Running out of room - External drive needed.

[cwcaesar]

I have a Macbook Air with the 128GB SSD hard drive. I am quickly running out of room and I and I learned a tip last night that helps performance, but eats up hard drive space. I learned the Lightroom works better if you allow it to access more of your hard drive as its working area. It defaults to 1GB, but I heard that it really prefers 20GB. I just don't have that kind if free space on my hard drive unless I get the pictures onto a separate drive.

So, I am looking for suggestions as to what I need in a external hard drive. I love the SSD (solid state - no spinning disc) in my Macbook, but I don't know if it would be any advantage to get an external SSD drive, or if I should get a traditional drive for my external. How much space should I get? What brand should I look for? Do they make hard drives that are compatible with USB 3.0?

If anyone has a website link that could point me in the right direction for educating myself, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[jwbryson1]

:er:


Tiger Direct Dot Com

 

[cgipson1]

External SSD is much faster obviouslly.. but more expensive, and less space

Does your macbook have USB 3.0? (assuming so since you asked about it). Firewire? E-Sata?

What is your budget?

I like www dot newegg dot com myself....

You can get a drive and a external enclosure.. and put them together.. usually cheaper than the prefabbed units.. and often faster.

Or you can get a prefabbed unit.

just a few to look at... feel free to ask questions...

Newegg.com - usb 3 external drive

 

[ceejtank]

128 gigabites? really? I have 5.5 terabytes. granted not ssd. but ssd isn't really needed for anything. Not sure why you would go SSD over the hard drives. Then again if you're going MAC you probably don't know much about PCs. But photos take up a lot of space. I would highly recommend getting an external hard drive, I've gotten a bunch off of newegg.com to backup my 5.5 terabytes. I have 4 redundency backups for a grand total of 22 terabytes of space. You should not only get a new hardrive to store stuff on that doesnt need daily access, but get a few as backups incase yours breaks.

 

[curtyoungblood]

I've used several external drives over the years. I had a seagate that always acted real funny with me and wouldn't mount right on macs. I currently use Western Digital Mybooks. They've always worked well and have been consistent for me. Get one as big as you can afford and yes they are USB 3.0 compatible. My personal preference is to have the cheaper space of traditional harddrives over the benefits of a SSD.

 

[Mully]

I use a Seagate Backup Plus 3T and it was plug and play on a Mac. I use SSD as my startup drive and only keep programs on it and it screams.

 

[cwcaesar]

I actually know more about PC than Mac, as I only made the switch about 6 months ago. I still prefer the mac over the PC since I made the switch, but my wife still uses a PC. I think I will look at the traditional hard drives that are USB 3.0 compatible. I just didn't know if there was a big advantage in the SSD over the traditional for external drive. And I will probably end up with 2 of whatever I get so that I will have some redundancy.

Thanks for the help!

 

[ceejtank]

I actually know more about PC than Mac, as I only made the switch about 6 months ago. I still prefer the mac over the PC since I made the switch, but my wife still uses a PC. I think I will look at the traditional hard drives that are USB 3.0 compatible. I just didn't know if there was a big advantage in the SSD over the traditional for external drive. And I will probably end up with 2 of whatever I get so that I will have some redundancy.

Thanks for the help!

SSD is good, but until they come out with some affordable reasonable sizes it's just a gimmick.

 

[jwbryson1]

I have a few of these and love them...

g technology| B&H Photo Video

 

[cgipson1]

I actually know more about PC than Mac, as I only made the switch about 6 months ago. I still prefer the mac over the PC since I made the switch, but my wife still uses a PC. I think I will look at the traditional hard drives that are USB 3.0 compatible. I just didn't know if there was a big advantage in the SSD over the traditional for external drive. And I will probably end up with 2 of whatever I get so that I will have some redundancy.

Thanks for the help!

SSD is good, but until they come out with some affordable reasonable sizes it's just a gimmick.

Not if you want performance.. as a boot drive, they rock! As a Data drive, they rock!

 

[Derrel]

I've been using Western Digital "Mybook" 2-terabyte drives for several years now. My most-recent one however is the new USB 3.0 incarnation, which is a higher-capacity, 3-terabyte size. Fairly small, seems reliable so far. Somebody might be more up on this, but I "think" there might be some kind of an issue with the 3-terabyte sized drives and Macintosh automated system back-up software apps like Time Machine...maybe something to do with block allocation size?? I dunno...I do not do automated back-ups. I payed like $129 for this 3-TB at BestBuy, which at that time, was a great price per gigabyte of storage space.

 

[jwbryson1]

I payed like $129 for this 3-TB at BestBuy.

SACRILEGE! :mrgreen:

 

[cwcaesar]

I LOVE my SSD and how fast it is on my Macbook, I just figured that as an external drive, there were other chokepoints in the data flow chain that would limit the benefits. Plus the cost per GB is still fairly high. First, I am actually looking for just some more storage for to use in my workflow. I will eventually add another drive solely for backup. For this 'working drive' is there any reason to get the SSD? Will I be able to see the benefits in an external drive?

 

[curtyoungblood]

First, I am actually looking for just some more storage for to use in my workflow. I will eventually add another drive solely for backup. For this 'working drive' is there any reason to get the SSD? Will I be able to see the benefits in an external drive?

Are you planning on actually working from this drive? as in putting new photos on their and editing and what not from it? If so, I'd recommend a different workflow. I'd move all the stuff you're finished with onto an external drive and use the internal SSD as your "working" drive. That will probably improve performance quite a bit.

 

[cwcaesar]

First, I am actually looking for just some more storage for to use in my workflow. I will eventually add another drive solely for backup. For this 'working drive' is there any reason to get the SSD? Will I be able to see the benefits in an external drive?

Are you planning on actually working from this drive? as in putting new photos on their and editing and what not from it? If so, I'd recommend a different workflow. I'd move all the stuff you're finished with onto an external drive and use the internal SSD as your "working" drive. That will probably improve performance quite a bit.

Okay, let me clarify a little bit. I am thinking of my internal as Short Term Storage, for importing to and editing, then I am wanting a second drive that I can get to fairly quickly and access files to re-edit, re-print, etc. (probably use this for photos only). Then I want another external drive - solely for backing up the entire computer & external drive. Pretty much how you explained it I guess. I just didn't say it so well.

So, for this first external drive that I will be accessing quite frequently, should I consider a SSD? Or will I not see the SSD benefits in an external drive.