Thinking of mbp, just have a few questions

I really want a mbp and will probably get one once leopard is released but i have a few concerns about really quick

first, i have an extnernal hdd that is ntfs format with all of my music on it
will the mbp be able to recognize my hdd. ive read about some problems about macs not recognizing hdds for some reason or other. i just need to know if it should recognize it or not

second, i have 45,000 songs and itunes really runs like crap on my pc with this amount of music in my library. it uses so much system resources it is quite rediculous. are there other media players for osx like winamp or windows media player? or will itunes run fine on mbp will that much music?

third, the apple care plan thing is so much money, is it really worth getting that ? what kind of warranty do i get w/o extra warranty. im not worried about accidental damage or anything b/c i take great care of things i buy. if theres is like 30 or 60 days standard i think that should be alright? what do you think

thanks a lot

 

it will be able to read the external drive, but wont be able to write to it.

as for handling 45000 songs, you are going to be hard pressed to find a media program that will handle that much music without slowdown. iTunes does run better on OS X though, so it will prolly be faster then on your pc.

as for warranty, it is comes with a one year warranty.

 

Yes the MBP will recognize the external hdd. It will be able to play your songs.

AppleCare is just an extension of what you already have. You have parts/labor for 1 year and phone support for 90 days, buying Applecare will add 2 more years to both.

 

OS X will read, but not write to NTFS. What that means is that you'll be able to access data from the external hard drive, you can copy it to the MBP, you just won't be able to copy data to the external. However, there are workarounds like MacFUSE and NTFS-3G that will allow you full NTFS read/write capabilities in OS X.

iTunes actually runs better on OS X than Windows, so your problems may be alleviated without switching to an alternative media player. Also on this topic, the development of Windows Media Player for Mac has been discontinued by Micro$oft. The most recent version (WMP 9 from 2003) is horrible. It's nothing like WMP on Windows. For video playback on Mac OS X you will want to use VLC Media Player. Also, there are some very capable QuickTime plug-ins: Perian and Flip4Mac.

I think AppleCare is worth the extra money. If you qualify for the Apple Store for Education it only costs US$239. And you do not have to purchase AppleCare at the same time you purchase a Mac; you have up to 1 year to make the decision. AppleCare does not cover accidental damage. A graphical representation of Apple's support:

Read more about AppleCare.

 

I haven't had any experience with slowdown of itunes, but one thing I can suggest is a function called "consolidate library". It copies all the music to one area and itunes can get it all from there. So if anything, it will be reading all the songs from one area on the hdd, as opposed to having to seek out the songs all over the hdd. Which I would say would help somewhat.

 

thanks for the replies,
seems like any problem i might have can be fixed one way or another
also i didnt know about purchasing the extended warranty, and how that can be at a later date, which is good to know

thanks a lot

 

I've heard this from several posters here on NBR: the Mac users are most friendly and are very helpful whenever you have trouble .

And yes, you can purchase AppleCare anytime in the first year of purchase. Its a really good idea, especially for those that can't afford to shell out another $300+ for a warranty when they've already made such an investment on the notebook.

 

just wondering why do you have 45,000 songs?

 

I agree...I have a few hundred songs and they're already enough for me to listen to . I guess everyone is different .

 

Another option is to convert the drive (or partition) to FAT32, which can be read from and written to by OS X, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Linux. Sure, you'll lose some advanced permissions features of NTFS, but if it's just media files, who really cares?

EDIT: Doh, I didn't realize it, but while Windows makes it easy to convert FAT32 to NTFS, it doesn't make it easy to go the other way. You'd need to copy the data somewhere, then reformat in FAT32 (or your desired filesystem), and then put the data back.

 

One of the shortcomings of the FAT32 file system is a 4GB file size limit. That shouldn't be a problem with music files though.

Along those same lines (as reformatting)...

Yet another option is to format/partition the drive as Mac OS Extended HFS+ (the Mac file system). That way the Mac would be able to read from and write to the external drive without using any third-party applications. However, Windows machines will not be able to read from or write to an HFS+ drive without using something like MacDrive. A downside to this method is that MacDrive has a retail price of US$49.95.

 

so if i wanted to be able to read and write on both a mac and someone elses pc if needed to, moving all the and reformatting the drive to FAT32 would be my best bet? the only thing its used for is music and sometimes video files and other little things but i dont ever install anything programs or anything on it so that shouldnt be a problem correct? ...never used fat32 drive before, in fact my hdd came as fat32 but i changed it to ntfs..

also i have 45,000 songs because i have an addiction
i just really love music.. anything with guitars basically no rap/r&b or whatver that weird stuff on the radio is these days tho

thanks again you people are great lol

other side question. may make me look like an idiot has anyone ever purchased something this big with bill me later or the apple credit card. i wont have any problems making a monthly payment but i just dont have all the money on hand. any negatives about using these? thanks

 

Yes, partition the external hard drive as FAT32 if you want to move files around between OS X and Windows. As Xander stated, the main problem is the 4 GB file size limit, but I don't think the average user will have any 4 GB file anyways.

 

FAT32 has a number of other limitations besides just volume size and file size limits.

See http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm