[kissmymac]

Ok-so I am just confused. I want to buy an external hard drive for my MAC. I have a Lacie 80GB that has always worked and is now filled up with junk so I need another. I bought a Fantom drive which worked perfectly except for the fact that the drive got so hot I decided to fry eggs on the case...
The market is full with external drives and even more reviews all telling me different things. The minute I find a drive that sounds good, a reviewer will say the drive is too hot, or too slow. I don't need a super fast drive for my G4-how bout just a fast one that doesn't get hot. Does it really matter if its USB or firewire? And yes, there are drives with both! Yikes!
Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

[Nobody]

Firewire is better than USB... if you have an oilder computer that does not have a USB2, the USB alone type of drive enclosure would have to fall back on older and far slower protocol of information exchange which would be almost useless. Enclosures that include FW and USB2 are more verastile for obvious reasons but they cost a little more. FW also comes in two flavors, FW800 and FW400; the former is faster and more expensive.
As for which drive to buy, I would not recommend any specific brand of already put together devices but would inform you on things that you should be looking for, such as an all aluminum case for better heat dissipation that has a built-in fan. Ideally, the fan should be high quality but even a cheaper fan is better than not having it. All drives generate heat, some more than others, that needs to be expelled out of the enlosure for it to survive longer. I prefer Hitachi drives that seem to be generate least heat and are at least as fast as any other brand and often faster than many. For external FW/USB the drive mechanism has to be the ATA type and putting the box and the drive together couldn't be simpler.
Good luck and welcome to the MacWorld forums.

[RichL]

I will, however, reccomend a drive.
I have 6 external drives from OWC .
They all run warm, not hot, and many offer multiple connection methods..USB, FW400, FW800 etc..on the same enclosure.
I usually buy the cases (Mercury Elites) and look for an IDE HD on sale somewhere and install it myself.
If the drive you have is full for example, and it's only data you need to get at once in a while, it's easy enough with these drives to pull out that HD and slap in another.
They also sell the drives in different capacities if you just want to take it out of the box and use it.
They come with the Oxford 911 chipset (912 for FW800) which I have had zero problems through many OS X upgrades.
Great company, great drives....
RichL

[retcynm]

Here's another vote for the OWC enclosures. I've purchased/recommended quite a few of them, and have yet to be dissapointed.

[PeterG]

.... OWC
Hi all,
1. In the same vain does the 250GB seem like the best bang for your buck?
also,
2. Using Superduper as the backup software.
then
3. Partition the External.
I'm pretty much in the same situation. Been very lucky, never backed up. yes yes yes. But I'm going to.
I have burnt photo's, yea.
I'm using:
iMac G4, 800 MHz, 768 MB, OS 10.3.9
(am close to a new machine)
Thanks,
Peter
This might also help the original Q.

[RichL]

Quote:

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In the same vain does the 250GB seem like the best bang for your buck?

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I think with the prices where they are, 250GB is a minimum size you should shoot for.

Quote:

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Using Superduper as the backup software

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I use Super Duper regularly. Great program...good choice. there are others if you'd like to look around.
Remember, it's not IF your hard drive will fail, it's WHEN.
RichL

[macnuke]

OWC for the drive.
get as many Gs as you can afford.
partition the first partition the same size as your internal. that way everything will fit.
superduper is a great backup according to everyone that uses it.
I am not one.
I just drag anything important over in-between scheduled backups.
which I just reformat my backup drive (no zeroing) and use CCC as I head for bed.
that way, I have a bootable clone.
i have seen a few.. although very very few posts about super and incremental backup failure.
I haven't seen any on a CCC bootable clone.
you decide. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
when i backup....
YASU
on reboot (YASU reboots) I actually boot to a second internal I have for scratch use as well as bootable with DU's.
from that drive I run DiskWarrior.
when complete, i reboot to the main drive that was just DW'd.
launch Apple DU, format the backup drive.
launch CCC and clone.
I'm drive rich.. but with only two drives, you can use the external post YASU and run DW from there.
then reboot and go right into CCC.
or
make both of your partitions bootable on your external.
run YASU on the internal from the internal.
reboots into partition #2 of FW drive.
run DW on internal.
run CCC from partition #2 (you are still booted from that one ) with internal as source to partition #1 as target.

[PeterG]

..... kissmymac,
I hope my question also helped.
After reading the posts I know where I'm going and Macnuke sealed the deal for me.
Happy shopping,
Peter /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[RichL]

I might add here, that after I back up with Super Duper, I have the program set to reboot from the newly cloned drive.
This assures me that nothing is wrong and I can reboot from the external drive if I need to.
Once I am rebooted from the external drive, I run Disk Warrior, I repair permission on my now unbooted main drive.....etc.
Generally, I run any kind of repair utility I want from the external drive.
RichL

[macnuke]

you DW after you clone?
I would think before you clone would be a better choice of you are only DW'ing once.
then again, I have used SuperDuper as as well CCC, and if you ever noticed, neither perform "true" clones.
ideally, post cloning, run DW on the newly cloned drive before you boot from it. you would be surprised at the number of items needing repairs.

[RichL]

Nuke:
yeah, you're right.
I do run DW before I clone, what I was referrring to was running DW on the external drive so you can repair your main drive that can now be unmounted.
RichL

[Nobody]

Before and after... slightly time more consuming but safer.
In fact, as I type this, DW is busy is repairing my external FW 160GB clone that is going to be installed inside a PB in a few minutes... since I have a few mionutes to kill! /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[PeterG]

Hi M, all,
I bought 500g from owc. Good enough for me. My internal is only 60.
I already use yasu as well as Apples Utility, but I've never used DiskWarrior, does it really matter that I haven't?
I had downloaded CCC a while back but never loaded it. No need until now.
Any suggestions before I start to plug and play with this Ext HD.
I might wait for a few suggestions.
Peter /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[dougster]

Hi -Peter,
LOL..well, you'll be getting a couple different schools of thought on running DW before backing up. Many do, and many don't. It certainly wouldn't hurt nuttin, but I don't use DW on a regular bases per se. I don't find it necessary to overkill w/ that utility. Now you will be getting posts that say do it before, and after and in-between backup clones... /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif