[Jrt5000]

I have an iBook and am quickly running out of space and so am thinking about buying an external firewire drive (hard disk).
1) Which is the best (value for money i want between 80-200gig)?
2)Can i download mp3s onto this drive directly?
2.5) If so will i be able to play them in iTunes?
3) Will there be any difficulties in me using a firewire drive whilst using USB 2.0 with my iPod?
4)Will i be able to run programs (games in particular) directly off this external drive)?

Thanks in advance for your help

[The Oracle]

Originally posted by Jrt5000:
I have an iBook and am quickly running out of space and so am thinking about buying an external firewire drive (hard disk).
1) Which is the best (value for money i want between 80-200gig)?
2)Can i download mp3s onto this drive directly?
2.5) If so will i be able to play them in iTunes?
3) Will there be any difficulties in me using a firewire drive whilst using USB 2.0 with my iPod?
4)Will i be able to run programs (games in particular) directly off this external drive)?

Thanks in advance for your help

1) do the math--calculate GB-to-dollar ratios.
2) yes
2.5) yes, although you'd have to keep the drive mounted in order for itunes to read the music.
3) no
4) should be able to run most apps. Some may not like it. Haven't enouch experience with that to know.

[bbales]

Different people swear by different brands. I just bought an internal Seagate, because the price (with rebate) was great and Seagates have a 5-year warranty. Then I bought an enclosure from Other World Computing and built my own firewire drive.

[Crusoe]

I bought a Lacie Porsche Mobile. Pricy but it's bus powered, portable, cool looking and they have capacities up to 100GB. I'm booting with it. I would have got the FW only cause they're cheaper and that's all I needed but the store only had the FW/USB combo 40GB.

If I had the time, I'd ordered a OWC FW800/400 drive but am enjoying 1 less cable with my current setup.

A review I did
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=246008

Lacie's link
http://www.lacie.com/products/family.htm?id=10007

OWC
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/

[Rev-O]

You need to consider how you plan on utilizing your external drive.

You can get a smaller bus powered 5400rpm 80 gb firewire drive like the afforementioned LaCie by Porsche for $239. It's small, needs no external power supply, yatta yatta yah. About $3 per gb.

You can get a (physically) larger 7200rpm fw400/800/usb2.0 250 gb LaCie d2 drive that isn't really portable, requires an external power supply for $249. 3 times the storage for 10 bucks more. But not that portable. About $1 per gb.

Or just buy an iPod. Smaller hard drive. Way more expensive. But a nifty music player and storge device rolled into one. Sizes up to 60 gb, at about $10 per gb.

Just figure what you need the drive for, and where and when you use it.

[Jrt5000]

yeah i've heard good things about LaCie drives. I've already got an iPod and can't really afford another (although i realise it is good it terms of its portability). I'm looking for something that's reasonably portable and can act as an extension of my existing hard drive. That is to say that i want to listen to mp3s stored solely in the external drive through iTunes on my laptop as i would be able to do with any mp3 stored on my iBooks' hard drive. This drive would primarily be for mp3s: i have a 30gb hard drive, a 40gb iPod and 25 (and rising) gig of music whilst also wanting to store lots of photo and video so you can imagine i'm running into problems.

[WoD]

I went to Overclockers UK, external drives, western digital and bought the one at the bottom. Wasting time comparing prices and fannying about just annoys me.

The Western Digital Media Centre was £158.57, is USB2.0/FireWire800 and includes an 8 in 1 card reader which is handy for me, but as your iPod takes no sort of flash card, probably not for you- however the difference between the model without the card reader and with the card reader is a meagre £6 - so why not!

It also includes a USB 2.0 hub, which is not bad considering it will be monopolising one of my mini's only two USB ports - so the integrated card reader means less individual attached devices and the hub means 3 spare USB ports for miscellanous gadgetry.

I have always said I hate convergance - but putting an 8in1 reader into an external drive just stuck me as a "good idea"

Oh if only it had a built in fileserver, plus USB over IP and connected to the network via cable or airport.

If you avoid the "fluff" that attracted me you could probably get a much larger hard drive for much cheaper- this is what google was made for =D

[brickcam]

Buy an external enclosure and a hd separately, you can save money. Shop for the enclosure on froogle.google.com and you can get a good idea about the optimum part of the price curve for hd's from pricewatch.com.