Prev: Thousands of Apple fanboys form suicide pact
Next: Need Google AdSense Account
From: Glen Labah on 10 Aug 2010 02:07

I am considering purchasing two external USB hard drives in order to add
to my system capacity. Two, so that if one fails, the data is backed up.

My preference would be for something with both USB and firewire
capacity, but those seem to be a bit higher in price than just solid
USB, and the vast majority of the time I don't need the speed
requirements of FireWire.

I would like something that would be able to work with both Windows and
Macs, just as I use my USB memory stick right now. I notice that a few
such hard drives require "special formatting" to work with Macs,
according to the information available on their web site.

Right now, there is a sale on the Hitachi X Mobile 500GB drive offered
by a local electronics store. They don't have any such comments about it
requiring "special formatting" to work with a Mac. This device is
powered through the USB rather than through an external power supply.

While I would spend a fair amount of time with the drives connected to
desktops of various kinds (both Windows and Mac), I would also like to
be able to use it with a PowerBook G4 1.25 gHz aluminum. My
understanding is that certain people have had trouble with USB powered
external hard drives roasting their power supplies and USB ports due to
the laptops not being able to handle that much power through the USB
port.

If it would work OK, I like the convenience of the USB powered drive,
but also, obviously I would rather not catch my laptop USB port on fire
or otherwise cause damage from using such a drive with a laptop.

If it makes a difference, I would never use this drive with the laptop
running off the battery. All of the places I take it have good
availability of power outlets.

Thanks for any thoughts on this, or any other drive, that might be a
good fit for what I need.

--
Please note this e-mail address is a pit of spam due to e-mail address
harvesters on Usenet. Response time to e-mail sent here is slow.
From: aRKay on 10 Aug 2010 09:11
In article <gl4317-96E502.23070809082010(a)news.eternal-september.org>,
Glen Labah <gl4317(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

> Right now, there is a sale on the Hitachi X Mobile 500GB drive offered
> by a local electronics store. They don't have any such comments about it
> requiring "special formatting" to work with a Mac. This device is
> powered through the USB rather than through an external power supply

When the WD hard drive died in my iMac, Apple replaced it with a Hitachi
drive and it has been great. I was having all kinds of back up issues
with SuperDuper and the Time Machine. I dumped both Seagate and
Western Digital for 500 GB Hitachi drives and have not had a problem. I
will never buy anything but Hitachi again
From: thepixelfreak on 10 Aug 2010 11:21
On 2010-08-09 23:07:09 -0700, Glen Labah <gl4317(a)yahoo.com> said:
> I would like something that would be able to work with both Windows and
> Macs, just as I use my USB memory stick right now. I notice that a few
> such hard drives require "special formatting" to work with Macs,
> according to the information available on their web site.

Format the drive as MS-DOS (FAT) with the disk utility.

>
> Right now, there is a sale on the Hitachi X Mobile 500GB drive offered
> by a local electronics store. They don't have any such comments about it
> requiring "special formatting" to work with a Mac. This device is
> powered through the USB rather than through an external power supply.

That might be because it's formatted NTFS? Not sure what the newer
versions of Windows use for filesystem. In any case your Mac can erase
the current format and make it MacOS Extended or FAT. Either will work
on your Mac, only the FAT type will work on BOTH Mac and PC.


>
> While I would spend a fair amount of time with the drives connected to
> desktops of various kinds (both Windows and Mac), I would also like to
> be able to use it with a PowerBook G4 1.25 gHz aluminum. My
> understanding is that certain people have had trouble with USB powered
> external hard drives roasting their power supplies and USB ports due to
> the laptops not being able to handle that much power through the USB
> port.

I've not heard of those problems. More than likely what happens is the
USB port doesn't provide ENOUGH power to spin up the drive and you
won't see it. I have a portable USB drive that has a special Y usb
cable such that two USB ports on the computer power the single USB port
on the disk. I need both usb ports on my MacBook Pro and Powerbook to
use the drive. If I'm using a powered USB hub attached to my iMac only
one port is required. YMMV.
--

thepixelfreak

From: Larry Gusaas on 10 Aug 2010 15:21

On 2010/08/10 7:11 AM aRKay wrote:
> In article<gl4317-96E502.23070809082010(a)news.eternal-september.org>,
> Glen Labah<gl4317(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Right now, there is a sale on the Hitachi X Mobile 500GB drive offered
>> by a local electronics store. They don't have any such comments about it
>> requiring "special formatting" to work with a Mac. This device is
>> powered through the USB rather than through an external power supply
> When the WD hard drive died in my iMac, Apple replaced it with a Hitachi
> drive and it has been great. I was having all kinds of back up issues
> with SuperDuper and the Time Machine. I dumped both Seagate and
> Western Digital for 500 GB Hitachi drives and have not had a problem. I
> will never buy anything but Hitachi again

I put a 320GB 7200rpm Hitachi HD in my MacBook. It failed after six months. It took 6 weeks to get a
replacement under warranty from Hitachi. The replacement drive failed after 8 months. Do you think I
would consider buying another Hitachi HD? No.

--

Larry I. Gusaas
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan Canada
Website: http://larry-gusaas.com
"An artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs." - Edgard Varese

From: Mike Rosenberg on 10 Aug 2010 17:03
Larry Gusaas <larry.gusaas(a)gmail.com> wrote:

> > When the WD hard drive died in my iMac, Apple replaced it with a Hitachi
> > drive and it has been great. I was having all kinds of back up issues
> > with SuperDuper and the Time Machine. I dumped both Seagate and
> > Western Digital for 500 GB Hitachi drives and have not had a problem. I
> > will never buy anything but Hitachi again
>
> I put a 320GB 7200rpm Hitachi HD in my MacBook. It failed after six
> months. It took 6 weeks to get a replacement under warranty from Hitachi.
> The replacement drive failed after 8 months. Do you think I would consider
> buying another Hitachi HD? No.

Ah, the joy of drawing conclusions from extremely insufficient sample
sizes.

--
My latest dance routines:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkxGQmTvctc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTajUBrlA6c
 |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2
Prev: Thousands of Apple fanboys form suicide pact
Next: Need Google AdSense Account