Back up storage

[shooter]

I really need to get my music backed up on an external drive, it took a long time to get the music ripped and i dont want to loose the lot.

Spotted one of these Hitachi Touro HD's on Amazon at a reasonalble price, would it do the job?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitachi-Touro-Mobile-External-Drive/dp/B006DZKEAW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1356950409&sr=8-3&tag=vglnk-uk-c70-21

 

[RobinKidderminster]

From pc / laptop? Any usb drive will do the job

 

[shooter]

From Mac?

 

[bigboss]

Not sure about the HDD you've linked, but I can recommend these for your Mac:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Passport-Portable-Drive/dp/B007UOW818/ref=sr_1_9?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1357039302&sr=1-9

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-Drive/dp/B005A97APO/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1357039302&sr=1-3

 

[BigH]

That should be OK, I'm not a Mac user so don't know about that part, it is really good price, I just bought a Seagate 1TB for £74.

 

[CnoEvil]

Not sure about the HDD you've linked, but I can recommend these for your Mac: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Passport-Portable-Drive/dp/B007UOW818/ref=sr_1_9?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1357039302&sr=1-9 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-Drive/dp/B005A97APO/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1357039302&sr=1-3

Agreed. I use the WD Elements, as in the second link.

 

[shooter]

Cheers guy's, i will take a punt on the Touro and see if it works out, worst case senario would be a return and to get a tried and tested drive.

 

[shooter]

Just reading through some on-line info it looks as though the HD will need to be reformatted for Mac use.

It goes on to say that its a simple process but i have no idea what to do. Is it simple and would i need some kind of OS to put on it?

 

[bigboss]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/250431/how_to_share_an_external_drive_between_a_mac_and_a_pc.html

 

[bigboss]

If only Mac, check this:

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/guide/storage

"With hard drives, do I need to worry about formats—Fat32 vs. HFS+?

Not really. Fat32 is a Windows-based format, while HFS+ was developed by Apple for use on the Mac. A Fat32-formatted hard drive can be use by both Mac and Windows computers, while HFS+ hard drives can be used only on a Mac. The Apple Online Store sells many hard drives that are pre-formatted with HFS+. Any of these can be reformatted with Fat32, though, if you want to use them in cross-platform environments. (You'll need to back up any files before reformatting, however.)

Can I use either drive format with Time Machine?

Time Machine only works with HFS+-formatted hard drives. If you want to use your external hard drive with Time Machine, the hard drive must be formatted in the HFS+ format. (Again, remember to back up files before reformatting.)"

 

[bigboss]

Formatting is easy. Simply right click on the drive (or click with 2 fingers on the track pad, as it's Mac) when connected to your Mac to bring up its menu & select "format" or similar.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

That should be OK, I'm not a Mac user so don't know about that part, it is really good price, I just bought a Seagate 1TB for £74.

I just bought a 2TB Seagate for £69.99, so your price isn't as good as you thought, sorry.

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/seagate-expansion-sgr39211-external-hard-drive-2tb-black-16787143-pdt.html

 

[Paul.]

Shooter, you may want to get to know the disk utility tool. It's a simple yet powerful disk management tool found in the utilities sub folder of your applications folder

http://macs.about.com/od/applications/tp/usingosxdiskutility.htm

 

[shooter]

Cheer BB, looks straight forward enough i guess so i'll be ordering one this eve.

Top info Paul, its about time i took some time out to go over the HD's here, im sure i've done it befor but it would have been along time ago. The start up seems a bit slow and lately, mayb this will cure that.