[mikemako]

I really need to purchase an external hard drive for my MacBook Pro, but all the solutions I have found so far are a little confusing for me. I've found bundles for 7TB of storage and external casing (but do these include the hard drives in them?), and stories of Firewire 800 adapters that are unstable.. eeek!

Is there anything simple, like what we had with Firewire 400/800 External Drives? Something that will just plug into my MacBook Pro and allow me to create backups and transfer data? I realize that I can use Firewire 400, but I would prefer to utilize that faster ExpressCard/34 slot if possible.

Thanks for any help... Mike

[mduell]

How much storage are you looking for?

I'd get an ExpressCard Serial ATA/eSATA adapter, eSATA enclosure, and all the SATA disk you need. Figure $170ish for 160GB, $200ish for 320GB, $300ish for 500GB, or $500ish for 750GB.

[mikemako]

Originally Posted by mduell

How much storage are you looking for?

I'd get an ExpressCard Serial ATA/eSATA adapter, eSATA enclosure, and all the SATA disk you need. Figure $170ish for 160GB, $200ish for 320GB, $300ish for 500GB, or $500ish for 750GB.

Thanks for the reply, but this is what I was talking about. It seems kinda complicated.

Do I have to buy an adapter, an enclosure, and a hard drive seperately? Is there 1 place I can go to get all of this pre-made and ready to plug in?

I have seen one solution, but it was thousands of dollars for several terabytes of storage.. I just need a simple external hard drive around 300GB or so.

Thanks again.

[Cadaver]

Good lord, man! 7 Terabytes is all you could find?

There are Firewire full-sized (3.5") and portable (2.5") hard drives available on the Apple online store, as well as various online dealers such as OtherWorld Computing for reasonable prices. Even places like Best Buy, CompUSA or Fry's (since you're on the West Coast; no Fry's near me) carry several different brands and capacities.

Portable-sized, Firewire bus-powered drives will go up to 160GB, though they're more expensive and generally slower than their bulkier desktop counterparts.

Here's a link to OWC's page of mid-priced external desktop hard drives. They come in sizes from 80-500GB, and you can choose from several different interface options (USB, Firewire 400, Firewire 400+800, or all the above). These units use 3.5" standard ATA hard drive mechanisms.

If you look around their site, you'll also find drives that use SATA mechanisms and are outfitted with a "quad" interface - FireWire 400, FireWire 800, USB 2.0 and eSATA. I have one and they're very nice.

Their drives include all cables, power supply, etc.

You can also buy from them just a bare case and/or bare HD mechanisms if you like to build your own.

My advice, however, unless you need to eek the very last microseconds of speed from the drive, just go with a FireWire 400 mechanism -- don't bother buying a SATA ExpressCard and the extra expense of an eSATA case & drive. If you're not using a RAID setup (multiple hard drives interleaved for maximum speed), then FireWire 400 (which your MacBook Pro has built-in) will still provide more than enough bandwidth for a single external drive.

*Disclaimer: I do not work for them or represent them in any way. I just happen to have purchased a lot from them in the past and found them to be honest, fast, and of high quality.