Hi folks,

 Seeing as how i value all of your opinions, im looking for recommendations on an external hard-drive for my macbook.

I want it to cost less than £90, be at least 500GB, be both firewire and usb2.0, look good and easy to use and set up. Ok i have searched the mac store and the internet and found several different makes, models and sizes. But i would like beoworlders to give me advice on what to look at and what to steer clear of.

Cheers,

Mark.

Hi Mark,

first of all, are you looking for an USB powered 2.5'' drive or an externally powered 3.5'' drive?

I found it difficult to find portable 2.5'' drives with firewire and usb and are currently using several USB TrekStore drives up to 250 GB with no problems so far.

I'm also using with my iMac via firewire a Buffalo Drive Station with a 3.5'' drive, usb and firewire bus and external power supply. I really like the drive as it is extremly silent (really not to hear). I can fully recommend this type of drive. Up to 750 it has no fan, if you want a bigger drive (1000 GB is also available) you should check for the potential noise of the fan which is needed for the big drives. 

Francis

For my mac I use WD 5000MT which is FW 400/800 and USB.  It's 500GB and bus powered.

If you are planning to use it with an airport extreme, you may have difficulty when going to 10.5.6 as the system basically wants you to use a time capsule for time machine backups over wifi.  Other than that, if you plug it in, it's fast (well with my imac it is)

Hope this helps

for my PC laptop for years I used 3.5" seagate drives in external enclosures with external power -- very noisy but ok for desktop backups

for portable access I has two 2.5" drives I used -- USB powered and all you could here were the clicks as they were accessing data

when I was in the UK I got SWMBO a 750GB Maxtor (it has seagate inside) OneTouch

It had external power but beautifully silent

I bought another Maxtor (1TB) as a Christmas gift for my second son - also still soundless

When I bought my Macbook I got a LaCie USB recommended by the Apple store person -- this I carry as I travel

And then I have bought two 1TB Maxtor Onetouches for myself (duplicate backups)

Even though the Onetouches are more expensive than other Maxtors I am buying them for consistency of appearance and because I know how quiet they are

On hardware forums lots of people decry the Seagate drives - but after some 6 years of usage I still have had no problems with their drives