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Gismo
31st March 2007, 01:15 PM
For all you Mac geeks 8) a work colleague has asked me what the best external drive is for a Mac and can a normal PC one be used??
I doubt a PC could one could be used
The Dogfather
31st March 2007, 04:00 PM
I use a external PC HD Drive (Phillips) to share documents between my PC and Mac. Obviously works with both without any problems.
Gismo
31st March 2007, 04:07 PM
Do you know what formatting you had on the drive, ie Fat 32 or NTFS?
The Dogfather
31st March 2007, 04:24 PM
No, I just plugged it in and it worked. It's recognised as mass storage device on the PC though.

I haven't used it in a while but I might dig it out tonight to have a look.
Gismo
31st March 2007, 04:34 PM
That's ok VB, i reckon no formatting required for plugging into the Mac, no need to check
vintageb3
31st March 2007, 05:12 PM
The best?...hmmm well there are a lot of good drives out there. Firewire is better than USB on a Mac I found...faster a LOT faster. YMMV

I have four external drives hooked up to my Mac...three of them are IDE Maxter/Western Digital. Those drives drives I used with my PC...so for ages left them Fat 32 or NTFS...the Mac writes to those formats no bother. They are now formatted for Mac with Mac OS Extended Journaled. Down side...a PC can't read them now. I also have a Lacie drive and its always been formatted for Mac. It performs the best...quieter, faster...gets less hot. But it was more expensive.

Hope this helps

mark
minidriver#1
31st March 2007, 05:30 PM
I would vouch for Lacie. I've got a 120gig one and it's taken a lot of physical punishment as its used as a security backup. Also they look pretty nice and dont make too much noise and have an auto shutdown feature for when it's not being used.
GAJ
1st April 2007, 10:04 PM
The Iomega MiniMax 500GB gets a good review in the latest issue of MacUser. As well as being a HD it is also a powered Firewire and USB 2 hub, and if it's a Mac Mini your mate has this is designed to sit beneath it. As has already been said, a PC one will work fine though!

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000JVRQV6.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Gismo
1st April 2007, 10:31 PM
Thanks to all, he bought one direct from Apple, cost = £69, comparable with a standard PC one :)