advice on external drive

I need an external drive for my MBP. Do I want usb, firewire, both? Do I want it to have an AC power adaptor or to run off the MBP?

What are the pros/cons and a recommendation for a reasonably price one at maybe 250gigs or so.
thanks

 

Will you need to travel with the drive a lot or will it sit on your desk all the time? Will your computer be the only one on which the drive is used, or will you be connecting it to other Windows or Mac systems?

 

I suggest the Western Digital MyBook studio edition, it comes in a variety of sizes, sports USB 2.0, FireWire 400/800, and the lovely eSATA, and you can find one of the 500GB variety at amazon for $204US, pretty awesome deal if you ask me. Oh yeah, it comes pre-formatted for macs. booyah!

 

No, I won't need to take it travelling. I really don't know the pros/cons of USB vs Firewire, etc.

The University Computer shop has a 500gig Lacie USB drive with AC cord for about $125. Wondering if I should spend more to get one powered by the laptop or firewire.

I likely wouldn't be using it to connect to IBMs but could. It's mainly to use to store some very large text files and as a backup occasionally.

 

If you're not going to be traveling, then you won't need to spend extra money on a smaller form factor drive that's only powered by the USB or firewire port. $125 for a 500 GB external drive isn't a bad deal at all. That should suit your needs just fine.

 

Yea USB should be fine for text files and the like, but it is slower then esata.

If you plan on copying large files back and forth, or gaming off of it, I'd would say get esata.

But for normal everyday backup use USB should suffice.

 

Well, USB 2.0 is slower in transfer rate than Firewire, so that's worth noting. Firewire 400 is faster than USB 2.0, and Firewire 800 is obviously faster than Firewire 400.

As for external hard drives, I like Seagate and Western Digital hard drives. Worth looking at.

 

Lacie drives seem very popular around here. What do you guys think of those?

 

I've heard of issues with LaCie drives and Macs...no personal experience though.

 

i recommend a mybook with firewire

 

Wait, I thought USB 2.0 transfer rate is 480kbps, and Firewire 400, but that firewire has a higher average and is more stable on a longer transfer.

I got the 320GB Seagate Freeagent Pro from newegg (or was it outpost) for $99. It's good, I'm happy.

 

In technical terms, USB 2.0 has a maximum transfer rate of 480 Mbit/s, while the Firewire 400 has a max of 400 Mbit/s, but USB 2.0 never reaches that high of a transfer rate in a normal setting (usually its only around 100-200 max), so Firewire 400 is in reality faster.

 

There are a number of 'mybook' drives. Do you mean the 'Studio' edition? Western Digital labels it a 'creative' drive rather than a more business type. Is that their marketing or just hype.
I can get the 500 gig Studio which has USB, and firewire 400 AND 800 for $235.
Is that the way to go?

 

I'll quote myself on what I said above

 

go for w/e your budget allows.