[joanndavis]

What is the best hard drive to get that is plug and play for macs.:confused:

[vingogly]

Depends on your Mac. Assuming you have one built in the last five years or so, you should have Firewire and USB ports. Unless you have USB 2.0 ports, you want to get a Firewire hard drive. If you have USB 2.0 ports, a USB 2.0 hard drive would work fine, too. Look over the external hard drive offerings here:

Storage - External Hard Drives - MacMall

When you find a few models that you like (I have a LaCie Firewire external hard drive for my MacBook which works great) you can find the best online price for them here (or look for it at your local brick and mortar stores):

Hard Drives - PriceGrabber.com

Vasily

[joanndavis]

Depends on your Mac. Assuming you have one built in the last five years or so, you should have Firewire and USB ports. Unless you have USB 2.0 ports, you want to get a Firewire hard drive. If you have USB 2.0 ports, a USB 2.0 hard drive would work fine, too. Look over the external hard drive offerings here:

Storage - External Hard Drives - MacMall

When you find a few models that you like (I have a LaCie Firewire external hard drive for my MacBook which works great) you can find the best online price for them here (or look for it at your local brick and mortar stores):

Hard Drives - PriceGrabber.com

Vasily

So which would you advice me to get... I have a I mac G4... So if I get the firewire will it be plug it in and I'm up and running? This is my first time using external hd

[vingogly]

What do you want to do with the external HD? I use mine for backups, which means I purchased one the same size as my laptop HD. Some friends of mine use them for storing music and/or videos so you need to size the hard drive according to your needs. Do you want to be able to slip it in your laptop case and take it along? You'll want one of the portable models, then.

If you want to leave it in a fixed location, I'd suggest this one because LaCie has a good reputation and it's reasonably priced:

LaCie 301103U 500GB External Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Hard Drive - Design by F.A. Porsche

If you want something to slip into your pocket or notebook case, I'd suggest one of the Western Digital Passport series because they've tended to get good reviews:

MacMall – #1 Mac Store, iPod nano, Mac Intel, Mac Computers & LCD TVs

Vasily

[joanndavis]

I am planning on just using it for back ups... Is it hard to set up for the mac?

[vingogly]

Nothing is hard to set up for the Mac. :-)

Chances are good you'll plug it in and it will immediately mount on the desktop (if it's marketed for the Mac, it will come preformatted). Worst case scenario, there will be a CD with a driver you need to install (a driver is the software that makes a specific piece of hardware - hard drive, printer, etc. - talk to your computer).

In either case, you'll be up & running in no time. To mount your hard drive, you just plug it in; in a few seconds, it will appear on your desktop. Double click to open it, drag files to it to copy. Always put it away by unmounting it; if you just pull the plug, Mac OS will not be happy. You unmount by dragging the image to the trash, or Command-click and select Eject from the menu, or open a finder window and click on the little unmount icon next to the hard drive image in the pane to the left.

If you're going to use it for photos and/or music, I think you can specify it as the default location for both iTunes and iPhoto. Check Help in both apps for details.

Vasily