# External Hard Drive



## tomblvl (Apr 16, 2007)

Hi,

I am considering getting an Ext HD to use with Time Machine on my Intel Based Mac.

Two Questions:
1) Can I set it up to backup the Windows side as well as the Mac?

2) What kind would you recommend?

Thanks and Merry Christmas to all!

Tom


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## lilneige (Dec 21, 2007)

> Two Questions:
> 1) Can I set it up to backup the Windows side as well as the Mac?
> 
> 2) What kind would you recommend?


1. you may need a third party software such as norton ghost to do so, i am not using Leopard so i am not sure about that.

2. something with firewire AND you can boot with it


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

tomblvl said:


> Hi,
> 
> I am considering getting an Ext HD to use with Time Machine on my Intel Based Mac.
> 
> ...


1. Not really, no.
First off, a Windows backup requires FAT32 or NTFS formatting, and you cannot format different partitions of a drive differently, they must be all one way or another. Second, there's no Mac program I know of that will clone a bootable Windows partition (of the sort Boot Camp enables).

2. I like LaCie and MyBook, both because they have good warranties and because they have versions that have both FW and USB2 (and sometimes a fair few other ways to connect).


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## tomblvl (Apr 16, 2007)

*Ext HD*

Hi,

Thanks to lilneige and chas_m for the information and advice.

I appreciate it!

Tom


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## Arne (Jan 27, 2003)

tomblvl said:


> Hi,
> 
> I am considering getting an Ext HD to use with Time Machine on my Intel Based Mac.
> 
> ...


By kind, do you mean brand or connection type?

I'm a professional photographer with a lot of critical data to back up so I look for redundancy, reliability, & speed; FW800 & eSATA are my preferences. For your purposes, I would get a drive that has at least FW400 & USB connections, not just USB. If one mode fails (for example, bad port) you have the other. And the price difference is small.

As for brands, I recommend Wiebetech and OWC external HDs. Their websites tell you what brand of HD is inside - unlike LaCie. Both companies also make 2.5" and 3.5" external hard drive enclosures (some with removable trays), so you can shop around for the best hard drive brands and prices elsewhere. Their enclosures are great and fairly inexpensive. OWC's external aluminum HDs & enclosures resemble the Mac Pro/G5.

This OWC drive was my very first external. It's been packed into my photo gear travel cases to a lot of locations, including working in a tent off a gasoline powered generator last month, (the genny was outside & downwind from the tent  ), and have had no problems with it.

Based on other professional photographers' experiences, I would not buy LaCie. There appears to be a higher than average failure rate of LaCies with Maxtor drives inside. The problem was with the Maxtor HDs, not the LaCie enclosures. BTW, no one has LaCie "hard drives" because, similar to OWC & Wiebetech, LaCie doesn't make hard drives; they make external hard drive cases. But LaCie is known for using the cheapest drives they can buy. It's a shame because I really like LaCie's designs.

HTH.

Just remembered G-Tech brand. Macworld magazine recently gave one of their drives an Eddy Award. I would buy G-Tech too.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

I Just Bouht A Lacie :[


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

tomblvl said:


> Hi,
> 
> I am considering getting an Ext HD to use with Time Machine on my Intel Based Mac.
> 
> ...


What type of "Windows side" are talking about? Boot Camp or virtualization (Parallels or VMFusion)? If it is virtualization, absolutely it can and will back it up.

I used to like Lacie until 3 of them failed on me in the last 18 months. They look good but I think they have heat dissipation issues and run too hot. I have opened them up to see what make of drive was inside so I would have an idea if it was because of a particular drive manufacturer. The drives were (believe it or not) different in all three cases; Maxtor, Segate and WD. So it does not appearer to be an issue related to a particular drive manufacturer but to Lacie itself. 

If I were you I would find the best deal on a drive of the size you are looking for and then find an enclosure of the connection type that you want that has active as opposed to passive (radiant) cooling. You will get a longer life out of the drive.


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## Suge (Oct 29, 2007)

I agree with buying your own drive and enclosure separately. But you might not get as good a deal.

Seagate has a 5 year warranty on their drives, and the rma exchange has been painless in my experience, but beyond that it always seems any one drive can be better or worse than the next. =P

Also look into whether or not you want your enclosure to spin down your hdd or how well TM handles that (I have no idea), as you might not want it running all the time.


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

Yes, you can use Windows on an HFS+ drive if you have third party software that lets Windows see HFS+ drives.

So to answer the original poster's question, just get an HFS+ drive. Perferrably with USB/Firewire. I like Lacie drives myself.


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## a7mc (Dec 30, 2002)

Just going to offer my 2 cents and clarify a few posts.



> First off, a Windows backup requires FAT32 or NTFS formatting, and you cannot format different partitions of a drive differently, they must be all one way or another.


Unless I am misunderstanding what you are saying, that is simply untrue. You can partition a drive with as many different formats as you like. You CAN have one drive with a Mac HFS partition and an NTFS partition with no problems.



> As for brands, I recommend Wiebetech and OWC external HDs. Their websites tell you what brand of HD is inside - unlike LaCie.


As always, hard drives are hit and miss. Everyone's experience will be different. There's no "magic drive" that somehow lasts forever. They will all die, and they are all subject to short life in some cases. Personally, my OWC case is the absolute WORST of the bunch (I do HD video, so I currently have 4 externals, and have gone through 8 in total so far). My OWC sounds like it's dying, and I just bought it less than 2 months ago. There's something wrong with the Fan assembly. And buying OWC means no local help.

In contrast, my Lacie D2 has lasted me 3 years so far and runs just as good as the day I bought it. 

I just bought a Seagate FreeAgent Pro for Time Machine and it is maybe the best drive I own (though I need the OWC enclosure for RAID speeds). It is insanely quiet, looks nice, comes with Firewire AND eSata (in case Apple ever gets smart enough to add eSata to their Macs), and has a 5 year warranty. Can't really go wrong if you ask me.

A7


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## smashedbanana (Sep 23, 2006)

My presonal preference would be a Seagate Freeagent. All Seagate drives come with a 5 year warranty. They have versions with USB 2.0, firewire and/or ESTA.

I'd use time machine for mac, and on the windows side I'd uses Windows Backup (included with Windows XP Pro and Windows 2000). Windows Backup will backup everything if you let it including system files and programs. If windows crashes you will have to reload windows then restore your data and programs.

If you don't have XP Pro then I'd buy Symantec Ghost (~$79) as someone else suggested. Ghost now boots from CD, loads a mini windows (Windows PE) and allows your to restore your backup.

Ed


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## spiralgirl (Mar 8, 2007)

Great question and one I've been grappling with myself. I'm leaning towards the G-Tech 500 GB with USB/Firewire400/800 and Ethernet.

S.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Adrian. said:


> I Just Bouht A Lacie :[


Nothing to worry about. Most LaCies use Seagate, the best drive in the business at present.

If yours is by chance a Maxtor (you can find out in System Profiler), see about a replacement.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> . Most LaCies use Seagate, the best drive in the business at present.


I have yet to see a LaCie with a Seagate- Maxtor or Western Digital.


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

Thats my model number ( 301103U) I tried googling it to see what disk it had but couldn't find anything. Does anyone know. I'd rather take it back and get a seagate. I always thought LaCie was a good name.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

You will have to look at the drive via an drive utility but some indications online indicate it's Seagate - maybe they smartened up now they had to go to 2 year warranty instead of the industry standard 3 and 5 year warranties 

A Freeagent would give you 5 year coverage.

There is no way to know what you are getting



> 301103U - LaCie USB 2.0 External Hard Drive. ... So far I have received a seagate and maxtor hard drive inside. The power connector seems to be a ...


Seagate owns Maxtor but Maxtor is still a "cheaper" brand - the enterprise drives are okay but it's not our choice at all for externals.


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## satchmo (May 26, 2005)

chas_m said:


> Nothing to worry about. Most LaCies use Seagate, the best drive in the business at present.
> 
> If yours is by chance a Maxtor (you can find out in System Profiler), see about a replacement.


I think you may be confusing Seagate with Samsung. I believe LaCies went to Samsung drives recently.


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## Shanker (Nov 10, 2007)

*La Scie HD*



Arne said:


> By kind, do you mean brand or connection type?
> 
> I'm a professional photographer with a lot of critical data to back up so I look for redundancy, reliability, & speed; FW800 & eSATA are my preferences. For your purposes, I would get a drive that has at least FW400 & USB connections, not just USB. If one mode fails (for example, bad port) you have the other. And the price difference is small.
> 
> ...


I have had a 500 gb La Scie external HD installed for about 6 weeks hooked up to Time Machine on Leopard, no problems so far. Just make sure that the new HD is properly formatted and partitioned, and then you are all set. NB The HD does run a little warm (25-30 deg. c).


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

The salesperson at Carbon assured me that the Elephant drives are all Seagate drives,
So if you want an external drive with a Seagate drive that is already assembled for
you then I'd suggest buying an Elephant drive, I almost bought one, I may still buy one.

Dave


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## Captstn (May 22, 2003)

dolawren said:


> The salesperson at Carbon assured me that the Elephant drives are all Seagate drives,
> So if you want an external drive with a Seagate drive that is already assembled for
> you then I'd suggest buying an Elephant drive, I almost bought one, I may still buy one.
> 
> Dave


I was in the Toronto store the other day and was quite pleased to see that they now sell the Elephant Drive as bare enclosures (no HD ) so I picked up an Elephant Raid Enclosure. The enclosures are not listed on the web site. I can not recall the price of the two other models but the Raid enclosure was $99.95. I am a Happy Camper :clap:


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## tomblvl (Apr 16, 2007)

*External Hard Drives*

Thanks to all who responded to my query about External Hard drives for my iMac. I do appreciate all the hints and advice.

Season's Greetings to all.

Tom


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## Arne (Jan 27, 2003)

You're welcome. Knowledgeable and helpful advice (I've also received it when needed) is one aspect that makes EhMac great.


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## DDKD726 (Feb 21, 2005)

dolawren said:


> The salesperson at Carbon assured me that the Elephant drives are all Seagate drives,
> So if you want an external drive with a Seagate drive that is already assembled for
> you then I'd suggest buying an Elephant drive, I almost bought one, I may still buy one.
> 
> Dave


According to the Elephantstorage website, these drives are only available at Carbon... Does Carbon assemble these drives themselves? Anyone have any bad expereice with these drives? $199 for 500gb firewire drive is pretty decent.


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## Mik (May 30, 2006)

I saw those Elephant drives too. At first I thought they were made by Elephant Memory systems, the makers of those great 5.25" floppy disk from the 80's. Now, though, it looks like these drives are a "private-label" brand for Carbon. 
Any good?

Mik


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## neptune (Apr 27, 2003)

I may be a little biased, but the ElephantDrives are great. They are all based on Seagate mechanisms and have cool aluminum enclosures that go really well with the current line of Apple systems. There are pocket drives, desktop drives, RAID drives and even Mac mini stackable drives.


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## csonni (Feb 8, 2001)

I was using (until SuperDuper became non-compliant with Leopard) my Lacie Little Big Disk. It's both FW 800 / 400 / USB 2.0. Works great. I like the fact that it can be run without the power adapter.


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## imachungry (Sep 19, 2004)

neptune said:


> I may be a little biased, but the ElephantDrives are great. They are all based on Seagate mechanisms and have cool aluminum enclosures that go really well with the current line of Apple systems. There are pocket drives, desktop drives, RAID drives and even Mac mini stackable drives.


Just bought one. Question: should I turn this drive off when not in use, and do I need to do anything special when I transport it?

Thanks.:clap:


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

Hey!

My LaCie drive comes with a Samsung! What a relief. From what you guys said it sounded like I was going to get some piece of garbage drive. If any of you were contemplating getting a LaCie, rest assured they come with good HDs!


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## mcoltezo (Mar 14, 2005)

spiralgirl said:


> Great question and one I've been grappling with myself. I'm leaning towards the G-Tech 500 GB with USB/Firewire400/800 and Ethernet.
> 
> S.


I just bought a 500 gig G-Tech-Q. It's the drive of choice of some folks on a Final Cut forum I frequent. It comes pre-formatted for Mac, however the info that came with it indicates it can be formatted for Windows AND Mac. I got it in Toronto at Accurate Technologies on Willowdale. They beat everyone's prices including the G-tech website at the time. Best to call ahead as they don't stock a huge quantity.

my 2 cents


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

imachungry said:


> Just bought one. Question: should I turn this drive off when not in use, and do I need to do anything special when I transport it


Make sure to "eject", that is, unmount the drive when you are done. This clears the caches and makes sure everything is written to the drive. Otherwise, you can corrupt the data on the drive, rendering it unusable. You can do this by pulling the icon for the drive to the trashcan (which will turn into the eject arrow), or you can highlight it, and use the eject command in the pull down menu in Finder.

It should be fine for transport; just don't handle it too hard, and avoid dropping and the like.


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## mojo (Oct 7, 2008)

*Elephant Storage*

Good Afternoon Everyone:

Does anyone know whether the Company "Elephant Storage" (manufacturer of a "RAID" System) is around?

I bought their RAID in June. Now, I am experiencing a problem and have emailed them numerous times and they never reply.

Thank you.


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## doubles87 (Jul 15, 2008)

Im pretty sure you can partition your drive into mutiple regions and format them differently.


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## mojo (Oct 7, 2008)

*Elephant RAID*

Sorry...I am new to all this but was not asking about iphone, was asking about Elephant Storage and whether anyone knew if they are still in business.

Thank you


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## mojo (Oct 7, 2008)

*Web Site*

Good Afternoon all. I appreciate all the comments; however, I am not sure why two people now have sent me the Company's Website when we all commented that they do not reply to their emails and have no phone number.

Thank you


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## Harvey (Oct 9, 2005)

You didn't see the phone numbers on the where to buy page?
Perhaps if you check you'll find that they are a 'house brand' of a retail outlet.


Regards
Harvey


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## mojo (Oct 7, 2008)

*Web Page*

Yes I did see that. But, as stated earlier, I will not deal with "Carbon" (the only listed retailer.

I do thank you for all suggestions, though.


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## Harvey (Oct 9, 2005)

Well, as stated in your other thread
http://www.ehmac.ca/ehmac-ca-info-centre/70025-elephantstorage-com.html

you don't really have a choice, do you? 

Regards
Harvey


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