Battery life and external hard drives

if you treat the batteries perfectly, 4+ years.

depends on HOW deep you use them too.

You always need MORE than one external HD, 2 is 1 , and 1 is none. Dont make that mistake,

as to storage, all questions about same are here:

Methodology to protect your data. Backups vs. Archives. Long-term data protection

Robins1968 wrote:

I am told though macs don't use the normal external storage systems and will need to buy separate one.

whoever told you that LIED to you.

A hard drive is a hard drive, you just format it for a Mac OSX.

heres how NOT to treat a lithium battery:

General consideration of your MacBook battery

Contrary to popular myths about notebook batteries, there is protection circuitry in your Macbook and therefore you cannot ‘overcharge’ your notebook when plugged in and already fully charged.

However if you do not plan on using your notebook for several hours, turn it off (plugged in or otherwise), since you do not want your Macbook ‘both always plugged in and in sleep mode’.

Do not perform “battery calibration” on your current Macbook. There is no calibration of current Apple portable Macbooks with built-in batteries.

A lot of battery experts call the use of Lithium-Ion cells the "80% Rule", meaning use 80% of the full charge or so, then recharge them for longer overall life. The main quantified damage done in the use of Lithium Ion batteries are instances where the internal notebook battery is “often drained very low”, this is bad general use of your notebook battery.

All batteries in any device are a consumable meant to be replaced eventually after much time, even under perfect use conditions.

➕If the massive amount of data that exists on lithium batteries were to be condensed into a simplex, helpful, and memorable bit of information it would be:

1. While realistically a bit impractical during normal everyday use, a lithium battery's longevity and its chemistry's health is most happy swinging back and forth between 20% and 85% charge roughly.

2. Do not purposefully drain your battery very low (10% and less), and do not keep them charged often or always high (100%).

3. Lithium batteries do not like the following:

A: Deep discharges, as meaning roughly 10% or less. Avoid this in all instances if you can. This is hard on your battery.

B: Rapid discharges as referring to energy intensive gaming on battery on a frequent basis (in which case while gaming, if possible, do same on power rather than battery).

C: Constant inflation, as meaning always or most often on charge, and certainly not both in sleep mode and on charge always or often.

From Apple on batteries:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1446

"Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time."

yes, if you format it, it would wipe the HD

you can use software for reading/ writing to "PC" format (meaning NTFS format)

use the program called PARAGON or TUXERA

as if a "translator" for read/write data from your Mac to the "PC formatted" HD.

however just consider also getting another HD, you need 2 anyway for data backup redundancy.

The single biggest error people make is feeling safe with ONE external data backup, and thats always a terrible error people make.

HD are cheap as dirt. Just format the new HD in MAC OSX extended journaled.

and use the application(s) above to read and transfer the data from your "PC formatted" HD.

Forget about lightning connection HD, USB3 are plenty fast enough, and all HD are limited by spindle speed and spin-ups.

Microsoft OS works find on Macs , whoever told you that , told you another fib.

However Id prefer to run Win7 rather than Win8 on a Mac, but both will work fine.

Being a HD "collector" of sorts, and investigator of them in great detail, here's your best choice on HIGHEST quality HD to purchase:

huge storage, low cost, high quality, very small and portable.

BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba "tiny giant" 15mm thick 2TB drive (have several of them, lots of storage in tiny package) $100

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Connect-Portable-HDTC720XK3C1/dp/B00CGUMS48 /ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1390020791&sr=8-3&keywords=toshiba+2tb

best options for the price, and high quality HD:

Quality 1TB drives are $50 per TB on 3.5" or $65 per TB on 2.5"

Perfect 1TB for $68

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005J7YA3W/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379452568&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+toshiba

Nice 500gig for $50. ultraslim perfect for use with a notebook

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B009F1CXI2/ref=s r_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377642728&sr=1-1&keywords=toshiba+slim+500gb

*This one is the BEST portable external HD available that money can buy:
HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $88

http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Mobile-Portable-External-0S03559/dp/B009GE6JI8/ref=sr _1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383238934&sr=8-1&keywords=HGST+Touro+Mobile+Pro+1TB+USB+3.0+7 2 00+RPM

Most storage experts agree on the Hitachi 2.5"

Hitachi is the winner in hard drive reliability survey:

Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study. Of the hundreds of Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors. Adding the highest average lifespans and the best relationship between failures and market share, Hitachi can be regarded as the winner.