External Hard Drive for Macbook Questions

Hey people,

So, can I get any external hard drive for my Macbook? Because I see ads for external hard drives for Macs, as if they're specially designed and made for Macs. Is that legit, or can I buy any one I want?

And while we're on the subject - any suggestions as to which one is the best (fastest, most reliable, etc.)?

I'm looking at getting a 1TB external.

Thanks!

 

You can buy any external hdd you want.
Transfer rates are usually limited by your usb or firewire interface. Unless your macbook has a esata port, normally, hdd won't be able to perform at their top speed.

 

Yeah any drive will do. Get firewire if you can. Specially if you are going to be using it for back ups.

 

I believe that the only difference that a mac external HDD can do for you is that it format with Mac Extended (unlike FAT32 or NTFS).
I suggest you to buy any external HDD besides the apple one.

 

You can format any external hdd to mac extended file system after you get the drive. Most externalhdd are preformatted to fat32.

 

As to the kind of HD you might want to get, it depends on how portable and fast you need it to be. If it just needs to function as a backup with reasonable speeds and sit on your desk, I'm very happy with the Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II (the version I have has two 1TB drives, but you can get another with a total of 1TB; they both use 7200rpm drives)

Its got usb, firewire800, and esata ports (I use the firewire800 on my mbp obviously, and its very fast) Mine is set up in RAID1 with three partitions (time machine, osx storage, and vista) Everything works as it should, and I haven't had any issues with accessing any of the partitions when in vista or osx. Setting it up was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

I read one guy thought it was loud when it was in use but I, and everyone else in the thread, didn't know what he was talking about. You can hear when its writing something, but I'd never have call it loud.

Here's a link: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=409

oh! one thing you should know is that the housing, although it may look like aluminum, is actually plastic. I think I had elevated expectations, so I was a little disappointed with the quality, but it is solid and acceptable...just not apple build quality.

 

The my book line from western digital are very good. The one NgCir linked is very good because you can set up in RAID, however their cheaper one is the essential, where you can get a TB for I think $125.

 

I'm with them on the My Book. I think its a great deal for a good hard drive.

 

Thanks for the tips guys!

 

I'd also recommend Lacie drives. Their external drive enclosures are chunky and made for transporting.
I got one for my mac book pro and it's been beautiful. Be warned though, some of them are large. The lacies also usually have multiple outputs FW 800, FW 400, USB 2.