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Any External HD suggestions?!

Hi everyone!


Since I'm having problems with my WD External Hard Drive, I'm looking forward to buying a new one that won't let me down this much....


I'm not really familiarized with this subject, so it would help a lot to hear some suggestions!


I'm looking for a device with 1 or 2 TB of capacity.

It should be compatible with Time Machine, but I would like to copy/paste files directly to the device too (as if it was a pen drive).

- MAC and PC compatibility

- fair price


Thanks in Advance!


Marina

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), null

Posted on Jul 4, 2015 9:23 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Jul 5, 2015 12:54 PM

Western Digital and SeaGate are the only 2 large hard drive manufacturers left. Since you aren't happy with WD try SeaGate. I personally use HGST drives which last 3-4 years without issue (they are owned by WD).


Time Machine compatible means that you need to format your hard drive as Mac Journaled using Apple's Disk Utility.


Mac and PC compatible is an issue. Apple Disk Utility lets your format the drive as ExFat (Fat64) which both Macs and PCs can use, but this means that you can't use it for Time Machine (which requires Mac Journal (HFS+)).


One solution is to buy your SeaGate 2TB hard drive and use Apple Disk Utility to format and then partition the drive into 2 sections. One section would be Mac Journaled for Time Machine and the other would be ExFat for using with Macs and PCs. Your one drive would then show 2 different hard drives when connected.

2 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Jul 5, 2015 12:54 PM in response to Marina N.

Western Digital and SeaGate are the only 2 large hard drive manufacturers left. Since you aren't happy with WD try SeaGate. I personally use HGST drives which last 3-4 years without issue (they are owned by WD).


Time Machine compatible means that you need to format your hard drive as Mac Journaled using Apple's Disk Utility.


Mac and PC compatible is an issue. Apple Disk Utility lets your format the drive as ExFat (Fat64) which both Macs and PCs can use, but this means that you can't use it for Time Machine (which requires Mac Journal (HFS+)).


One solution is to buy your SeaGate 2TB hard drive and use Apple Disk Utility to format and then partition the drive into 2 sections. One section would be Mac Journaled for Time Machine and the other would be ExFat for using with Macs and PCs. Your one drive would then show 2 different hard drives when connected.

Jul 6, 2015 4:26 PM in response to Marina N.

Thank for the clear explanations and great suggestions!


Out of curiosity, which do you thing is the best way to keep pictures safe?

I'm afraid I just lost around 40k important files because both of the HDs that were keeping them failed at the same time.

I'll try to send to recover the information sending the device to a specialised company, but I'm not feeling very hopeful.


I'll buy and HD but I think I might also start storing back ups on the cloud, but I'm not sure about it...

Any External HD suggestions?!

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