External Hard Drive assistance?

Question

Zimmer1956 Author

Level 1

9 points

External Hard Drive assistance?

Hard drives is a vicious arena. Everybody makes the best and they all are trash at the same time.

I am an average user and looking to upgrade by external hard drive. I want Firewire 800 and want a small compact 2nd drive with USB2.0 bus - that I can use to transfer iTunes/iPhoto to an older Mac Mini in a different part of the house.

Been looking at G-Drive, LaCie and perhaps Seagate and OWC. I have seen so much good and bad that I have become thoroughly confused and would welcome any and all comments and/or suggestions. Having trouble deciding - have been told to make sure it has encription software for security, but just not sure anymore.

PLEASE HELP!

OS X Mountain Lion, 2TB Western Digital external drive for mymac

Posted on Sep 25, 2012 8:31 AM

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Answer 1

Klaus1

Level 9

52,749 points

Sep 25, 2012 8:45 AM in response to Zimmer1956

In the opinion of many here, OWC supply the best.

Avoid Western Digital.

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Answer 2

Zimmer1956 Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 25, 2012 9:45 AM in response to Klaus1

I don't think I have read anything bad about OWC so need to take a closer look. I am aware of the LaCie power supply issues in the past, have they gotten any better? Also, a friend rated G Drive highly...comments?

Thanks.

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Answer 3

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Sep 25, 2012 10:07 AM in response to Zimmer1956

I usually roll my own. Six or eight Phillips screws and your finished. These are the three I currently have. The last is four years old:

Macally GS350SUAB2 Hi-Speed eSATA/1394A/1394B/USB2.0 Storage Enclosure for 3.5inch SATA HDD

w/Seagate 2TB ST32000542AS Barracuda® Green SATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive

Macally GS350SUAB Hi-Speed eSATA/1394A/1394B/USB2.0 Storage Enclosure for 3.5inch SATA HDD

w/Hitachi 1TB HD31000 IDK/7K Deskstar SATA 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache Internal Hard Drive

Macally GS350SUA Hi-Speed eSATA/1394A/USB2.0 Storage Enclosure for 3.5inch SATA HDD

w/Seagate ST3750640AS Barracuda 750 GB SATA 3.0GB/s Internal Hard Drive

BTW, I never use USB 2.0, since it's slower than molasses. I likewise disdain WC's products since they don't provide any support if you want to boot Macs with them and their SmartWare software isn't and it is disastrous for Macs.

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Answer 4

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Sep 25, 2012 11:35 AM in response to baltwo

in my last post, WC's should read WD's. Sorry for the fat-fingering.

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Answer 5

Zimmer1956 Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 25, 2012 12:19 PM in response to baltwo

I welcome anyone's comments or response. By the way, had the same problem with the WD I have now...that is why it's gone.

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Answer 6

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Sep 25, 2012 2:47 PM in response to Zimmer1956

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Answer 7

Zimmer1956 Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 25, 2012 5:33 PM in response to baltwo

I have read about past issues with LaCie. Anyone have recent experience with LaCie - thinking about the d2quadra but haven't seen much in recent, new posts about their quality or lack of???

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Answer 8

Zimmer1956 Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 25, 2012 10:10 PM in response to Zimmer1956

Seems like I am leaning toward the OWC or a Seagate. I noticed OWC uses Seagate drives...would you say the OWC with Seagate drives is better quality as the Seagate desktop drive?

Thanks,

Don

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Answer 9

den.thed

Level 9

77,008 points

Sep 25, 2012 10:33 PM in response to baltwo

While you couldn't give me one of those iBook jobbers, personally I like to roll bare WD's in both FireWire and USB Enclosures. Plus as portables go, I've had very good luck with the WD Passports.

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Answer 10

Zimmer1956 Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 28, 2012 10:25 AM in response to den.thed

Thanks this has helped.

Has anyone experience with the Seagate Go Flex or Backup Plus for Mac?

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Answer 11

Zimmer1956 Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 29, 2012 10:15 AM in response to Zimmer1956

Anybody??

Thank you!

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Answer 12

Zimmer1956 Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 30, 2012 10:17 AM in response to Zimmer1956

How about OWC versus G-Drive???

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Answer 13

den.thed

Level 9

77,008 points

Sep 30, 2012 11:14 AM in response to Zimmer1956

Zimmer1956 wrote:

Thanks this has helped.

Your welcome!

Zimmer1956 wrote:

Has anyone experience with the Seagate Go Flex

I do have a Seagate Free Agent GoFlex (portable) that I use for sharing music and pictures between PC's and Mac's, but stick to Desktop Drives for more serious backups.

Zimmer1956 wrote:

or Backup Plus for Mac?

I always erase and format my backup drives and never use Seagate's or WD's included backup software.

For good backup strategies, see > My backup plan Macworld

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Answer 14

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Sep 30, 2012 11:46 AM in response to den.thed

Also, see Take Control of Backups.

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Answer 15

den.thed

Level 9

77,008 points

Sep 30, 2012 12:48 PM in response to baltwo

😉 Thanks

No worries here, I have no less than a dozen backup drives in FireWire and USB flavors, including a Universal Drive adapter that I use to cycle bare drives in and out of the fire safe. I'm so anal, I even run the same User Libraries in three different OS X's and each of those is backed up at least once. For the most part I use CarbonCopyCloner and no longer use Time Machine after it croaked one of my Seagate drives. I don't do web based backups, because I'm to cheap to pay the extra monthly cost to upgrade from DSL to Broadband.

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