The crashed hard drive thread

[Shaka]

I'm thinking of getting an external harddrive to connect my my mac. Any ideas on what to buy? I'm really a novice at computers. The usb port ones seem easy but is the data transfer fast enough? I'd also prefer it to not be noisy. One thing I love about my mac is it is quiet. My HP laptop at work is the noisiest machine I've ever had as the fan and harddrive seem to be going constantly.

I'd be using the harddrive for two things. First to backup my files (photos, home movies, music, etc.). Second to store my DVDs (I just bought an Apple TV and want to rip them somewhere. I currently have a 1tb harddrive on the mac but that only has 300gb left plus I really want a physically separate harddrive (meaning just outside the mac, not in an entirely different location) in case the mac goes belly up.

Unless you're doing hardcore multitrack audio production or 3D rendering you should be fine with a USB. Try to get one with a 7200 RPM speed though. Actually, you could probably get by with 5300 RPM.

[old_gregg]

I'm thinking of getting an external harddrive to connect my my mac. Any ideas on what to buy? I'm really a novice at computers. The usb port ones seem easy but is the data transfer fast enough? I'd also prefer it to not be noisy. One thing I love about my mac is it is quiet. My HP laptop at work is the noisiest machine I've ever had as the fan and harddrive seem to be going constantly.

I'd be using the harddrive for two things. First to backup my files (photos, home movies, music, etc.). Second to store my DVDs (I just bought an Apple TV and want to rip them somewhere. I currently have a 1tb harddrive on the mac but that only has 300gb left plus I really want a physically separate harddrive (meaning just outside the mac, not in an entirely different location) in case the mac goes belly up.

i have two of these (one 1tb and one 2tb):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136471

i have the 1tb formatted in extended journaled and use it almost exclusively for time machine backup. the fat32 2tb is used for media storage and some w7 backup.

unless you're going to be moving huge amounts of data pretty frequently, usb 2.0 should be fine. firewire is nice but prices can go up steeply.

[Uncle Ted]

I'm thinking of getting an external harddrive to connect my my mac. Any ideas on what to buy? I'm really a novice at computers. The usb port ones seem easy but is the data transfer fast enough? I'd also prefer it to not be noisy. One thing I love about my mac is it is quiet. My HP laptop at work is the noisiest machine I've ever had as the fan and harddrive seem to be going constantly.

I'd be using the harddrive for two things. First to backup my files (photos, home movies, music, etc.). Second to store my DVDs (I just bought an Apple TV and want to rip them somewhere. I currently have a 1tb harddrive on the mac but that only has 300gb left plus I really want a physically separate harddrive (meaning just outside the mac, not in an entirely different location) in case the mac goes belly up.

USB 2.0 is plenty fast enough but FireWire 800 is faster. The FireWire 800 port looks like the following:



I would recommend that you go FireWire 800 if you mac has that port for the added performance.

For backups the Mac OS X Time Machine feature is your friend. When you plug the external drive in it should prompt you to ask if you want to use the drive as a backup drive. Tell it yes.

If your primary drive goes "belly up" then you simply install a new one, load the OS, and it will ask you if you want to restore your stuff from the time machine backup. It is that simple.

You can put movies on your backup time machine drive as well. That isn't a problem. If you want to limit how much space is used for time machine then use diskutil and create two partitions: One for time machine and the other for your videos.

As for quite drives 5400 RPM drives are usually not as noisy as 7200 RPM drives. Of course, 7200 RPM drives are faster.

[Shaka]

I love firewire but it's becoming scarce. Even Apple has stopped putting them in all but their high end machines. Too bad really.

[Moliere]

USB 2.0 is plenty fast enough but FireWire 800 is faster. The FireWire 800 port looks like the following:



I would recommend that you go FireWire 800 if you mac has that port for the added performance.

For backups the Mac OS X Time Machine feature is your friend. When you plug the external drive in it should prompt you to ask if you want to use the drive as a backup drive. Tell it yes.

If your primary drive goes "belly up" then you simply install a new one, load the OS, and it will ask you if you want to restore your stuff from the time machine backup. It is that simple.

You can put movies on your backup time machine drive as well. That isn't a problem. If you want to limit how much space is used for time machine then use diskutil and create two partitions: One for time machine and the other for your videos.

As for quite drives 5400 RPM drives are usually not as noisy as 7200 RPM drives. Of course, 7200 RPM drives are faster.

Thanks for the feedback so far (from all not just the Nug)! I do have a firewire port and will look into the cost difference. Performance is a bigger issue than cost. I think I'll get a 2tb drive mostly b/c our home movies are on a HD camcorder and take up some space.

I once considered getting the actual time machine hard drive from Apple (not just the utility but the physical hard drive). I backed off b/c I've heard of concerns that they pervasively crash after 18 months. I know someone in my ward that has one and loves it but it is only 3 months old. In any case, with an Apple TV and iMac I'm probably better off with an external drive that is much cheaper than the time machine drive right?

[Uncle Ted]

Thanks for the feedback so far (from all not just the Nug)! I do have a firewire port and will look into the cost difference. Performance is a bigger issue than cost. I think I'll get a 2tb drive mostly b/c our home movies are on a HD camcorder and take up some space.

I once considered getting the actual time machine hard drive from Apple (not just the utility but the physical hard drive). I backed off b/c I've heard of concerns that they pervasively crash after 18 months. I know someone in my ward that has one and loves it but it is only 3 months old. In any case, with an Apple TV and iMac I'm probably better off with an external drive that is much cheaper than the time machine drive right?

I think you are confusing the Time Machine feature of Mac OS X with the Time Capsule product. The Time Capsule product is a wireless access point that also has a hard drive. This is a great product if you have a mac laptop since you don't have to plug in the external drive. With an iMac I wouldn't recommend the time capsule. You just need an external drive which, yes, is less expensive.

[1337coug]

Once upon a time I had a mybook external hard drive crash on me, but all I lost were movies. At the time I was devastated, but now I don't mind so much. Western Digital replaced the mybook, which is now my backup drive. I took the optical drive out of my macbook pro and put a SSD in its place. My system is running from that drive, and I'm not terribly worried that my SSD is going to fail. The original hard drive is now my media drive. I don't back up either nearly as much as I should, probably about once a month.

[1337coug]

Thanks for the feedback so far (from all not just the Nug)! I do have a firewire port and will look into the cost difference. Performance is a bigger issue than cost. I think I'll get a 2tb drive mostly b/c our home movies are on a HD camcorder and take up some space.

I once considered getting the actual time machine hard drive from Apple (not just the utility but the physical hard drive). I backed off b/c I've heard of concerns that they pervasively crash after 18 months. I know someone in my ward that has one and loves it but it is only 3 months old. In any case, with an Apple TV and iMac I'm probably better off with an external drive that is much cheaper than the time machine drive right?

I wouldn't get a time capsule if you want performance, backing up over USB or firewire will be significantly faster than backing up via wifi.

[Sizzle]

One other option if you're interested in a remote backup is a service like Mozy. It won't solve your problem for more movie storage space, but it relatively cheap ($5 a month or so) and your data is backed up over a network off site. So if something really bad were to happen (fire, tornado, earthquake, theft, etc) you would still be able to recover your data.

[Moliere]

I think you are confusing the Time Machine feature of Mac OS X with the Time Capsule product. The Time Capsule product is a wireless access point that also has a hard drive. This is a great product if you have a mac laptop since you don't have to plug in the external drive. With an iMac I wouldn't recommend the time capsule. You just need an external drive which, yes, is less expensive.

Yes, thank you. It is a Time Capsule. The 2tb was close to $500 but I assume that is due to the network capability as well as the awesome Apple logo.

[1337coug]

Yes, thank you. It is a Time Capsule. The 2tb was close to $500 but I assume that is due to the network capability as well as the awesome Apple logo.

Mostly the apple logo. There are plenty of network capable drives that cost significantly less.