i need an external hardrive for my mac?

Question

what is it exactly and where do i find one? online, at a store?


my music has taken over my computer completely.

it is an osx

Answer 1

I can second the Western Digital recommendation. I have a 120GB WD external drive and it's great. It's small, portable, quiet, and it doesn't require an external power source; just plug it into a USB port.

Whatever you end up getting, make sure you reformat it in HFS+. This is the format that Macs use, meaning that you will be able to make large backups and restore large backups of your Mac without fuss. To do this, plug in your external drive, launch Disk Utility, select the external drive, choose the Erase tab, and for the Volume Format drop-down menu, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled). In the Name field you can name the drive to anything you wish. Then click the Erase button and when it's finished, you're external drive is all set.

Answer 2

Any one that has an Oxford chipset will work great with a Mac. Don't forget to format it as HFS+ before using it. Look at macsales.com for firewire external drives.

Answer 3

An external hard drive is a hard drive that is in its own case, not installed inside the computer. It means that it's portable (although some are more specifically designed for that purpose than others). It can be moved from machine to machine (but if you plan to do that, don't password protect it because the software for that would reside on the computer where you stored it, and the drive won't be usable on other computers.)

What kind of Mac? Running what OS? You can buy on line or at a store, a store may be better because you can talk to real people. Go to a computer store, not an office supply store. Look for a drive that has both USB and Firewire ports (not required, but it gives you more flexibility.) Most of the big companies make decent drives that will work, but I'd also look at several possibilities and then look for reviews. I have a couple of Maxtor OneTouch III drives (one has USB, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800, and has been used for digital video work [Final Cut], which requires the high speed of Firewire), and they work fine. Also note that some drives will have multiple ports, but not all the cables, so you may have to buy those separately.

Answer 4

Maxtor are also good.
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=Maxtor_OneTouch_Mac_OS_X_Driver_Update&vgnextoid=cd6d8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

Answer 5

I'd recommend Western Digital external hard drives, which can be found online at Buy.com or Best Buy retail stores. They're reliable, stylish, and relatively cheap. I currently use two for backup and movies, and they run great, no matter what I'm doing!