thinking about an externa hard drive for PB; any suggestion?

[tab75-13]

Hi,
I am thinking about supplementing my meager PB storage capacities with an external hard drive. Do you think it shuld be both USB and Firewire compatible, and what is USB2, different than the standard USB port. I am thinking of the storage capacity being probably 200 G. Anybody know of any mac compatible drives that might also be cheap?
Sorry for the cheap questions guys.

Thanks,

tab

[AntnyMD]

USB2 is slightly faster than original Firewire (now called Firewire 400). Firewire 800 is faster than both of them, but takes different cables and connectors. Get as many connection options as you can afford -- the more connection options the more your external drive will cost.

I am a brand slave so I buy LaCie externals exclusively. Use www.dealmac.com to see which sites are offering the best deals. You could be up to a terabyte of storage for under $800 (US) easily.

[pixeljammedia]

Go on pricewatch.com and find the cheapest drive and enclosure. put them together yourself and attach it to the Mac. Do a format in disc utility. USB 1.1/2.0 and Firewire drives are platform independent, the file system you use (HFS+ Extended for Mac) determines what makes it mountable (though Macs can mount whatever Windows file system you use such as FAT32, NTFS, etc.)

You only need Firewire/USB 2.0 (If it is an old powerbook you won't have USB 2.0 available) if you are doing video editing (e.g. using Final Cut Pro) and need the speed for video capture. Otherwise USB 1.1 will be good enough. Though it's not that much cheaper that I wouldn't consider going Firewire.

[WiseWeasel]

USB 2, while faster than FireWire 400 on paper, if typically slower than FW 400 on all but the fastest systems. USB offloads its processing to the CPU, so its performance will depend on the available CPU cycles you have. It takes up significantly more resources while in use than FireWire. I would suggest getting a nice FireWire drive. Personally, I just got a Lacie Big Disk external drive which I'm very happy with. It has both FW 400 and 800 connections, so it's a bit more future-proof than some others on the market. I have a G5 with FW 800 ports, though, so I can take advantage of that connection.

[tab75-13]

Thank you for the advice everyone. I am not looking for something that fancy or with a humungous amount of storage capacity, just something in which maybe I can store some DV. Of course 10 minutes of DV is equal to 2 giga bytes I understand, so a 200 G hardrive too can fill up pretty fast. My PB I don't think has USB 2.0; (I don't have it on hand because like WiseWeasel's computer a bit ago, i sent it off to apple for some inspection/work possibly).

Pixeljammedia, I will check out pricewatch.com's site, but does the hard drive not come with its own enclosure? I am really lousy technically/ mechanically, so will it be easy to put the two together? I hope maybe I'll find a Lacie inexpensive there, but maybe not, hah?
thanks again all for your advice,
appreciate it,

--tab

[WiseWeasel]

pricegrabber.com or dealmac.com might be better than pricewatch for that. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention is that you can get 2.5" laptop hard drives in FireWire enclosures that are actually powered by the FireWire cable. This means that they can be used on the go when you're away from a power outlet. They are more expensive, though, and are slower (not ideal for video use) and only come in sizes up to 100 GB. They are very compact, though, and fit nicely into the laptop bag. Worth considering.

As far as Lacie drives coming with enclosures, I don't think Lacie sells any drives without external enclosures. They are just repackaged Western Digital drives in their own enclosures. If you're looking for something a bit more affordable, and you feel comfortable doing simple computer hardware installations, you can get any 3.5" IDE hard drive you want, and then buy a 3.5" FireWire/USB enclosure for about $40-50 in which you can install the drive yourself, and probably save yourself about $50 over the Lacie option. It's important to get a good enclosure though, as the hard drive will overheat in ones with improper ventilation.

[Skith]

Unless you can find a good sale, buying an internal drive and an external enclosure is the way to go.

Paying a bit more for a good external case might also be a good idea. Most newer hard drives generate quite a bit of heat. Some enclosures are cheap plastic, hard to assemble, and plain problematic. From NewEgg.com, the following appear decent (I am planning on buying a 5.25" in the near future).

NewEgg.com - External enclosures

Seagate drives offer 5 year warranties. I think Western Digital only offers 1-year warranties now.

If possible I would highly recommend using firewire.