Which hard drive should I get?

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• Reply 1 of 7

  mrtotes Posts: 760member

  February 3, 2007 8:45AM

  Quote:
  

  Originally Posted by Poppet
  
  
  Really it's not that big a question but I want to buy a mac in a couple of months. Currently running a windows 2000 machine.
  
  
  
  I would like to buy hard drive to back up all my stuff I currently have and then use it to back up both machines. Do I need to buy two seperate hard drives for this or will the mac recognise and read the hard drive I am using with my windows 2000 pc?
  
  
  
  I have also seen a software called move2mac. Is this just another way of making money out of us. Can I just drop my stuff thats on a hard drive already onto the new mac??
  

  
  

  
  
  A Mac will read and write to FAT32 drives (PC standard) or read from (but not write to) NTFS format (better PC standard). If you cease using the PC then re-format the drive to HFS+ for use only with the Mac as this will allows large files (>4Gb) to be used.
  
  
  
  A Firewire External hard drive will may short work of the data transfer and you'll use it as a back-up device later. (Firewire is faster than USB2 but many drives have both connectors for maximum compatibilty)
  
  
  
  I don't have any experience of move2mac I can't really see why you'd need it.

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• Reply 2 of 7

  poppet Posts: 90member

  March 4, 2007 10:53AM

  Hi ya,
  
  
  
  I am trying to get this file format thing sorted in my head again. Thanks for your first response.
  
  
  
  I have looked and I can see my pc is using the NTFS format and my hard drive is using FAT 32.
  
  
  
  Does this mean that if I back up my pc to the hard drive the mac will be able to read from that drive and once I get my mac could I move things back to the pc via this hard drive?
  
  
  
  Thanks in advance for any responses.
  
  
  
  Poppet

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• Reply 3 of 7

  rechargeable Posts: 12member

  March 5, 2007 1:49PM

  I think the reply above was clear. If your external drive is formatted as FAT 32 then your Mac can read/write to it - but not as fast as if it were formatted by the Mac to HFS+.

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• Reply 4 of 7

  alexluft Posts: 159member

  March 5, 2007 7:37PM

  Quote:
  

  Originally Posted by Poppet
  
  
  Hi ya,
  
  
  
  I am trying to get this file format thing sorted in my head again. Thanks for your first response.
  
  
  
  I have looked and I can see my pc is using the NTFS format and my hard drive is using FAT 32.
  
  
  
  Does this mean that if I back up my pc to the hard drive the mac will be able to read from that drive and once I get my mac could I move things back to the pc via this hard drive?
  
  
  
  Thanks in advance for any responses.
  
  
  
  Poppet
  

  
  

  
  
  Basically, yes, but you will not be able to write files greater than 4GB at one time.
  
  
  
  Check out Wikipedia entry here

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• Reply 5 of 7

  apple2mac Posts: 20member

  March 5, 2007 8:24PM

  If your looking for a brand recomendation I like Lacie for external and Hatachi for internal...

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• Reply 6 of 7

  hi_q Posts: 31member

  March 9, 2007 5:11AM

  Or you can buy an external enclosure only from NewEgg or Electronic Fry's for about 20 bucks and connect it via Firewire or USB 2.0.

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• Reply 7 of 7

  spotmen inc Posts: 4member

  March 9, 2007 11:23PM

  Quote:
  

  Originally Posted by Apple2Mac
  
  
  If your looking for a brand recomendation I like Lacie for external and Hatachi for internal...
  

  
  

  
  
  I agree, The LaCie external drives are quite good
  
  
  
  PM

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