External HD for Mac & PC - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

KTrain · 10-14-2008, 09:23 AM

I'm looking to purchase an external HD to back up my files and was hoping for some suggestions.

I'm looking for something that's USB based and easy to use between both Macs and PCs. Something that I could pick up in Calgary would help too as I'll be needing it in the next couple days.

Any help would be appreciated.

Russic · 10-14-2008, 09:26 AM

About a month ago Future Shop was selling a Lacie 1 TB drive for $170 (18 cents per gig). I'm almost kicking myself for not buying 2. I realize that doesn't help you right now of course ... let me go check if any similar deals are still going.

Edit: HA! They've got a Comstar platinum 1 TB going for $150. My only issue with this drive (I have the 500 gig version) is that there is a blue light on the front. I'm not exagerating when I say that it may be the brightest light ever produced by man. If you have it in a dark room it will give the entire area an ominous blue glow. Would have been cool when I was 17 but now I just find it annoying. I'm using it as a ps3 hard drive and I currently have it backwards in my media centre just to cut down on the light. I found when watching a movie in the dark it was far too distracting.

kermitology · 10-14-2008, 09:27 AM

I suspect most external HD's would work.. so go buy one?

KTrain · 10-14-2008, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kermitology

I suspect most external HD's would work.. so go buy one?

I thought the same but when I was checking out this one at FutureShop.ca (http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...gon=&langid=EN) the features showed Supports Windows Vista/XP/2000 with no mention of Mac.

As a new user of Mac, I didn't want to get burned by buying something that wasn't compatable.

Russic · 10-14-2008, 09:41 AM

You will have no problem that I know of with a usb drive. If I'm wrong somebody can call me out on it, but I see no reason why one wouldn't be compatible.

FanIn80 · 10-14-2008, 09:53 AM

Get the Iomega drive from London Drugs. It has both USB and Firewire (400/800). It's also 500GB and was 199 last time I looked.

Gimme a sec, and I'll get you a link.

Here you go: http://www.londondrugs.com/Cultures/...7&ProductTab=3

It's actually 179 now.

Edit: Some may say that 179 is too much for a 500GB, but keep in mind this supports FireWire 800 which is the fastest data connection you can get on an iMac or a MacBook Pro. Even if you only have a FireWire 400 port, it's still faster than USB for your Mac. Like everything else that is built for a Mac, it's a bit pricier than other options, but it's worth it. My reccomendation: Plug it into the FW port on your iMac and leave it there, with Time Capsule turned on and running, and then create a secondary NTFS partition that you can share and access with your Windows box over the network.

KTrain · 10-14-2008, 10:06 AM

Thanks for the advice. I'll take a look at both options.

Cheers,
KTrain

llama64 · 10-14-2008, 10:19 AM

I've got an external drive that's currently being used as a Time Machine backup disk. I'd like to re-purpose it into a universal disk for both my Macbook and my Vista machine.

Ideally, I'd like to use all 500 GB as a single resource for both computers (no partitioning). Is this possible? Can OS X read/write on an NTFS disk without screwing it up?

FanIn80 · 10-14-2008, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by llama64

I've got an external drive that's currently being used as a Time Machine backup disk. I'd like to re-purpose it into a universal disk for both my Macbook and my Vista machine.

Ideally, I'd like to use all 500 GB as a single resource for both computers (no partitioning). Is this possible? Can OS X read/write on an NTFS disk without screwing it up?

I'm pretty sure the answer is "yes, but you'll need a software interpreter."

Edit: http://www.osnews.com/story/16930 and http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

Edit: Or just this: http://www.google.ca/search?q=write+to+ntfs+on+mac for some more infos.

llama64 · 10-14-2008, 10:35 AM

Thanks! I'll give that a try.

I recently splurged and bought myself an Apple Airport Extreme!!11one.

I'd like to hook the drive up to the usb port on that sucker, so if this works I will be doing the joyful naked nerd dance.

Titan · 10-14-2008, 01:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by llama64

Thanks! I'll give that a try.

I recently splurged and bought myself an Apple Airport Extreme!!11one.

I'd like to hook the drive up to the usb port on that sucker, so if this works I will be doing the joyful naked nerd dance.

Thanks for the disturbing mental image. Must now scrub brain with bleach.

Pagal4321 · 10-14-2008, 01:50 PM

Hmm I was looking at the same thing and was going to create a thread about it.

Is there any problem with a Lacie external hard drive? There's a 750GB one going for $130 at Futureshop.

FanIn80 · 10-14-2008, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pagal4321

Hmm I was looking at the same thing and was going to create a thread about it.

Is there any problem with a Lacie external hard drive? There's a 750GB one going for $130 at Futureshop.

Nope. Lacie drives are usually pretty good.

You have to ask yourself what's more important, though. Transfer speed or size?

I kinda "outgrew" the USB thing awhile back. For my Windows box, I started buying enclosures with eSata and building my own external drives. For my Macs, though, FW 800 (or even 400) is much better than USB.

I dunno, USB 2.0 is just too slow for my use. I have a lot of files, and I also stream music, movies that I've ripped off DVDs, etc etc. USB is tough to swallow.

Don't get me wrong, I know USB works just fine for everything I've mentioned... I just think it's a worn out technology. FireWire and eSata are much better for data transfer and Bluetooth (usually) is better for peripheral connections.

Another thing to think about is that, on my iMac, I only have 3 USB ports. One of them is used by the keyboard, another is connected to my iPhone cradle. So using the FireWire port for the external drive keeps my last USB port open for other things.

sclitheroe · 10-15-2008, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanIn80

I'm pretty sure the answer is "yes, but you'll need a software interpreter."

Edit: http://www.osnews.com/story/16930 and http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

Edit: Or just this: http://www.google.ca/search?q=write+to+ntfs+on+mac for some more infos.

I wouldn't recommend storing anything you value on an NTFS partition you are planning to write to from OS X or Linux. It's a relatively immature tech compared to just using FAT32, or sharing out the drive from one of your machines and accessing it over the network

FanIn80 · 10-16-2008, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

I wouldn't recommend storing anything you value on an NTFS partition you are planning to write to from OS X or Linux. It's a relatively immature tech compared to just using FAT32, or sharing out the drive from one of your machines and accessing it over the network

Can you elaborate on that?

As far as file systems go, NTFS/5 is miles ahead of FAT32. There are instances where certain devices don't support NTFS, but that's not a fault of the file system, it's a fault of the device.

Edit: I think what you're saying is that NTFS is much newer than FAT32, and that OSX doesn't work well with it yet. Is that correct? If it is, then doesn't the software linked above provide the missing file system interpreter?

I'm new to macs myself, so I'm not really up-to-date on a lot of the historical Mac OS quirks.

mykalberta · 10-16-2008, 08:41 AM

Not sure if mentioned, Costco has slim 250Gb drives that on the packaging say Mac and PC compatible.

I have 4 I use with Vista and they work no problem for me (Yes I know Vista isnt Mac)

llama64 · 10-16-2008, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Can you elaborate on that?

As far as file systems go, NTFS/5 is miles ahead of FAT32. There are instances where certain devices don't support NTFS, but that's not a fault of the file system, it's a fault of the device.

Edit: I think what you're saying is that NTFS is much newer than FAT32, and that OSX doesn't work well with it yet. Is that correct? If it is, then doesn't the software linked above provide the missing file system interpreter?

I'm new to macs myself, so I'm not really up-to-date on a lot of the historical Mac OS quirks.

I think he means that support for NTFS on Linux/OSX is immature. I still havn't had time to give this a go yet so I can't confirm, but I don't doubt that I'll have problems.

Chances are, I'll have more problems getting the drive to be properly shared on the router.

Titan · 10-16-2008, 01:09 PM

I had heard that USB 2.0 and FW 400 were about the same. Is that not true?

FanIn80 · 10-16-2008, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Titan

I had heard that USB 2.0 and FW 400 were about the same. Is that not true?

Technically speaking the burst rate for USB (480MBs) is higher than FireWire (400MBs), but the sustained throughput is much more stable with FireWire. Large file transfers can be almost 70% faster over FireWire400 than over USB 2.0.

There's also FireWire800, but there's no point discussing its performance over USB 2.0... unless you like talking about how much faster a Lamborghini is over a Cavalier.

kermitology · 10-16-2008, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FanIn80

There's also FireWire800, but there's no point discussing its performance over USB 2.0... unless you like talking about how much faster a Lamborghini is over a Cavalier.

Ahh yes, but then there's USB 3.0 which is in testing these days that is faster than Firewire 800