachi (HGST).

Keep your primary external connected to the Mac.
Keep your "external backup" DISconnected, connect it only when backing up.
For backup, I would suggest periodically cloning the primary to the backup using either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. Do it this way, and the backup will be an EXACT copy of the primary drive.

I have no idea as to how much drive space I will need. I bought a 4 TB yesterday which I will monitor as to space available. As far as building...I'm not there yet at all. I'm a real amateur here.

I appreciate the thoughtful suggestions.