What is a good brand name for portable hard drives?

Brian

I've never bought one of these before, so I have no Idea what to look for or what brands to trust.
If it matters, it's gonna be for my laptop, and it will mostly be used to hold my vast mountains of music.

Answer
a R.A.I.D (reluctant array of inexpensive/independent disk) is like a giant memory stick, litterally.
it's obviously bigger than a memorystick, and I think it's pretty good.

(wiki:)
Many operating systems provide basic RAID functionality independently of volume management.

Apple's Mac OS X Server and Mac OS X support RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 1+0.
FreeBSD supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 3, and RAID 5, and all nestings via GEOM modules and ccd.

Linux's md supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 4, RAID 5, RAID 6, and all nestings. Certain reshaping/resizing/expanding operations are also supported.

Microsoft's server operating systems support RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5. Some of the Microsoft desktop operating systems support RAID such as Windows XP Professional which supports RAID level 0 in addition to spanning multiple disks but only if using dynamic disks and volumes. Windows XP can be modified to support RAID 0, 1, and 5.

NetBSD supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 4, and RAID 5, and all nestings via its software implementation, named RAIDframe.

OpenBSD aims to support RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 4, and RAID 5 via its software implementation softraid.

FlexRAID (for Linux and Windows) is a snapshot RAID implementation.

How can i use my seagate with a mac and pc?

Q. I have a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex ultra portable hard drive and am using a macbook os x. The first time I plugged the seagate in I accidentally chose to use it with time machine but I don't want this. How do I correct this? Also I don't see any software installer. Ideally I would like to be use this with my mac and PC. Someone pls help!! Oh and dumb it down not very technical at all.

Answer
Remember that when you format a drive you will lose all data on the drive.

If you don't need any of the data on the portable hard drive then format it with something that will work on both the Mac and the PC. if you format it, all of your data will be gone, so only do this if you do not need any of the data.

Normally the Mac will read about anything, the PC is more picky.

The way to do this is to plug the drive into the Mac (assume it is USB). Then use Disk Utility to format it.

I'm looking in Disk Utility right now on my Macbook (Mac OSX version 10.6.5) and it shows that you can only format the drive with Mac OS extended format (which will most likely not work on the PC) and FAT which should work on both the Mac and the PC.

To find disk utility click on the spotlight icon in the upper right corner of your mac (looks like a magnifying glass). Type Disk and you will see Disk Utility in the applications section. Click on Disk Utility and you will see the portable drive listed on the left hand side. Make triple double sure you have the correct disk! Click the Erase tab and Disk Utility will tell you what the format type is currently on the disk. Choose FAT and this will totally erase your disk and format it with FAT (stands for File Allocation Table)

Try it by copying a file to the drive, then plug it into the PC and see if you can see the file.

I also am pretty sure you can format the drive on the PC using NTFS and it will work on both the Mac and the PC. It would be easy to try it and see if that works.

There are other ways to share files that are easier. You can do file sharing between a mac and a pc on your network. Setting it up is harder, but once you get it setup it is a breeze to copy files. If you only have a few files to share and you don't want to mess with setting up a network share, then use dropbox. You can find it for free here for up to 2GB: www.dropbox.com and if you want to give me some dropbox credit click here: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTE5MjEzMTM5?src=global0
Dropbox is pretty nice and easy to use.

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Would a Toshiba Canvio 500 GB USB 3.0 Basics Portable Hard Drive work with Mac OS X 10.6 Time Machine?

Joe

I need to know if a Toshiba Canvio 500 GB USB 3.0 Basics Portable Hard Drive would work with Time Machine on Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. Thanks.

Answer
If it is formatted in fat 32 yes...

I need more hard drive space on mac notebook? How can I increase it?

raffertyla

Whilst trying to download a TV programme from iTunes, it wouldn't do it as I didn't have enough space. I found this quite surprising as I don't have a huge amount of stuff on my Notebook. Just photos really.
I only use the Notebook for internet, music and photos - so will happily delete any applications that I will never use. Or is it easier to by an 'extension' to my hard drive, if such a thing exists?

Answer
Hi - is this one of the new Macbook Air models? If this is the case, then it's not surprising the hard drive is full, as it is not very large to start with, and there are not many options yet for upgrades.

If it is not a Macbook Air, the the external drive already mentioned is a viable option. You could either go with a somewhat portable option which does not require a wall socket to run (powered by the USB connection):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148258

or you could go with a less portable option:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148235

you can see the cost for portability, as the first one is 160Gig, while the second is 500Gig for about the same price.

If you want to upgrade the drive inside your Mac, that is not too hard either. There is free software that allows you to duplicate your existing hard drive onto a new, larger hard drive, then you need to swap the new, larger drive for the old hard drive, and you will have the exact same PC boot up, only with a lot more space. The software that helps to do this is:
http://www.bombich.com/

You would need to purchase an external enclosure with firewire, and then a new, larger hard drive to put in the enclosure, then run Bombich Carbon Copy Cloner to transfer your current hard drive to the new hard drive, then swap the new drive into your Mac, and keep the old Mac drive in the external case for extra storage.

I can't give specifics for these parts until I know what kind of Mac you currently have (need to know if the hard drive is ATA-6, SATA 1.5, or SATA 3.0). This information would determine what type of new hard drive to purchase as well as what type of external enclosure you would need. If you edit the question with this info, or email me with it, I can give you some specifics - good luck

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How can i use my seagate with a mac and pc?

6 best portable hard drives for mac image

Q. I have a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex ultra portable hard drive and am using a macbook os x. The first time I plugged the seagate in I accidentally chose to use it with time machine but I don't want this. How do I correct this? Also I don't see any software installer. Ideally I would like to be use this with my mac and PC. Someone pls help!! Oh and dumb it down not very technical at all.

Answer
Remember that when you format a drive you will lose all data on the drive.

If you don't need any of the data on the portable hard drive then format it with something that will work on both the Mac and the PC. if you format it, all of your data will be gone, so only do this if you do not need any of the data.

Normally the Mac will read about anything, the PC is more picky.

The way to do this is to plug the drive into the Mac (assume it is USB). Then use Disk Utility to format it.

I'm looking in Disk Utility right now on my Macbook (Mac OSX version 10.6.5) and it shows that you can only format the drive with Mac OS extended format (which will most likely not work on the PC) and FAT which should work on both the Mac and the PC.

To find disk utility click on the spotlight icon in the upper right corner of your mac (looks like a magnifying glass). Type Disk and you will see Disk Utility in the applications section. Click on Disk Utility and you will see the portable drive listed on the left hand side. Make triple double sure you have the correct disk! Click the Erase tab and Disk Utility will tell you what the format type is currently on the disk. Choose FAT and this will totally erase your disk and format it with FAT (stands for File Allocation Table)

Try it by copying a file to the drive, then plug it into the PC and see if you can see the file.

I also am pretty sure you can format the drive on the PC using NTFS and it will work on both the Mac and the PC. It would be easy to try it and see if that works.

There are other ways to share files that are easier. You can do file sharing between a mac and a pc on your network. Setting it up is harder, but once you get it setup it is a breeze to copy files. If you only have a few files to share and you don't want to mess with setting up a network share, then use dropbox. You can find it for free here for up to 2GB: www.dropbox.com and if you want to give me some dropbox credit click here: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTE5MjEzMTM5?src=global0
Dropbox is pretty nice and easy to use.

How to retrieve files on a WD external hard drive with a mac.?

Brandon

I used a portable hard drive to back up some files from a PC. Now I need to retrieve those files using a mac. when I try to open the hard drive it tells me that it is not readable. How can I make this thing work so that I can get my files.

Answer
Answer for Windows 7 and OS 10.6.8:

The drive volume has errors. Windows doesn't care much about errors. OS X does, so it won't mount. Repair it on the Windows system like this....
-- Right-click the drive volume in "Computer".
-- Choose "Properties".
-- Choose "Tools".
-- At "Error checking", click the "Check Now" button.
-- Put a check mark (tick) for "Automatically fix file system errors".
-- Put a check mark (tick) for "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors".
-- Click the "Start" button.
-- Click to unmount.
-- Wait.

To do this in OS X....
-- Download and install either NTFS-3G or SL-NTFS (latter for OS 10.6.7 or later 64--bit).
-- Restart.
-- Connect the drive. At the alert message, click "Ignore".
-- Open Disk Utility.
-- Select the external volume ("Volume" is the partition name, probably faded appearance).
-- Select the "First Aid" tab.
-- Click the "Repair Disk" button.
-- Wait.

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