External hard drives, what's the difference? I was looking at Seagate external hard drives. What's the difference between desktop external hard drive and external hard drive storage? I...

robertperry Loc: Sacramento, Ca.

I was looking at Seagate external hard drives. What's the difference between desktop external hard drive and external hard drive storage? I want to copy ( back up ) my entire imac in case it crashes. Not just store all photos. I'm not computer savvy, still call things on my computer doodads and thingy.

dirtpusher Loc: tulsa oklahoma

had less trouble with driver's on Western Digital Hard Drives

Db7423 Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

robertperry wrote:

I was looking at Seagate external hard drives. What's the difference between desktop external hard drive and external hard drive storage? I want to copy ( back up ) my entire imac in case it crashes. Not just store all photos. I'm not computer savvy, still call things on my computer doodads and thingy.

If I understand your question, a desktop external drive provides storage the same as your computers built-in drive does.
That storage can be anything specific or everything including software files on your computers built-in hard drive including software files if you choose. I have three hard drives, one 1tb where all the computers software files are backed up and two 3TB drives that store everything else. The two are duplicates, raid1, meaning each is a duplicate image of the other. ;)

pixbyjnjphotos Loc: Apache Junction,AZ

Some external hard drives are powered through the usb connection and others have their own external power supply to plug into a wall socket. Much like your laptop power supply. My personal opinion is get one with the external power supply.

Wahawk Loc: NE IA

Are you going to use it with a laptop? Will you want to take it with you? If yes to these questions, a "portable" external drive would be the easiest to use.

If you are just going to use it while on the desk, or strictly as a "backup" drive, get the "desktop external drive" with its AC power, which is often a bit cheaper than the portable ones that have the built in power connection and better case construction to withstand portable use.

Seagate or Western Digital would be first choices for me, with Toshiba close behind.

Cameoblue Loc: British Columbia Canada

robertperry wrote:

I was looking at Seagate external hard drives. What's the difference between desktop external hard drive and external hard drive storage? I want to copy ( back up ) my entire imac in case it crashes. Not just store all photos. I'm not computer savvy, still call things on my computer doodads and thingy.

To answer your question, NOTHING. Some people say "yes" others say "yup" it is just the language.
If you hook up an external hard drive to your Mac you could go into 'Time Machine'. This is a Mac application included in the last few Apple operating systems like Lion, Mavericks and the such. You can find the icon in Launch Pad or do a search on your Apple Drive or possibly an icon on your top tool bar. If you click on the 'Time Machine' icon to open the program you can direct it to send a complete back up to the external hard drive at various time intervals. If you lose a file on your computer hard drive you can go into 'Time Machine' on the external and find it and copy it to the iMac drive. Yes it is just that easy.

Be sure the external hard drive has at least (if not larger) memory (GB gigabit or TB terabit) as what your computer hard drive has.

floridamet

I use a 2TB external hard drive hook up in my desk top computer. When not coping it is unplug.
For traveling I use Lacie Mini portable hard drive. I also backup my images on flash drives and DVD.

ottopj Loc: Annapolis, MD USA

You can backup on the cloud for not much money. I had two hard drives fail within one week of each other and lost a lot of stuff.

I, personally, have two Western Digitals and use the cloud.

achesley Loc: SW Louisiana

I went to digital external storage. Works much faster and takes up less space than my old External HD from WD.

wthomson Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Western Digital works well for me.

Crwiwy Loc: Devon UK

robertperry wrote:

I was looking at Seagate external hard drives. What's the difference between desktop external hard drive and external hard drive storage? I want to copy ( back up ) my entire imac in case it crashes. Not just store all photos. I'm not computer savvy, still call things on my computer doodads and thingy.

I use two Seagate External drives - one about 6 years old and a 1 year old one which is much more compact. The older one I use as backup and extra storage. The newer one I only plug in once a week and use that as backup for both the computer HDD and the other external drive. This provides extra security and should the computer fail I can simply plug the drive into another computer and access all my work.

Judging by Amazon reviews - Seagate and Western appear the most popular drives with the Seagate being a bit more reliable than the Western.

lbrandt79 Loc: League City, Tx.

I just bought my second 1TB Western Digital from Fry's yesterday for $59. Had to reformat it for my Mac but that is simple. Have had good luck with them. Did have one crash last summer, I try to keep photographs on both of my 1TB drives, they mirror each other.

tomw

I think the distinction is between storage attached to the computer, whether internal or external, and network attached storage. A typical NAS has a power supply, some processing power, RAID options, and the capability of being addressed remotely

Trout man Loc: Alabama

Easy. External is outside and internal is what your Mac is using. I found a $59. 500Gig external hard drive from Wal-Mart that has all the stuff you need loaded. Just plug in the thumb drive and it pops up and goes through the menu asking what do you want to save and back up. 500g is a lot and if I ever fill it up I'll just get another one.
Tom

Leland22 Loc: Texas

I use Clickfree-1TB as an external hard drive to back up. Have had for 2 years , bought a new computer and downloaded everything "files-not programs" to my new computer-worked perfectly. When I back up after a photo trip, I take it to my office as an offsite storage-for fire/theft, etc. No problem on initial backup either.