rjrbigdog Loc: New York

have a very slow iMac only 4 gigs of ram. I bought a new imac retina 27 inch with 32 ram and a 512 gig flash hard drive, because I want all my photos on an external hard drive. I am confused to what I should buy. would really like to know what other people do. and what to do for backing everything up. Thanks

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Buy something from this page of Apple formatted drives:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?atclk=Pre-Format_Mac+%28HFS%2b%29&ci=6543&N=4294542383+3835819377

And, recognize they fail. So whatever you buy, buy a duplicate to "backup the first". The more expensive ones on that page will have multiple drives for copies and work automatically if configured correctly. Many will buy the cheaper ones and do the work themselves.

I have a combination of WD and Seagate drirves.

johnst1001a Loc: West Chester, Ohio

I have the Western Digital passport drives (2). Both are 500 mb, mostly because that is the size they came in several years ago. I would go with the 2TB of course. At $99, it doesn't make sense to go with the 1TB at $69. The passport drives are pretty portable too.

blankmange Loc: down on the farm...

many many threads on this very topic....

DavidPine Loc: Fredericksburg, TX

I use WD, Seagate and LeCie ( a total of 5). I tend to like the WD that is specific to a Mac. I have several copies of my images on separate drives. I don't tend to worry about my main drive because I save everything
, except temporary files, to these external drives. I've never had a mac's hard drive failure and if I did, I can easily download the programs. Good luck.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I like WD drives. I've known for years that they rank their drives by color names - Green, Red, Black, etc. I've always gotten their better, more expensive Black drives. Then I heard about their Red drives, made especially for NAS backup. A couple of months ago, I learned about "Enterprise" class dives on UHH. Enterprise drives are available from most manufacturers, and they're built to run 24/7 - at high speed. So, if you want the best in durability, that's a good option.

If you buy an internal drive, you'll have more choice available of what you're actually getting. Buy an internal drive and then get a case for it. A small drive in a pretty case doesn't tell you anything about what's inside. A disk drive is something you do not want to shop for by looking for the lowest price.

As for Apple-compatible drives, looking for one can limit your choices. Drives can be formatted to use in Macs.

I put an SSD into my new Dell, and it's fantastic. Going back to a HDD would be like going back to a dial-up modem/

BboH Loc: s of 2/21, Ellicott City, MD

Within then past week...
Do a search for external HD

Leitz Loc: Solms

This looks to be a good buy. I have two.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/983303-REG/western_digital_wdbwlg0030hbk_nesn_3tb_elements_desktop_external.html

rjrbigdog Loc: New York

Thank you for all the suggestions. looking at Thunderbolt hard drives. Western Digital makes one. Do a lot of people use cloud storage also for back up?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I keep my "cloud" right in this room. I have too much to backup, considering the cost.

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Thunderbolt is very fast. I keep all my photos on a thunderbolt drive and have a large usb3 drive that backs up everything on the mac and the thunderbolt automatically. I keep extra copies of photos on smaller detached drives labeled by year. No cloud storage yet but if you're an Amazon prime member you have unlimited storage, I'm contemplating how to best utilize that.

RICHARD46 Loc: New Jersey

I use crash plan for my cloud backup. Unlimited backup $50 a year

rjrbigdog Loc: New York

Thanks, I have a couple of questions since I am just starting with this external storage and back up. Just bought the 27 inch retina iMac , I loaded it with everything upgraded to the max, except the hard drive, that is a 512 gb flash drive. I read that you use thunderbolt for external storage and usb3 for back up. So I assume the back up (usb3) is as large or larger then the external hard drive you have your pictures on? Do you use any type raid o or 1? is the back up connected to the back of the thunderbolt drive. I really need you to tell me how you set it up if you don't mind. I really appreciate it. Want to get a good sized hard drive that I can use with plenty of space. Thanks so much for all your help

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

My set up (which I don't promise is technically the best solution) is this - mac mini with a mac thunderbolt monitor which is connected directly to the computer then a 3 gb La Cie thunderbolt attached to the monitor, now more than half full. I'll add another similar one to it when it gets too full and plug it into the first one (if you mean to add another later, buy one with two TB ports). Then I have a WD USB3 Mybook that is set to automatically back up both the mac mini and the La Cie. All my photos are also in another backup on smaller drives so they are in 3 places. Most of what I read suggests you get a backup drive twice the size of what you want to back up. I got my sizes by adding the data on my hard drive plus the data on the external that I wanted to back up, anticipated how much more I might be adding in the reasonable future and doubled it. You have to do some anticipating of how much you tend to shoot, knowing the sizes of your files and what else you have that needs backing up, so there is some guessing to be sure you're choosing a plan that will do you for a while, but I didn't agonize a lot over it since some of the future is unpredictable. If I find myself shooting 40 mp images next year I may find I have shorted myself.

rjrbigdog Loc: New York

thanks, so i would get 3tb thunderbolt hard drive, a larger usb3 hard drive probably larger then 3 tb of the thunderbolt. connect the usb3 (which is for back up) to the thunderbolt drive. So, I guess you do not do anything with raid 0 or 1. Thanks for the help.