Mac Portable Hard Drive Help?

h8thecause

I recently bought a SimpleTech portable hard drive. Its a 160gb if that matters. I am working on trying to backup my music by dragging and dropping it on there, but when I plug it in and try to drag, it does not allow me. When I view the info for the portable hard drive, the sharing and permissions says: "I can only read". How would I fix this?

Answer
Check whether the hard disk has "Write Lock". If it is so make sure it is not write locked.

Make sure that the Hard Drive is not formatted as NTFS. Mac does not support writing data to a NTFS volume. Just right click the mounted volume in Finder and select "Get Info". In the Info window check for the "Format:". In case the format is NTFS, it shows "Windows NT Filesystem". [ http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/attachments/maccar/40138d1172094097-using-external-hd-between-mac-pc-picture-1.png ].
If it is so, your Mac will not allow you to write data to that volume.

There are 2 solutions :
1. Make Mac write data to NTFS volume : Install 3rd party NTFS support for Mac. Softwares like "Paragon NTFS" [ http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/ ] allows you to write data to NTFS volume.
2. Reformat the hard disk to Mac Compatible format : This will require you to erase the entire data present in the disk. You can use Disk Utility to reformat the hard disk. If you are not sharing it with Windows PC, you can format it with format as "HFS+" (referred as "Mac OS Extended" in disk utility). In case you intend to share it with Windows "Fat32" will be the format I would recommend. Remember Fat32 does not support files larger than 4GB.

I would recommend the second solution.

External Hard Drive - easy to use, mac compatible, not too pricey?

Northerly

I'm looking for an external hard drive for my 13" White Macbook(bought January 2008) that's maybe around $100 dollars or less, and is relatively easy to use.

I'd put mainly music, videos, photos, and art files/psds that I want to keep, but don't use very often. I don't think I need that much memory(maybe 100-200 GB? Depends on pricing), but I'd like to see a few options with my specifications.

Thank you!
I meant a specific product that I can try - not whether external HDs in general are like what I mentioned.

Answer
1) all hard drives work with a mac. you just need to format it when you get it. (very easy to do)

2) here are a bunch of options for you. there are 320GB hard drives that get there power through the USB port they plug into which are great options as they are really portable. you can also get a 500GB but it needs to be plugged into an outlet. i would personally recommend the 320GB. seagate and western digital are my two favorite brands.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=414&Description=&Type=&N=2010150414+1035907839&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=100

EDIT:

I gave you a bunch of products that would work for you and meet your requirements. Of the ones I gave you, I would recommend this one the most.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136227

or if you have a silver mac, you might like this one. same price. the other difference between this and the other is the color of the case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148341

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How do I modify my Western Digital Passport on separate computers than the one I first plugged it into?

portable hard drives mac compatible image

skatman45

I just got the Passport portable hard drive and plugged it into my school laptop (running Windows 7) but I need to transfer files from my home lap top (running Mac OS X) and when I plug it into my Macbook I can't add any files to the hard drive because it says it "Cannot be modified". What do I do?

Thank you

Answer
Firstly, is this drive Mac compatible?
Some WD drives are not.
If it is, try to re-format the drive but if/when you do, you will wipe it and lose anything that may be on it.
Mac > Utilities > Disk Utility.
Highlight the WD disk in the left pane.
Then click on Erase and choose FAT 32 as the new format.
This can be read by both Windows and Mac.
Best, Z.

Best hard drive for Mac video editting and storage?

iseegrace

I have the Mac OS X 10.7.3
2.3 GHz Intel Core i5

I am planning to get a portable external hard drive within the $200 budget mainly for video editting on Final Cut Pro and After effects and for storage.

I am so confused with fireware and 3.0
3.0 seems to be a good thing but will my macbook be compatible with it or will it function as a 2.0?

Please recommend me with the products with links. Thanks!

Answer
Final point is that Firewire 800 has wider bandwidth than USB. Also, USB never performs in real life situations equal to the spec.

Your computer (if it shows "MacBookPro8,1" for the Machine ID) is Early 2011, so it is USB 2.0. You cannot connect any USB 3.0 device to that. Your fastest option no matter what we think about USB 3.0 is still Firewire 800.... or Thunderbolt.

I also suggest an aluminum case for better heat dissipation. See links below.

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Best hard drive for Mac video editting and storage?

portable hard drives mac compatible image

iseegrace

I have the Mac OS X 10.7.3
2.3 GHz Intel Core i5

I am planning to get a portable external hard drive within the $200 budget mainly for video editting on Final Cut Pro and After effects and for storage.

I am so confused with fireware and 3.0
3.0 seems to be a good thing but will my macbook be compatible with it or will it function as a 2.0?

Please recommend me with the products with links. Thanks!

Answer
Final point is that Firewire 800 has wider bandwidth than USB. Also, USB never performs in real life situations equal to the spec.

Your computer (if it shows "MacBookPro8,1" for the Machine ID) is Early 2011, so it is USB 2.0. You cannot connect any USB 3.0 device to that. Your fastest option no matter what we think about USB 3.0 is still Firewire 800.... or Thunderbolt.

I also suggest an aluminum case for better heat dissipation. See links below.

How do I convert NTFS files to FAT?

LT

I just got a macbook and I'm using a Mac/PC compatible portable hard drive. I can't read the files from the portable hard drive on the mac, so I'm thinking about converting them to FAT. But how do I do that?
Do I need to buy new software to convert the files then?

Answer
You have to reformat the external drive, losing all files on that drive unless you back them up elsewhere first.

You'll want to format that drive in FAT32, not plain old FAT, for best compatibility. As you've discovered, the mac does not read NTFS formatted disks without extra software.

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Can I use an external hard drive with my Xbox?

portable hard drives mac compatible image

Kyle

I am ordering a Seagate Backup Plus 500GB Portable USB 3.0 External Hard Drive, (compatible with PC and Mac) from Staples. If I plug it into the USB input on my Xbox 360, (newest edition, 4GB) will I be able to select it as a storage device to save downloaded games to?

Answer
I know for sure that you can use a USB drive. You might as well try it out. There's nothing holding you back. Plug it in and see if it pops up when it asks you to pick which storage to get your saved games from.

How can I use a new Western Digital portable external drive (Element or Passport) for both Windows and Mac?

pt

I need to use and store data from both PC as well as Mac and hence don't want to buy an only-Mac version of a hard drive. I want a portable (around 500 gb) harddrive that is compatible with both systems. Which one would you recommend?Also is WD Elements or Passport preferable in this scenario? Thanks!

Answer
You can use any hard drive as long as it has USB or FireWire (or eSATA if you're cool like that). Just format it is FAT32 (max file size of 4 GB) or NTFS.

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