I need a portable hard drive?

ManicMajor

Anyone know where I can get a cheap but good portable hard drive for use on my laptop. Only need at moment for backup of music files to stop me having to download music maybe later. No I know nothing about them so good advice please and thanks

Answer
I just bought a 1 TB Western Digital external hard drive at Walmart today for $80. The size is small...small enough I could stick it in my shirt pocket. They also had a 1 TB Toshiba external hard drive for $70, but it couldn't handle Vista. It was similar sized to the WD. I use an external hard drive for my system backup bundled with Acronis True Image. I had problems last week and wound up doing a backup installation of the "C" Main drive and "D" Recovery drive. With this type of system ( external hard drive & Acronis ), the entire process took about 90 minutes. My problem was solved and the system is running as it should be. My old external hard drive had a capacity of 120GB and my system was 111 GB, so I figured it was time to increase my capacity on the backup external hard drive.

any advice for portable hard drives?

speedlinhi

I want to save my important documents , and pictures somewhere outside of my pc. I want to keep copies of them. If in case, my pc breaks down or anything, I would be able to transfer those copies from old pc to new pc. Should I use USB? or hard drive? I have never used those before. I want medium storage room for hard drives. Which kind is suitable for my pc?
Thanks.

Answer
For just documents you should use a USB. You can get them pretty cheap .. at the Walmart around my house I found a 4GB one for $11

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What is the best portable 1TB hard drive?

tinker

I need a 1TB hard drive just to back up my files (mainly movies and TV shows). I was looking into the Clickfree C6 portable hard drive but the reviews weren't great. Which hard drive have you used in the past or recently that you think is the best? Thanks!

Answer
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0045JLPMO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=acomprar-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0045JLPMO

Honestly to make this easy, here are some steps you can follow, since I believe this to be the better of the 3 mainstream external 2.5" drives (Toshiba, Western Digital, and Seagate).

1. Why bother with the software in the first place?? just reformat the drive, or delete the software. Sure it is a bit annoying having 40 gigabytes taking up space right out the box, but is that really the only main source of concerns for this drive?

2. Now for the USB cord. out of the multitude of variations of 1tb usb 3.0 drives I have run and tested, every manufactuer has just about the same length of cord. If you want a longer cord, and or are wondering how you are going to power this drive other than with the supplied USB, then why are you buying this particular external HDD? this model is not for you if you are NOT an on the go type of person. what I mean by that is, if you do not lug your external drive around, why dont you go buy a powered 3.5" external HDD model for the same price as you would this one and have twice the space?

3. As far as the construction of the drive goes it is solid. I have tested the Toshiba 1TB 3.0 as well as the Western Digital 1TB 3.0, and my opinion is that Toshiba and Western Digital were too concerned about how slim and compact they could make the case of their external HDD, which has resulted in may more failures of those particular brands than I have seen from Seagate. Small shocks, such as light drops and accedental shock is a killer for the Western Digital as well as the Toshiba more than the Seagate models I have seen. Yes I know that there are about 3 or more warning labels stating the these drives should never be hit, moved, droped, abused, etc... but If it WERE to happen I have noticed that the Seagate construction has had a better chance from failing due to these certain cercumstances than the other brands I have tested and seen.

4. If there is any con's about this drive I will say that I am not a fan of the two piece adapter. they should have included their USB 3.0 "Upgrade" cable with this drive and not the two piece unit that is currently supplied with it, as the upgrade cable is also a few inches longer and one solid piece. The two pieces I am referring to are the adapter that plugs into the drive itself and the USB 3.0 cable that goes from that adapter to your USB device.

5. Im not here to bag on any one company, and or promote Seagate as the best of the best when it somes to drives in general. I am just stating overall that if you are looking for a 1TB 3.0 USB 2.5" drive, then this is what you are looking for. I just thought I would post this up as I keep seeing negative reviews on this drive just because of a bloatware issue not a material type defect. hope this helps! If not im sorry for wasting you time.

what is the best value on a 1TB portable hard drive?

max

I was considering a oyen mini portable hard drive. is oyen a good company?

Answer
Oyen is an awesome drive. I have two and I am super impressed with them. They fit in your shirt pocket or purse: it is super quiet and very fast;doesn't heat up much at all in use. I use my personal one for photography, and I know I will never fill them up; they can be partitioned very easily; come with FREE online backup service when your away from your physical HD back up; they are about the size of an iPod,and work off of only one wire on your USB drive. No extra cords to mess with, and very easy and simple software for use. You can read my review of the Oyen 1TB Mini Portable hard drive here http://jimehle.com I give this drive 5 starts out of 5. You can use it for any backup that you may need. Infact I use it for my business computer system...I have four machines that I back up... and find it reliable and easy for my back room gals to use. The best buy and product on the market for the dollar spent.

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I think I burned my external hard drive out?

Gikiboi

I haven't used my hard drive since sept 2010. I pull it out today, early March 2011, and it starts clicking. I unplug it and replug it. It stops clicking and I then smell a something burning. What should I do, I need a project I did on it to finish a class and verify my diploma.

Answer
Clicking indicates a hard drive crash. Pull the drive out of the external enclosure and put it into a docking station or connect it directly up to your desktop. You might be able to see it enough to copy the file you need. You should always keep a backup! Idrive.com offers 5gb of backup for free

re imaging computer, Microsoft office, external hard drive.?

Ry Champ

Currently i have a computer issued from my school(a Dell latitude running vista). The school has given us several programs and most valuable being Microsoft office 2010. At the end of this school year the contract from Dell will expire so they are upgrading to macbook airs and selling the Dells. In the selling process they will be re installing windows without the programs giving out individual profiles admin rights and removing all the good stuff. Any ideas how i could save it so that i could get the programs back after they install a new image on it? my first thought was backing it up to an external hard drive but i am unsure how that would help me out. Thanks.

Answer
Re-installing Windows means they will be putting a factory software image on the computer, thus wiping out any software and data currently on the hard drive. Especially viruses and malware.

You can use an imaging program like Acronis True Image to make an exact image of the software on the computer. There are other programs like it, Norton Ghost is one. There are also free programs but I have never used them. Someday I will ...

You use the imaging program to extract data from the hard drive and then the program stores that data on another drive you specify, like an external drive.

For the Acronis software :

You will need to get the retail box of Acronis True Image so you can use the disc inside to boot your computer and run the program without installing it.

OR

You download the program from the Acronis website. You will have to install it on a different computer (and pay for it) to be able to create your own bootable disc.

Once you have an image of the software on the computer, you can reinstall it at any time. And you can have more than one image; you can make an image of the software the school has re-installed (the factory software), and have that available if you even need it.

Now about Microsoft Office 2010. You might not be able to legally "own" that software, the school might have licensed the use of that software and once they terminate the lease, the license is not transferable. The school is a business and business software licenses are not like consumer software licenses. You might find that when you try to update the software to get critical updates (to protect your computer against hackers) that you won't be able to get critical updates for Office 2010, and Microsoft might even rescind the software's registration and make it non-working. You have no legal recourse in that situtation.

But if you never connect that computer to the Internet, you won't bother with critical updates.

It's also possible the Dell computers were shipped to the school with the Microsoft Office software loaded but not "installed" until a valid activation code was entered. The school would have gotten a business license activation code in that situation. You could buy your own activation code and re-activate the Office software.

Long term, if you need Microsoft Office, you can buy the Home and Office version for less than 100 dollars and keep it legal.

===== Acronis True Image :

If you never install this software, you can use the CD to boot any computer and make an image or restore an image. You can make images of your friends' computers for them as backups.

You can get Acronis True Image by mail order if you can't get it locally.

Best Buy has it here :
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/True+Image+Home+2012+PC+Backup+%26amp%3B+Recovery+-+Windows/3144313.p?id=1218379766124&skuId=3144313

Reviews :
2012 version
http://reviews.bestbuy.com/3545/3144313/true-image-home-2012-pc-backup-recovery-windows-reviews/reviews.htm

2011 version
http://reviews.bestbuy.com/3545/1239744/acronis-true-image-home-2011-windows-reviews/reviews.htm

Read those reviews. While I have had no problems with Acronis True Image, other people have not been so fortunate.

Frys.com website :

http://www.frys.com/product/6730455
Acronis True Image Home 2012 - PC Backup and Recovery (40 dollars)

http://www.frys.com/product/6892716
Acronis True Image Home 2012 - PC Backup and Recovery Plus (80 dollars)

http://www.frys.com/product/6892726
Acronis True Image Home 2012 - PC Backup & Recovery - Family Pack 3 PCs (80 dollars)
(this gives you a license to install it on up to three computers)
.

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external hard drive....?

ronny

i want to get a new external hardrive for my PC. by doing this will this allow for my computer to run faster? i have a 55 gb hard drive on my pc and it is down to 1gb of free space. how do i transfer files to the exteranl hard drive?

-also, can i use the exteranl hardrive on my PC and laptop? i the same movie editing program on both and ideally i would like to transfer the editted movies from PC to laptop. is this possible?

-i think there were like 5 questions in there...... thanks!

Answer
The external hard drive will not speed up either computer. It is just a quick and easy way to add additional storage that is also portable.

When the external drive is plugged into your desktop or laptop the external drive will look like any other drive in your system. For example if you have a internal hard drive (C:\) and a CDROM (D:\) this will show up as (E:\) all you have to do is drag and drop folders, files, etc to the new drive to move them (including edited movies).

You should not have any problems using the external drive on either machine as long as it has a USB port you are good to go.

If you are looking for more speed you should add another drive to the desktop PC (you can have more than one internal drive) also it is cheaper and better performance than an external drive. You could have the edited movies output to that drive so which frees up the read and writes on your primary drive and give you a performance boost.

If you are just interested in moving movies between the laptop and the PC you might look into file sharing using wireless or wired ethernet. Even a crosss over cable if you don't have a router would be fast enough and cheaper than the external drive.

Hope that helps.

Is an external portable hard drive consider a flash based storage device?

debeth88

I was thinking of installing a large CS4 on a portable hard drive is this possible.

Answer
No, the external hard drives are hard drives, not flash drives.
Hard drives use magnets and stuff to store data, flash drives use circuit components, not moving parts, and tend to be faster.

Yes, you can install CS4 onto the drive (if it's big enough), but it will run kinda slowly compared to your local hard drive, since it's running through the USB cable.

Hope this answers your question.
Good luck!

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External hard drives 1TB portable?

ginge

Is there any external hard drives 1TB that can be portable and don't require a power source ie. an adaptor? Or is there anything close to a 1TB? If so could you please provide links. Thanks in advance.

Answer
all portable hard drive powered by a USB drive. Check at Amazon for portable hard drives....but you can check the following link for hard drives as well.

What is the best portable external hard drive?

Starie chi

I am looking for a portable external hard drive that is between 500GB and 1TB (depends on the price). I plan on storing pictures and music along with some document and possibly back up my laptop as well. I want to know what are the best brands and models for what I need. I think I have narrowed it down to Seagate and Western Digital.

Answer
i have been using portable drives for quite a few years and have a few of them all western digital the best one i would say would be
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Passport-Essential-Portable/dp/B0041OSQ9S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314421146&sr=8-1

it has a 3.0 USB which is a lot faster and its a good price for 1 TB

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i'm looking for a cheap external hard drive to hold photos and music?

squeee

i need one available in the uk, with good value for money.. i'm on a budget of roughly £60.
please reply! (: x

Answer
Theres 2 types of external hard drives

1 is Desktop External Hard drive, its the type of hard drive you dont move you just keep it there, and they are powered by a main adapter that comes with the external drive. These are usaully the cheapest of the external hard drive. Its basically a 3.5inch hard drive in a case but the size is kinda big.

2 is Portable External Hard drive, these are the types that you take around with you such as on trips, holidays and so on, if you need access on the go. These are usaully small since its basically a 2.5inch hard drive in a case that connect to you Pc/ Laptop by a usb cable. These usauly cost a bit more.

For £50 you can get a 500GB External Desktop hard drive with a free 4gb USB at argos
[offer ends 23rd of feb]

[Link >> http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/6758655/c_1/1|category_root|Office%2C+PCs+and+phones|14418968/c_2/3|15701344|Hard+drives%2C+USBs+and+data+storage|14419053/c_3/4|cat_14419053|Portable+hard+drives|14419054.htm ]

For £50 you can get a 320GB Portable External hard drive with a free carry case worth £10
[offer ends 23rd of feb]
[Link >> http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/6758617/c_1/1|category_root|Office%2C+PCs+and+phones|14418968/c_2/3|15701344|Hard+drives%2C+USBs+and+data+storage|14419053/c_3/4|cat_14419053|External+hard+drives|16528298.htm ]

For both if you want the free usb or case click on special offer and tick the box, why not its a free gift lol.

I say go for the 500gb Desktop one if your using a PC, but if your using a laptop i suggest the 320gb Portable one if you like a smaller sized and easy to carry drive.

Which External Hard drive shoud I Buy (UK)?

Snoop S

Hi folks,

I need to know which computer equipment I need for extra storage. I've been thinking to get an external hard drive, because my computer internal ide harddrive is running out of space. I do alot of movie editing, and download alot of media contents.

I don't know much about computers, but I have been suggested by people to get an external hard drive. I looked around and I've seen some with 1 terabytes. Are terabytes big?! I mean it sounds as if it can handle alot of storage...could someone please suggest to me any good external hard drive that isn't too cheap and isnt too expensive, but has alot of stoage capacity...

Woudl really appreciate it... I

IFthere are any good links with products from PC WORLD, or any other online store would appreciate it!

Even if there are some hard drives at Argos!

Answer
your best bet is western digital, i my self am a film editor and i frequently use mine.
1 terabyte= 1000gb so yeah it is really big and very expensive!
so you need to ask yourself do i really need that amount of space?
often the answer is no.
also you need to consider things like, do i want it to be USB powers or mains?
because i am almost certain that any hard drive over 500gb has to be plugged into the wall because your computer wont give it enough power.

anyway here is the one i have its pretty cheap and enough for me
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Passport-Essential-Portable/dp/B0013NE4S2/ref=dp_cp_ob_ce_title_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1235138778&sr=8-1

that might be too small for your needs so...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Passport-Essential-Portable/dp/B0012IAA8G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235138883&sr=8-1

but i think that's as big as you really need

well maybe if you wanna go that bit further-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-WDME5000TE-Essential-Midnight/dp/B001GT7F84/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235138983&sr=8-1

BUT I REALLY REALLY RECOMMEND WESTERN DIGITAL
They're fast, reliable, small, cheap and they have excellent customer support.

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how to change a portable hard drive format?

Q. i need to change my portable hard drive format from nfts to fat32 to connect it to my d-link di-6240s wireless storage router
http://www.dlink.com.au/Products.aspx?Sec=1&Sub1=18&Sub2=43&PID=64

is the router web page

Answer
'partition magic' is the only tool that i have actually used for dynamic re-partitioning & such

maybe other tools too, but i am not familiar
none that windows / microsoft offer

make sure that fat32 is indeed needed & ntfs won't work

in normal course > it would mean re-installation after formatting the entire hard drive of it's contents, files & programs included
re-start from scratch

a link to article would help !
__ __ __ __ __

thanks for link, mate
i do understand your worry

* Wirelessly Share Broadband Internet Connection
* Two USB 2.0 Ports to Connect to Storage Devices/Printers
* 802.11g, 802.11b Compatible
* Advanced Firewall & Parental Control
* Integrated Functions With 6 Built-in Servers for DHCP, Personal Web, FTP, File/Printer**/Multimedia Sharing
* Supported HD formats: FAT16, FAT32

i have read all the manuals & could find no mention of fat16 / fat32 in any of them
i can only guess that it means it also offers support to fat16 / fat32 > outside of ntfs
< fat 16 makes little sense & this was give-away >
backward compatibility issue !

they have stressed very much on security aspects & win xp with sp2 > ntfs is ideal platform for this

i personally would not read too much into it & bother myself
a phone call / mail might clear the air
in case you do face problems, mail me

How can I format my Seagate 500gb Portable Expansion hard drive to fat32?

sarahhh (:

I got the Seagate 500gb Portable Expansion hard drive recently and I seriously need to be able to transfer files from both PCs and Macs. After doing some research, I found out that the best way to do this would be to format the hard drive to fat32, but I have absolutely no idea how to do this.

Also, I'm a little concerned that this hard drive only has a USB connection, as opposed to Firewire. Does a Firewire connection transfer files considerably faster, or is USB fine? I still haven't opened the hard drive and I might be able to exchange it for another hard drive, so would you strongly recommend a different hard drive for about the same price ($100-125)?

Thanks!
Oh, and in case it's of any importance, my main computer is a PC. The Mac I currently have access to is at my school, so I only can use it when i'm there.

Answer
A USB 2.0 connection is about the same speed as Firewire. Formatting to FAT32 will allow the Mac to read and write to it, but it won't be able to handle large files (over 2 GB). If you have any files that size, then you could format to NTFS, but you will need special software for the Mac to write (OS X apparently can read NTFS natively, but cannot write to it.)

If your computers support it, I would look into getting a drive with eSATA. eSATA is significantly faster than USB 2.0.

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Is this The Right Portable Drive for ME?

sivel

I'm looking into getting a good portable drive
I'm using a mac and all I want to use this for is to store some movies that are taking up too much memory on my laptop
I found this one, but I want to make sure it will work w/ my macbook
www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=10314113&search=external%20drive&Mo=1&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-CA&Nr=P_CatalogName:BCCA&Sp=S&N=0&whse=BCCA&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogName:BCCA&Ne=4000000&D=external%20drive&Ntt=external%20drive&No=0&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1#
www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=10314113&search=external%20drive&Mo=1&cm_re=1_en-_-Top_Left_Nav-_-Top_search&lang=en-CA&Nr=P_CatalogName:BCCA&Sp=S&N=0&whse=BCCA&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=Text_Search&Dr=P_CatalogName:BCCA&Ne=4000000&D=external%20drive&Ntt=external%20drive&No=0&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nty=1&topnav=&s=1#
Ithe link doesn't work, so it's a
Western Digital 250gb Passport Essential ext. Drive
Using a Mac

Answer
as far as hard drives are concerned .... WD are the best. and for space , if ur planning on storing around 100 dvd's . can try out the 500 gb
hdd.

what's a good external hard drive please?

Evut

i've noticed maxtor is the most common brand but there are some really bad reviews on a couple of websites which worries me.
i'd like a 500GB one. it doesn't need to be portable.

thanks for your help!


processor is AMD Athlon 64, 3200+ 2.01 GHz, 448MB ram
i have windows xp

Answer
To be honest most hard drives are kind of a crapshoot. The so called "best brands" can sometimes put out lemons. I've seen it happen. Sometimes its just a firmware fix, but other times its drives that are toasted. So I wouldn't put a tone of faith in brand issues.

I have collegues that loathe Lacie and Maxtor. Myself I'm not a Lacie fan at all. But I've had one Maxtor that worked out just great for me. I haven't bought many of them no (not on purpose, just didn't happen to be readily available for me).

Right now though I think the Western Digital My Passport drives are amongst your best bet. We use them like work horses and they hold up solid for us. Any of them really. We've had a few die on us, but they were abused in the field, so I suspect human error more than hard drive issues there. There are loads of options with them. You can get ones with USB, Firewire, and/or eSata. And even some with Ethernet. Costco usually has great prices on them.

After that I also like the Seagate Free Agent drives. I mainly prefer Seagate for all the internal drives I buy and use. So I don't mind going Seagate on an external then. But I usually find better deals on the Western Digital drives so I tend to go with those for pure cost reasons.

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Safely wipe a portable hard drive with a virus?

Da Man of

How can I safely wipe a portable hard drive without infecting my computer? A few weeks ago, I got a virus on my desktop and one thing led to another. Finally I figured out that it was on my portable hard drive (one of those you plug in using a usb cord.) How can I safely wipe the hard drive clean without infecting my system because whenever I connect the hard drive, I get a virus.

Answer
This anti-virus program should detect the virus and catch it just before it infects your computer:
http://download.cnet.com/Avast-Home-Edition-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10019223.html?tag=mncol;pop

Also I do recommend scanning both your system and portable drive when you are done. There maybe another type of infection on your pc such as spyware/adware I would recommend this program to deal with these threats:
http://download.cnet.com/Ad-Aware-Free-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?tag=mncol

my ps3 won't recognize my portable hard drive?

ryu

i right clicked on the portable hard drive and went to format but it only has the option ntfs

Answer
The HDD needs to be formatted using FAT32. If you don't have it formatted as FAT32, the PS3 will not read it.

If you are using a Windows based PC (XP, Vista, Windows 7, etc.), you will not be able to format the HDD to FAT32, you have to download third party software in order to format it.

Most people use Swiss Knife ( http://download.cnet.com/CompuApps-SwissKnife-V3/3000-2248_4-10070864.html ), however, Swiss Knife only formats up to 500GB. If your HDD is bigger than 500GB, you will not get the rest of the memory using Swiss Knife.

I recommend you use FAT32Formatter ( http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/ ). The program is free (just like Swiss Knife), and it will format your whole drive, no matter how big it is. I use a 1.5TB HDD, so I could not use Swiss Knife, and it took me a while to find FAT32Formatter. Not only is it easy to use, but you get all of your memory.

FAT32Formatter is compatible with Windows2000, Windows XP, and 32-bit Windows Vista. If you aren't using one of these, then you will have to find an alternative if you are trying to format an HDD larger than 500GB.

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Going into college: Macbook Air vs Macbook Pro?

Catherine

I'm going to college in the fall of 2013 (so I'm a senior in high school) and I have my own desktop but I want a laptop for college. My desktop is a PC but I have an iPhone/iPod/iPad so I want a mac. What would be better macbook air or macbook pro?
-i surf the web a lot (have lots of tabs open at once)
-have a LOT of music
-don't really play games on it
-cost is really important
-video streaming! (netflix, youtube, etc.)
-and lots of writing/editing

speed, portability, and design are all pretty important to me.
i don't think i need that much memory but then again i will probably have this laptop for a long time, so I don't know.

10 points for anyone who goes in depth into the pros and cons/gives me a solid recommendation and why

Answer
Here's the difference between $1,199 13 in. macbook air and $1,199 macbook pro.

The Air (2.96lb) is very portable while the Pro is heavy (4.5lb) relative to the air, The air uses SSD of 128 gb of hard drive space, which provides fast performance in compromise of space while the pro compromises performance for bigger space (500 gb).

The Air lacks a disc drive, and storage space. Its important to note, even though the air provides 128 gb of space, probably about 20 gb is used for the system overall truly giving you only 108 gb to play with, same for the pro around 480 gb to play with.

You seem like a smart person in technology so far hence i recommend the air, as it is more beneficial for school than the macbook pro.

Reason 1, and most important, portability. I can not tell you how important it is to be able to carry your laptop around in school with ease, in classrooms, study rooms, the library, tutor sessions, hall ways, imagine carrying a 4.5lb weight around wherever you go compared to something around 3lb, no matter how minute the difference is, for access it is very important.

Reason 2, if you buy a pro, you will compare the thick notebook to some students who carry only an ipad to classrooms, or smaller form factors of different tablets and ultra-laptops which you will subconsciously think of wanting to have a lighter weight laptop. which you will buy one costing an extra $300-700.

Reason 3, Lack of storage space can be compensated by buying a portable external hard drive. A 640 gb hard drive can be bought for around $70-90, You might already have one.

Reason 4, Lack of Disc drive can be compensated by buying a portable disc drive (~$30-50). The only reason to have a disc drive is when classes provide discs of educational content, however this is fairly rare in classes as forms are moving to digital download formats. Besides media content, the disc drive does not get used as much as it should, so why carry that weight around in the pro, buy an air.

Reason 5. AIR - SSD = SPEED my friend, pro does not use SSD drive (FLASH DRIVES)

Do not buy a windows machine, for the sole reason that windows 7 software has not been optimized for a great trackpad experience, over the many years windows 7 has been available yet no manufacture has come close to the standards of mac's trackpad. I hear so many complaints of pc's trackpad that some just resort to a mouse or get over it and work with frustration or slight interruptions in a smooth experience.

And for video games, and media (netflix, photos, movies), the stuff youwill do while not studying, the Intel HD graphics 4000 which is on both is good enough actually great to play the most popular games out in the video game world as well as video editing and photo editing.

Battery life is also a key but apple products are known for their great battery performance, both last around 4~5 hours of average use with a moderate use of email, media, documents, and web browsing.
Source(s):
I'm a student, had a macbookpro for 4 years from 2007-2011, and now in school again, but would rather buy an air.

Laptop choice?

Clayton Ra

I would like to buy a gaming laptop and have been looking at the Razerblade for a while. I planned on buying the 2013 model with a 512 ssd. Razer recently announced the 2014 model that is more powerful, however, so now I am considering that. My only issue is hard drive space. Should I spend $2200 for the new display and carry a 1tb external hard drive around or forgo the extra power for the extra ssd space and not have to worry about carrying around a portable hard drive for $2300?

Answer
What is more important? Display or space? In my opinion, I have a very basic computer with 1t and it does a very good job playing extensive games. It looks good to and is very fast for a basic computer. I personally would never spend more than $1400 on a computer since I find they are just as good as a "gaming" computer, but I play games like Fable, Sim City, The Sims, etc. Not sure what you are trying to play but I have not seen any games that excede these games in graphics and power. So, for me answer your question, I would go with which ever is cheaper.

Pay the $2200, then have to pay for hardware add ons like external drives is almost like paying $2300 without all the external add ons.

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I just got a new portable 1 TB hard drive...?

Rabecca Hu

but now I can't figure out how to move all my games and applications onto it... I want to put all my stuff onto the hard drive then make it so that when I plug in my hard Drive I can access everything from there...

I want my computer basically free of all clutter but when I plug in the hard drive I can play Sims 2 or Warcraft without having to install the whole program again. I'd really appreat some links or vids on how to do this... another thing that might help is I'm a writer and basically want to backup my whole story... how do I do this?

Answer
How to copy programs, games to a external hard drive: http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=ytff-&p=how+to+copy+programs%2C+games+to+a+external+hard+drive

How to Copy Files to an External Hard Drive
Read more: How to Copy Files to an External Hard Drive | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2222402_copy-files-external-hard-drive.html#ixzz1TGYqvd4C

What is a portable hard drive?

Q. Okay, I may sound ignorant, but what exactly is a portable hard drive? Can they act like a normal hard drive? Do you run an OS on them? Can you install programs on them? How much are they? What's the difference between that and a flash drive?

Answer
A portable hd usually refers to a USB connected harddrive that is use to store data. However, newer systems can boot from USB drives (or CDs depending on your OS) and you can use it to intstall your OS. (Not typical however.)

Your OS usually will treat them like a regular harddrive and you can install programs on them, however you wouldn't normally do this since installing programs will usually add entries to the drive where the operating system is to tell the program how to run.

A flash drive refers to "flash memory" these are chip based drives that have no moving parts. Good to carry files around with you. (refered to as key drives sometimes as you can carry one on your keyring) A portable hard drive is more of an external hard drive and has the same technology as one in your PC. (moving parts - a little more likely to damage.)

A flash drive is usally 256 megabytes to 2 gigabytes. USB hard drives can be 10 gigabytes or larger, up to a terabyte. (1000 gigabytes.)

In both cases, you usually want to have all your OS files and programs local to the machine and keep or backup your data on the portable type drives.

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external hard drive. mac and pc. 1tb or more.?

H20polo

i need a 1tb or larger external hard drive that is compadible with mac and PC can anyone sugest a good one?? im planning on filling it with music only. thanks

Answer
You have a problem...You can't have the same hard drive with Windows and MAC at the same time, Windows can't ready MAC and vice versa.

Here the solution:

A) You buy 1 extrernal HDD 1TB or more and cut it in half 500GB/500GB(partition)
This is if you can't or don't want to buy 2 HDDs.

B) Buy 2 external HDDs 1TB or more and use the one for Windows and the other for MAC.

Suggestions for HDD:
--WESTERN DIGITAL WDBABP0010HCH-EESN MY BOOK 3.0 1TB + USB 3.0 HBA ADAPTER
It has USB2.0 and 3.0 Pre formatted for Windows

--WESTERN DIGITAL WDBAAK0010HCH-EESN MY BOOK 3.0 1TB WESTERN DIGITAL WDBAAU0010HBK-EESN ELEMENTS DEKSTOP 1TB Pre formatted for Windows

--WESTERN DIGITAL WDBAAU0010HBK-EESN ELEMENTS DEKSTOP 1TB Pre formatted for Windows

--WESTERN DIGITAL WDBABP0020HCH MY BOOK 3.0 2TB + USB 3.0 HBA ADAPTER Pre formatted for Windows

--WESTERN DIGITAL WDH2NC20000E MY BOOK WORLD EDITION II 2TB Pre formatted for MAC

--WESTERN DIGITAL WDH2NC40000E MY BOOK WORLD EDITION II 4TB Pre formatted for MAC

--WESTERN DIGITAL WDBACG0030HCH MY BOOK LIVE 3TB Pre formatted for Windows

External Hard Drive Not Readable by Mac?

lovelyduck

Hi--
I bought a new external hard drive today (I have a MacBook OS X Version 10.5.8) and i plugged it into my computer and reformatted it (to Mac OS X (Journaled) --i followed an online tutorial) and in the middle of erasing it my computer stopped and said error because it lost touch with the disk utility or something? it told me to relaunch disk utility, which i did and tried again and the same thing happened. after that, i unplugged the HD and tried to plug it back i nand a note popped up that it was unreadable by my computer. it gave me three options: eject, ignore, or initialize. i clicked initialize and it took me back to disk utilities so i tried to format it again and the same thing keeps happening.
i've tried retarting my computer, unplugging and plugging the hard drive in and nothing works. the bummer is i had the same hard drive before and i never had a problem formatting it... it's really frustrating because i have a lot of stuff to back up and i don't know what to do.. i'm terrible with computers, haha.
So if anyone who knows their way around a macbook and/or external (i have a Western Digital 3tb Elements) and could offer some insight i would really appreciate it.. thanks so mch in advance!
:)

Answer
you need to look on the apple site

i found this article which may or may not help you
either way get yourself there ...soon

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Can anyone recommend a good (pref 1TB) external hard drive?

Anna B�at

Looking for a good external hard drive, pref 1tb but not fussed. Anyone know any good brands? (links appreciated!)

Answer
LaCie 1TB External Hard Drive
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_173&products_id=12694

1TB or more external hard drive?

aky_84

which is the cheapest 1TB or more hard drive? i am looking mostly to store media on it. but then again i dont want to be too bulky either!!

Answer
Allow me to give you a link to one of my favorite websites for computer parts.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136321

This is a nice and compact model which is also of my favorite HD brands, you could get other drives for around $15 less of the same size, but I truly rather spend those $15 for the brand and the reviews.
Also not all the cheaper ones have free shipping.

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Portable Hard drive problems!?

Billy

My parents recently bought an HP Portable Hard Drive from good old Costco and forgot the password. We have called best buy the source and who knows who else and they say "There is nothing we can do". This thing cost $120.00 I hope there is something or someone that could help us get access to it again. Thanks

Answer
lol if its encrypted (it is) then the ONLY thing that can get into it is the password. you can format it and lose everything on it, but unless you remember the password, your stuff is gone.

Cheap place to buy Western Digital My Passport Essential 320 GB USB 2 0 Portable Hard Drive...?

emily Rose

...WDMEPN3200TN
Where can I find a great deal online for Western Digital My Passport Essential 320 GB USB 2 0 Portable Hard Drive WDMEPN3200TN

Answer
Technical Details
Box Contents - My Passport Essential portable hard drive, USB 2.0 cable, and Quick Install Guide
Ideal for storing or backing up your digital music, videos and photos
Share large files between office and home
System Requirements - Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X 10.4.11+, and Available USB port
Dimensions - Height 0.59 x Length 4.967 x Width 3.130 (15.0x126.15x79.5mm)

Product Description
Carry your music, video, and photos in style with WD's My Passport Essential Portable Drive. Synchronize files between home and office and encrypt everything on the drive for added security. This elegant portable drive is simple to use, light and easy to carry, and requires no power adapter. Power it directly from the USB port on your PC with no separate power supply needed. Plug My Passport into any PC, edit files, read e-mail, and view photos. Then sync all of your changes back to your home or office computer. Your data is protected with 128-bit encryption. Search your drive, manage your photos, and simplify Web searches with included Google software. Carry important files and e-mail between work and home or on the road, and keep them in sync. Weight - 0.40 pounds (0.18 kg)

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Portable hard drives?

Cokey

Hi.
I'm looking to buy a portable hard drive. A terabyte for sure. But here's the problem. Prices on these drives, all the same size, vary almost $150 dollars?!

So tell me. How is a $113 drive different from a $250 drive, if they are both a terabyte? They're all USB. Is this a brand thing, or is one really over a hundred dollars better?

Please help!

Answer
Without knowing which ones you are looking at it is hard to say.
But generally price will indicate the products quality.
You are entrusting your data to this device so choose carefully.

Portable Hard Drives?

Lan Hikari

Did anyone notice that portable hard drive prices increase by about 50% this year? I bought a WD 1TB MyPassport last year from Best Buy for $99. I was just shopping for another one today and the cheapest I could find it was for $149. Anyone know why?

Answer
Nearly half of the world's hard drives are manufactured in Thailand. Due to months of flooding and natural disaster hard drive manufacturing has been disrupted. Less supply means demand goes up and so do prices.

$149 is still a lot of money though. You could definitely find something at about the $99 dollar range if you were to wait for a sale or something.

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Is there an external hard drive for xbox 360?

Revofevil2

Answer
You can connect a portable hard drive with a USB cable into your Xbox. I don't think you can save games or anything related to Xbox onto the HD, but you can use it for music, pictures and videos. The standard computer hard drive doesn't have the correct format to hold Xbox content. You have to format your hard drive to FAT32 before using it though. You can do that by downloading partition magic off the Internet and creating 4GB FAT32 partitions. You can make partitions without downloaded software depending on your hard drive storage capacity. Look at the source for more details.

Can I move my downloaded xbox 360 videos to an external hard drive?

Hayzen

My Xbox 360 hard drive is filling up from all the downloaded content. I want to keep some videos. Can I move those videos onto a portable external hard drive? If so, how?

Answer
Actually, no you can't. Content cannot be moved from the 360's hard drive to a non-360 storage device. The steps the first person posted are to stream media from the external drive which you can do by following them. You want to move the media from your 360 drive to an external which you can't. You need to buy either a 360 memory card or invest in a larger 360 hard drive.

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Is there a PORTABLE external hard drive over 1tb?

Evilep0pta

I have been looking for a replacement for my current portable 1tb external hard drive. I have not found anything larger than 1tb without an ac adapter. I highly prefer Western Digital, but I will take anything at this point as long as it is reliable and fast. Portability is a HUGE requirement.
If there isn't one that you know of, maybe you are aware of some that are planned to come out. Please let me know.

Answer
Drives over 1T usually need a power source as you have found out! there are some that are "portable" but not convenient...something like this perhaps...http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822154480

Need help with my portable hard drive!?

Reckinshop

I have a Wester Digital 1TB portable hard drive. I have always used it with my Mac with no problem, I can plug it in and go through all my files in finder. My problem is when I plug it into a windows PC tried with (Windows 7 and XP) it doesn't show up. I know the ports are fine in the PC because my flash drives, mouse, keyboard, act. work through them. Is there a way to make my hard drive work over PC?

I never partitioned it either so it is the same as it came out of the box except iv added movies, music, papers, act. to it.

Answer
Since you used this in your mac it partitioned it to a file system that only the mac can see HFS. You can try reformatting the hard drive using NTFS so that both systems can see the contents of the drive.

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What are the benefits of a portable hard drive?

some guy

That is, over other removable media, such as DVDs. Isn't a portable hard drive more likely to crash, than data put on a DVD? Not many people have a file exceeding 8.5 GB, but this is the hard drive I'm looking at;

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320522640883&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

I want to use it to backup things on my computer, that I won't actually be backing up, because I need to take them off my computer.. so that's the concern.

Answer
An external hard drive can back up your entire computer, in case that crashes. Just be careful about bumping it while running. You get much more storage for the money than flash memory, but it is easier to damage if you drop it.

You can use it on various computers.

You can even boot a different operating system from it. For example I do not want to tamper with my work laptop hard drive, but I can boot 64-bit Linux on that laptop from an external USB drive. I just shrunk its main partition and installed Linux after that, with its boot manager (grub) on the external drive (you have to make sure that grub ends up there and not default on your main hard drive).

Can fanless USB 2.0 portable hard drives overheat? I wanted to know before I bought one.?

AL IS ON V

it's a portable hard drive I saw on ebay so it doesn't require an enclosure like external hard drives.

Answer
yes, it can. without a fan to cool it off over long periods of time, the USB hard drive can overheat. the best way to do with something like a fanless USB hard drive is to get another kind. the thing will break easily if no fan! i didn't ever thought that there even was a fanless hard drive.

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WD My Book Desktop 4TB or Seagate Backup Plus 5TB?

Both cost $159.99
Which is better?

Answer
The Seagate. You get an extra 1TB of storage at the same price. That is what you're buying a portable hard drive for, isn't it -- portable storage?

The only other real consideration is reliability, and realistically, so long as you don't abuse the darned things, both are going to be roughly just as reliable.

There might be a performance difference, but again, in real world terms, these are based on mechanical hard drives. Even if one trumps the other in performance on paper, real world performance is going to be very, very close and you probably wouldn't notice the difference unless you were copying huge files or using a stop watch. Even if there was a significant difference in data transfer and seek performance, that extra TB of storage at the same price would probably trump that for me.

what is the most durable external hard disk for professional backup?

sami

I own a small business of 10 employees, with one basic server. I need a good backup plan for our files. So I thought of connecting an external drive to the server.
What External Drive do you suggest? It does not need to be portable, so it is ok if it needs power to turn and off. (are external disks with power cables more durable than those with only usb connection?)

Answer
I'd suggest something with a RAID 1 configuration. Like the iOmega StorCenter ix2 200, you can get it in 2, 4 and 6 TB capacities, and connects to your network easily, it even has a built in Cloud server. I use the 4TB one at home to back up files that cannot be replaced like photos and stuff. The added bonus of the this device is that u can also backup the stuff off site from your home if needed.

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