Suggestion for BUDGET friendly external hard drive for Macbook Pro (mid-2012)

birdman

I want a budget friendly external HDD (with at least 2TB) that uses something other USB3.0...well, maybe USB 3.0 is fast enough. My older Lacie hard drive has not just one, but 4 ports (USB2.0, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800, and eSATA). The downside is 750GB is now too small (plus it's filled up).

The Lacie models are way too expensive, and so are Apple's enclosures (not to mention lack of inputs for transferring data directly-- aren't they all wireless?) I know Apple's older enclosures were built that way. Anyway, suggestions will be appreciated.

proudgeek

You didn't say what your budget was, but since you don't want USB I'd say your best option is Thunderbolt connectivity. I would recommend against Firewire, as it's a dead end. I just recently installed a Drobo 5D, with twin redundant 3TB drives. It's pricey, (about $1,100 when you factor in the mSATA card), but VERY scalable. So I'm not sure if it's budget to the extent that you were thinking, but it's a relatively small upfront investment when you compare what it could become if necessary.

birdman

Thunderbolt is great. eSata is still very....relevant...right? My budget would be AT MOST $200.00.

I have WAY TOO much in Nikon gear, MacBook upgrades, as well as my custom built gaming PC that I used to process all my images through. It also has eSATA, mSATA, and USB3.0 connectivity. So if I ever needed to use the external HDD down the road exclusively for PC purposes, I'd have flexibility. Maybe I'll go with another Lacie

proudgeek

If you just need a straight up 2 or 3TB storage solution, that's what I'd do. A 2 TB hard drive will run you under $200 I think. I assume you want your library to live somewhere other than your local drive correct? That was my issue. I have a 200GB image library in Aperture (and with a D800 it's not going to get smaller), so I needed to do something that I could live with for several years. It was a hefty up front investment, but I see it paying dividends down the road due to the scalability.

Golf007sd

Costco & Best buy have some good deals on external HD's.

Parke1953

On my way home stopped in at walmart and they had a Toshiba 3TB USB 3.0 for $119.

birdman

Costco & Best buy have some good deals on external HD's.

Good friend, take me to Costco sometime. I don't have a membership. Ha. Catch u soon Ali

P.S. -- I really hope you're not swayed to **upgrade** to the "new" D4s. It really offers little else that anyone besides a bird photographer / sports shooter would NEED -- as far that I can tell.

shawnino

Lifehacker(dot)com constantly updates hard drive bargains in their deals section. They prosletyse a lot for SSD but they also note deals on spinners.

Golf007sd

@birdman: will give you a call soon and we will go get what you need. As for the D4s, I'm good. Hence, no need for what has to offer me over my D4

Pierre

I am using a 2TB USB3 Western Digital MyPassport pocket-size. I find they work great and when you turn the hardware-encryption on, they cannot be opened. Do not loose your password because no one will be able to help you. After 10 failed attempt, I believe the content is destroyed making them very secure. Unfortunaty NTFS does't work with mac (maybe I just do not know how) and fat32 is much less stable. My wife has one she use with her mac and she almost lost all of her content by exiting a photo directly on it instead of a local copy. It took a low-level chkdsk on windows to recover most of it.

Golf007sd

Just use Disk Utility on your mac and format the drive using Mac OS Extended.

Juergen

@birdman
maybe another option is worthwhile to consider for you:
take out the disc drive and fit either a SSD or HD instead.

Works well for me. I retrofitted my 2011 Macbook Pro with two 750 SSD drives.

Jürgen

Vipmediastar_JZ

@birdman I picked mine up at BB. usually when they are on sale. mine are 3TB usb 3.0