I need recommendations for an external hard-drive for our new Mac desktop, my old one has died! The best for Mac, but easiest to set up and use would be great.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
iMac 24″, macOS 14.3
Tamlouie wrote:
Is the mercury elite pro a standalone backup hard-drive, or do I need to install extra as you did?
"Mercury Elite Pro" is a brand name that Other World Computing uses for several different kinds of drives and enclosures. Typically they will sell you either the enclosure by itself, or a complete unit that has a drive of their choice pre-installed.
Buying a pre-installed drive is a bit more convenient, but some people have strong preferences with regards to drive mechanisms. Buying just the enclosure gives you more choice over the selection of mechanism, e.g., you could avoid a particular brand that you think is unreliable, or look for a drive that doesn't use SMR (a technology that can hurt write performance).
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/external-storage
You [Allan Jones] and MartinB mention WD Black drives, but I am unfamiliar with this series (or what 2.5 or 3.5 drives even mean).
Western Digital is a hard drive manufacturer. Others include Seagate, Hitachi, and Toshiba.
Western Digital likes to use colors to name lines of hard drives. They have Black ("gaming"), Blue ("everyday use"), Red ("network-attached storage"), Purple ("video surveillance"), and Gold ("data center"). Although you can use any of the drives to store files, WD may have tweaked the designs according to intended applications. I would expect the Red ("NAS") and Gold ("data center") lines to include large-capacity drives that can withstand constant use, day-in and day-out. I would also expect that drives in those lines might be noisier than drives in some of the others - something to investigate before putting one on top of your desk.
https://www.westerndigital.com/solutions/hard-drives/internal-hdd
2.5" and 3.5" refer to the physical size of the hard drive mechanism. You find 2.5" drive mechanisms inside old notebook computers, and inside portable hard drives. Some of the larger-capacity 2.5" drives are too tall to fit inside of a standard 2.5" notebook drive bay, and so are used only in portable external drives.
The 3.5" drive mechanisms are "desktop" mechanisms. They're too big to put inside of a notebook, and they're too power-hungry to run off USB 2.0 or 3.0 power. So you find them in wall-powered "desktop" hard drives.
Is it a backup to the backup? The data that is most important for me are 5-6 thousand photos/videos, documents, applications that came with Mac, but no gaming to speak of. Pretty basic but important to keep safe.
Whether a drive stores "original" files, a backup, or a second or third backup, depends on how you choose to use it. To the computer, it's just storage.
As an aside, it looks like I may have made a poor choice when I was out of town at the Apple store buying the new Mac. I had asked for recommendations for external storage specifically for my MacAir laptop (since our old desktop hard-drive was working fine at the time) for removing photos in the cloud (and future photos) and was sold on Lacie 2TB as easy peasy. I followed instructions using disk utility, and formatted APSF, but I couldn't do much without downloading the Lacie Tool Kit. I am guessing that is the additional software so many in this string have said NOT to download, bummer. I was able to get my photos from iCloud loaded onto unit, but it will not take let me back up my laptop now or add anything more. There have been Apple updates and I'm thinking if understanding comments correctly that the Lacie is conflicting with it so it no longer works properly. Not sure what to even do with it now. Is there anything I can do to make the Lacie viable to use again and not have wasted $120?
If you reformatted the drive as APFS, you should have been able to use it without the LaCie ToolKit.
The LaCie Toolkit manual indicates that the software has four functions: "protecting your data with automatic backups", "managing security for Seagate and LaCie self-encrypting drives", "setting up RAID", and "quickly importing files from memory cards."
https://www.lacie.com/manuals/software/toolkit/introduction/
There are alternatives for backup (Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper!) and for importing from memory cards.
You wrote "I'm not worried that OWC is going to pick unreliable drives. However, if I was getting a desktop hard drive, I think I'd have a preference for a mechanism that
On the OWC site, I can't find anything that distinguishes CMR/SMR. All I have seen state "Standard Mechanism".
Once again, thank you for the excellent information and guidance. It is greatly appreciated!
just about any manufacturer's drives will work. one of my external drives is a WD my passport, and it works fine. but please be sure to not use any software from the manufacturer (or install such software yourself) that supposedly makes the drive "Mac ready".
when you use software from just about any manufacturer for their storage device you run the risk of that same software not being compatible with macOS updates / upgrades. it can cause the software to stop working. at best this will cause you a headache. at worst it can render your data inaccessible. it is always best to use disk utility to erase and format a drive before use to remove any preloaded software.
please see Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support.
Tamlouie wrote:
Thanks for both of your comments/suggestions. When I searched for best external hard drive on Wirecutter, this came up for Macs Western Digital My Passport Ultra (5 TB) Mac-compatible version. I don't know anything much on how to gauge what is best, and Wirecutter usually is pretty solid advice (not always). I will look into those suggested but am open to more suggestions and knowledge.
When you say "best" – "best" for what?
I follow mostly or at least get the gist. I am a simple, old school behind the tech times gal, so all of this can be daunting at times. I am definatly wanting a desktop-class drive with an independent power supply as you stated.
Is the mercury elite pro a standalone backup hard-drive, or do I need to install extra as you did? You and MartinB mention WD Black drives, but I am unfamiliar with this series (or what 2.5 or 3.5 drives even mean). Is it a backup to the backup? The data that is most important for me are 5-6 thousand photos/videos, documents, applications that came with Mac, but no gaming to speak of. Pretty basic but important to keep safe.
As an aside, it looks like I may have made a poor choice when I was out of town at the Apple store buying the new Mac. I had asked for recommendations for external storage specifically for my MacAir laptop (since our old desktop hard-drive was working fine at the time) for removing photos in the cloud (and future photos) and was sold on Lacie 2TB as easy peasy. I followed instructions using disk utility, and formatted APSF, but I couldn't do much without downloading the Lacie Tool Kit. I am guessing that is the additional software so many in this string have said NOT to download, bummer. I was able to get my photos from iCloud loaded onto unit, but it will not take let me back up my laptop now or add anything more. There have been Apple updates and I'm thinking if understanding comments correctly that the Lacie is conflicting with it so it no longer works properly. Not sure what to even do with it now. Is there anything I can do to make the Lacie viable to use again and not have wasted $120?
I am extremely grateful for the help and information. I try my best, but would be lost sometimes without some of the help I have found in this forum.
I need recommendations for an external hard-drive for our new iMac
