Macbook Hard Disk Update

i8change

Originally Posted by Marty J
That's pretty good actually; I notice the 250 GB version is more expensive for some reason. I'm moving to the States soon, and a bus-powered HDD would be very handy, as I wouldn't need to worry about getting a US power-supply for it. If only it were FireWire.

As long as you have two empty USB ports within 6 inches of each other (sometimes one suffices but not always) they are great. Manual says to reformat the drive Mac OS Extended Journaled and gives step by step instructions.
From memory I think it took (using a PC & NTFS) 41 minutes to copy 80GB of MP4 movies to it, drag and drop, no software involved. I suppose these "laptop type" drives are a bit slower (downside of the portability/compactness).

gmidgley

You say you have a time machine, why not put some stuff on there, and when your away, you can access your time machine online with a mobileme account, I have thousands of songs / vids / tv shows and keep most of them on the time machine, download them when I need them away from home.

Access your drive over the Internet.

Say you’re travelling and you need a file on your Time Capsule back at home. If you’re a MobileMe member using a Mac with Mac OS X Leopard, no problem.* You can now access all the files on your Time Capsule drive over the Internet. Simply register your Time Capsule with your MobileMe account, and its drive appears in the Finder sidebar of your Mac just like any other attached drive. It’s like having your own personal file server wherever you go.

Marty_J

i8change wrote: »

As long as you have two empty USB ports within 6 inches of each other (sometimes one suffices but not always) they are great. Manual says to reformat the drive Mac OS Extended Journaled and gives step by step instructions.
From memory I think it took 41 minutes to copy 80GB of MP4 movies to it, drag and drop, no software involved. I suppose these "laptop type" drives are a bit slower (downside of the portability/compactness).

My mother works for Tesco, so I could get a 10% discount, which would bring the price to about £40. My Mac has three USB ports, so keeping two free might be a bit of a faff, but I guess if I'm just using it for backup, it doesn't need to be connected all the time.

All these things that want to use USB, and I have two much better FireWire ports going unused much of the time!

timbim_2

Marty_J wrote: »

I'm moving to the States soon, and a bus-powered HDD would be very handy, as I wouldn't need to worry about getting a US power-supply for it.

Permanently?

Marty_J

timbim wrote: »

Permanently?

Yep, getting hitched!

I'll still be around here though to mention Apple every 10 minutes, don't worry about that.

fox2319

gmidgley wrote: »

You say you have a time machine, why not put some stuff on there, and when your away, you can access your time machine online with a mobileme account, I have thousands of songs / vids / tv shows and keep most of them on the time machine, download them when I need them away from home.

Nope, I use a USB disk for Time Machine backups. I don't have one of them very nice (but pricey) Time Capsules. No mobileme either.

One day perhaps...

newfoundglory

7200rpm drive will not produce anymore heat really... BUT it will most definitely reduce battery life by quite a bit (you can definitely knock off at least an hour or more I reckon).

The WD Scorpio Blue 500GB at 5400rpm has been shown to be one of the best battery efficient hard drives for laptops there is. It would likely be better than the one in your Mac now. So a new 500GB from WD should INCREASE your battery life to, and hopefully performance as well.

timbim_2

Marty_J wrote: »

Yep, getting hitched!

I'll still be around here though to mention Apple every 10 minutes, don't worry about that.

So are you jumping, or have you been pushed? Which part are you going to?

fox2319

timbim wrote: »

So are you jumping, or have you been pushed? Which part are you going to?

I think his new address is 2 Infinite Loop, Cupertino....

fox2319

newfoundglory wrote: »

7200rpm drive will not produce anymore heat really... BUT it will most definitely reduce battery life by quite a bit (you can definitely knock off at least an hour or more I reckon).

The WD Scorpio Blue 500GB at 5400rpm has been shown to be one of the best battery efficient hard drives for laptops there is. It would likely be better than the one in your Mac now. So a new 500GB from WD should INCREASE your battery life to, and hopefully performance as well.

I've gone for one of these in the end. The extra battery life and concerns about extra heat swung it for me.

I know the external drives are the easiest but as I want to have my iphone and the drive plugged in simultaneously (usually charge it and sync overnight when I'm in a hotel) then I'm one USB port short for most external drives