Which external hdd for osx and windows?

MichaelHo

MichaelHo

MichaelHo

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Due to having a small hdd on my macbook and the HDD on my windows running very low im looking to get an external hard drive.
What i will use it for is to back up my documents folder, store/back up music and photos and also to transfer files between my windows pc and my macbook.
I transfer quite large High def movie files, usually 4-8 gigs from my windows pc to my macbook to link it to my HDTV. atm im transfering it via ethernet cable which is very slow (crappy mobo i think).
There seem to be loads of 500gb ones available, WD mybooks and iomega ones on the apple site seem to be my favorites, however i have read some reviews which report osx compatibility issues.
Can anyone recommend me an external drive which would work with both osx and windows?

Thanks.
 
I've used multiple external drives, memory sticks and NAS devices with my pc and mac day in day out and never ever had any compatibility issues. if the reviews are custoemr posted ones, likely they're just idiots...

Recommendation are difficult, Lacie make fast and cheap kit generally but reliability could maybe be questioned (I have friends who use them professionally and they've seen a couple fail)

I'd be tempted by seagate maybe, they're pretty good these days in my experience and you probably can't go far wrong with western digital.

But certainly assuming for format it as FAT it should work flawlessly on both platforms

last tip, if you're mac or pc has firewire 800, it's really worth getting a drive that supports it!

oh! and avoid dual disk raid0 setups in my opinion (a fair number of high capacity drives) as they're just doubling the risk of data loss, better multiple smaller drives...
 
I've had problems with Prolific chipsets, from occasional lost data, enclosure not detected when plugged in (firewire)

If you need to transfer 4GB> you'll need to use NTFS, FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 4GB. But then it won't work in a Mac.
 
squiffy said:
I've had problems with Prolific chipsets, from occasional lost data, enclosure not detected when plugged in (firewire)

If you need to transfer 4GB> you'll need to use NTFS, FAT32 doesn't support files larger than 4GB. But then it won't work in a Mac.
Click to expand...

true, though how many non professional apps have files beyond 4GB?

or format it for apple, though it won't be usable on windows...take your pick!
 
DVD images and films can be over 4GB. I sometimes use a iriver DAP (FAT32) to transfer files, but when I have >4GB files I then have to use my USB 2 enclosure with 60GB formatted as NTFS. It's not uncommon, and hard drive partition type is paramount if you can't backup large files when you do come across them.
 
squiffy said:
DVD images and films can be over 4GB. I sometimes use a iriver DAP (FAT32) to transfer files, but when I have >4GB files I then have to use my USB 2 enclosure with 60GB formatted as NTFS. It's not uncommon, and hard drive partition type is paramount if you can't backup large files when you do come across them.
Click to expand...

I suppose I fair few people will have ISOs they've downloaded, didn't think of that, all my DVDs are ripped as video_ts folders so they can be played straight from my NAS. Personally I'd backup images as, well, discs...

It's a fair point, I still think the occassional need for over 4GB files is something I'd loose in return for easy cross platform use...

EDIT: and i've just reread the original post, hit me over the head or something... :rolleyes:
 
Bit on a conundrum this...

The branded externals (eg Lacie, WD) are better for support but you get stinky 2 year warranties. Buy an enclosure and say a Seagate drive and you get a choice of drive spec and a 5 year warranty but possibly a dodgy Firewire chipset .

I'm using a Safecom enclosure with a couple of SATA drives. No problem with it in over 2 years, but have had problems with a previous cheapo one. Got to admit a MyBook Pro or Lacie D2 would look nice on the desk next to my MBP tho...
 
There's a program called MacDrive which you can purchase; it allows Windows to read drives that are in HFS format (the format used by OSX). That way you could have the external HDD formatted as HFS and use it comfortably on both platforms without the filesize limits.

Would be nice to see OSX have full NTFS support though.
 
thanks for all the replies. It is a hard choice, i do need it to be able to handle file sizes over 4 gigs...but then also need it to work on both windows and mac.
The ocuk price for the WD mybook pro 500gb is the cheapest ive seen. This is definately my 1st choice so far.
Macdrive seems to be the perfect solution, but it does mean increasing the cost of the solution.
 
WD Mybook Prem has metal casing and Mybook Pro has plastic casing?
Any major advantages?

Have just been checking out the seagate FreeAgent external HDDs which also looks good, they are slightly cheaper than the WD ones and comes with 5 yr warranty. My macbook only has firewire 400 so it not a great difference between that and USB 2.0 speeds right?

*edit: just read that the sustained transfer rate is much, much faster via firewire 400.
 
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I haver a 250gig segate formatted fat32 no problems at all, the only downside is that it has no firewire, which was a mistake on my part :rolleyes: no cross compatability problems at all
 
I am using a 320Gb Seagate External Drive (Firewire 400 & USB2) which I got from OcUK and I am getting another IDE drive to go into a IcyBox enclosure.

The Seagate is formatted HFS+ so it can be used as a bootable drive by my MacBook (and I used SuperDuper to clone the Mac's hard drive to the Seagate).

I use MacDrive 7 on my PC so my HFS+ disks can be read and written to.
 
just ordered a Mybook Pro 500GB edition. I chose this one on the basis that it had a firewire connection and came with a firewire cable, 3 yrs warranty and it matches the look of my macbook :p
 
I have a LaCiE 250Gig Firewire. I use MacDrive to read it in Windows. This means I can leave it GUID Partitioned and HSF+ formatted to act as a Boot Drive for my MacBook. Using SuperDuper!
 
I got a 1TB Lacie Big Disk a few months ago for using with Time Machine, at the moment i'm regularly using it for (manually) backing up files and folders from both OS X and Windows.

Haven't had any problems with it at all, using it with the 400 firewire connector on my MacBook Pro and its blazingly fast.
 
Rambaud said:
I am using a 320Gb Seagate External Drive (Firewire 400 & USB2) which I got from OcUK and I am getting another IDE drive to go into a IcyBox enclosure.
Click to expand...

Note that a couple of my co-workers tried to use Icyboxes with their Mac's ... whilst they could access the disk in the enclosure once it was set up they had issues with the Mac's disk utility not being able to partition/format the disk whilst in it.
 
memyselfandi said:
Note that a couple of my co-workers tried to use Icyboxes with their Mac's ... whilst they could access the disk in the enclosure once it was set up they had issues with the Mac's disk utility not being able to partition/format the disk whilst in it.
Click to expand...

It might have been a format problem for them?

Or perhaps a chipset incompatibility?

I have a 200Gb SATA drive (HFS+ formatted) in a USB2 IcyBox which seems to work fine with my MacBook.

Likewise, the MacBook can read & write DVD-RAM discs (FAT32) in my LG E10L External DVD burner.
 
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