Which External HD Should I Get

[MacGirl]

I am trying to decide which one of these three would be the best external HD to get. I am wanting to use it for backing up the thousands of photos that are on my computer, and also for installing Leopard and Windows onto. Here are some of the ones that I have been looking at. I saw the top one at office depot and thought that it looked like a good deal, but I am wondering if the SATA and the 800 instead of 400 firewire connections that the other two have would make a big speed difference. Can anyone tell me which one would be the fastest/best for doing these jobs?


http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/465115/4-Plus-External-USB-Hard-Drive/

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEAQ7500GB16/

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MS8U7100GB16/

 

[GhostGT]

I would honestly go with either the first or second choice. You'll easily surpass 100gb one day and will regret not getting more.

As far as speed goes, I'm assuming that Firewire 800 and SATA will be much faster than Firewire 400, not to mention USB 2.0. That said, I have a 350GB external on USB 2.0, and the speeds are fine. They aren't SUPER fast but I can't complain either.

Plus, Maxtor might be a little more reliable since they're a much bigger brand and sell millions of hard drives. I've never heard of OWC so I can't vouch for/against them much.

 

[withdrawn by request]

i just recently bought an external hd myself... if you're gonna be using it for windows and mac make sure it's formatted to fat32 not ntfs because macs lack the ability to write to ntfs drives without 3rd party software. i'm not sure about any of those drives you listed but i know that simpletech and western digital make the best external hd's by far. the only thing that sucks about external hd's more than 320 gigs (and equal to sometimes) is that they have to be plugged into a wall outlet which makes it much less convenient, so you might wanna look into that when deciding on yours. also, some of them force you to use stupid backing-up software that comes preinstalled in the drives themselves (i found that to be the case with the western digitals, but only in windows). so watch out for that too. other than that i'm not really sure it's just a matter of personal preference and how exactly you plan on using it really. i'd go with a simpletech brand hd personally those are the best i came across with what i was looking for (no software installed, fast write speeds, looks nice etc.). hope that helped in your decision ^_^

 

[MacGirl]

Thanks guys! The reason that I am so worried about speed is because I am wanting to install Windows and Leopard onto the external and boot from it whenever I want to use one of them. I would like for them to run as fast as they would if they were on the computer itself. Do you think that the Firewire 400 Maxtor would be fast enough for this? Or is the speed difference enough that I should get one that has the Firewire 800 and SATA instead?

I don't think that either of those have any annoying back-up software, but I will look again to be sure.

 

[DefCon_!1!]

y not go for a TB HD?

think of the possibilities

 

[MacGirl]

I will probably get a TB HD when my photo collection reaches the one-million mark......... .lol....the way my collection is growing, it might not be very long before that happens!

 

[b.v.b]

I thinkyou should get the office depot one.

http://www.officedepot.com/a/product...SB-Hard-Drive/

 

[blackjack]

If you want to spend a bit more look at this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132404