Portable External Harddrives for Macbook

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Shorty

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If you seen me uvva thread then you know my concerns. I need to be able to easily, and happily take my external hardrive with me when I'm working, which means it's gotta be easy/small enough to transport, not necessarily in a backpack though cos I usually have a suitcase with me.

Thing I've just seen aswell is the 1TB hardrives [WD and Seagate] have a power outletyou need it to be plugged into. Would this cause me probs, and do the WD My Passports' need a power supply too?

I was only thinking of getting 1TB as apposed to either 250gb/500gb as it works out much cheaper, and of course you don't need to upgrade as often as if you had the smaller capacity drives.

So any recommendations[also of places to buy from] and some big no-nos to steer clear of?
 
The passports dont need separate power supplies and go up to 500Gb (they may need to usb sockets to run though). Ive used passports on my macbook with no problems. One failed after 18 months or so (circuit board not drive) i recovered all the data and WD swapped it with no problems. You though about upgrading your macbook drive to something bigger rather than having an external?
 
I've already got a 180gb hardrive installed on here, there are some things[like old picture files which are more snapshots for good memories than actual worthy photographs] That I'd like to keep[on an external] and then delete from my main hardrive, these are thins like pictures from my mobile phone/very first cam which I used to documents points in my life.
How long would it take a computer place to change over my hardrive if I did do it, cos I sorta can't go any great length of time[days] without my laptop, but a few hours I can deal with.
Also, wouldnt I need to buy an external drive anyway in order for all data off this hardrive to then be transfered onto the new one?[I iz clueless]

I'm starting to wonder if I should just go with the my passport, and if the problem you had was recoverable then that's OK too. Hmmmm
 
What model macbook have you got? Swap the hardrive yourself? Im all for the passports i still use one now, and i was really impressed with the service by WD.
 
1TB is a lot of data to cart about and risk.

Ones which use a laptop drive don't require an external power supply. I use a Lacie 320Gb one, although you can just buy a SATA laptop drive and put it into a hard drive enclosure.

My Lacie one died, but I opened it up and put it into and ICY BOX hard drive enclosure (£ 19) and it worked again.

Sometimes they need two usb sockets to get enough power.

You could easily fit a 500gb drive into your macbook and put the old drive into an enclosure for the best of both worlds?
The bigger hard drives
 
I'd recommend the Lacie Rugged drives if you are going to be carting it around a lot. They can be powered from the FW port, which is also faster than USB2.0 for data transfer.
 
I've got a White 13.3inch Macbook, dunno the exact model number cos my charger is knackered at the moment and if I dare move it I will be stuffed[waiting and waiting on one from ebay to arrive!]

I'd rather not change anything myself cos I have no clue how to do anything properly and don't wanna risk ruining my lappy, both internally and externally.


Think I might go with a WD then, I am working on London from end of this week so will pop into a couple of shops when there and prob pick one up then.

Cowasaki, what does the enclosure actually do?
 
the hardrives you will be looking for are the 2.5inch ones and are called portable harddrives.

these are self powered and the bigger capacity ones are more expensive.

in Tesco's there is an Iomega 320gb one for £45

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.205-6006.aspx

sold out in my local superstores :(

I dont know if these are as reliable as the seagate or WD ones though
but they are very affordable and I wanted a few but all sold here.
 
andrewc said:
If its a plastic bodied macbook then the procedure is pretty easy.

http://www.upgradeyourmac.co.uk/mainsite/Macbook/Macbookharddriveupgrade.html

A portable hard drive is just an ordinary computer hard drive in a protective case (aka enclosure) with a circuit board to convert the socket from USB or firewire to that of the hard drive.
Click to expand...

Oh...that is pretty easy :thinking:
How much would a new hardrive be, and do I need to buy a really really expensive one from apple?

Also, what do I do with all my data and progs etc. that are on this hardrive, when I want to transfer everything to the new hardrive?
 
You've probably noticed that however big the hard drive on your computer is when you buy it. 2 years later it's always too small .

You could try storing all your important data, and images on an external drive, giving you more space on the one inside your Mac.

If you go traveling get a small USB drive as has been suggested. They'll run off the USB power from the Laptop. I have one that was supplied with a 2 USB sockets to plug into both USB ports on the computer. The main one was for Data and power the other simply supplied power. However I've never needed to double up.

I do also have a Freecom drive ( yes everything is backed up and backed up again... Yes I am paranoid about loosing images ). That came with a phone up offer for a Free power plug to run the drive if you had problems. naturally I got one..
 
Shorty said:
Oh...that is pretty easy :thinking:
How much would a new hardrive be, and do I need to buy a really really expensive one from apple?

Also, what do I do with all my data and progs etc. that are on this hardrive, when I want to transfer everything to the new hardrive?
Click to expand...

I got the WD Scorpio Blue 500Gb internal for my macbook and it cost £80 ish i also bought an external caddy for the one that was in the mac and used that to copy the drives with super duper. Fitted the new drive pressed the power button and away she went. It really was as easy as that. Im not sure if there are hardrive size limitations on macs though.
 
Oooooooh, cheers for that, will see if there's a 500gb for a little cheaper, or I'll just wait a while yet til after I've got a bit more work.
I'm really liking how easy this is all seeming!

Tks
 
Hey, me again.
Was just wondering if I can have a link for where to buy those hard drive enclosures, and which hard drive[brand/type/place to buy] is best to buy without getting an apple specific one?

Prefering this option right now as apposed to getting an external.

I was gonna backup everything to a 500gb drive inside the enclosure, take out the HD I have, and then put in the 500gb with all the data already on :) - that's the right way to do it, right?
 
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