Verbatim 250GB FireWire Portable Hard Drive (96402)

I was very happy with my purchase after buying another name brand that was a USB connection that sometimes works with 2 ports on your computer & sometimes dose not. Every time I connected it was a different configuration. The firewire drive is the way 2 go. I used someone else Verbatim Portable hard drive & found it fast & reliable especially with large amounts of file.

I use this drive on my Macbook 2 store photos while shooting events. No complaints, other than I bought mine at B&H Photo 4 fully half the price ($82) it was listed here at Amazon ($166).

I have no issues with mine. I use an intel mac. Plug & use right out of the box. My sister has been using hers faithfully 4 al least 5 years.

This is my fourth SmartDisk hard drive that I own. Excellent quality & dependable service: not one crash, bug or problem.

SMARTDISK vs. VERBATIM
Make sure 2 look 4 the "SmartDisk" branding. Verbatim now owns SmartDisk & has put out a second Verbatim series that is cheaper BUT is all plastic & has no busy-in-use light. The SmartDisk version also has a metal enclosure which helps dissipate the heat produced by the unit, & the unit feels more "secure" & "solid".

FIREWIRE vs. USB 2.0 VERSIONS
Had no problems using the firewire version on my Mac OSX (Panther & Leopard). The USB 2.0 version is reportedly buggy. The firewire cable supplies power 2 the unit so you won't need 2 plug in a separate power cable. The USB 2.0 version occasionally does need a separate power cord. The USB 2.0 version is also ridiculously SLOW on USB 1.1 ports, & it's tricky 2 tell which kind of USB port you have on your computer since they look identical 2 one another.

TIME MACHINE COMPATIBLE
To make it compatible with Time Machine, use the Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder under Applications) on your Mac & reformatted it 2 "Mac OS Extended (journaled)" - do this BEFORE adding any files since it erases everything on the hard drive. Time Machine runs smoothly & you can control how often you back up your files by plugging & unplugging the hard drive. But make sure 2 ALWAYS properly eject the hard drive (drag the icon 2 the trash/eject button) before unplugging!

232GB ACTUAL SPACE vs. 250GB ADVERTISED
Finally, remember that you won't get exactly 250GB of space on the hard drive. The dirty secret of the industry is that memory is inexplicably measured differently on hardware than on software. You end up with about 232GB of useable space on this drive. If you need more space, diversify your back up onto separate drives (one 4 music, one 4 photos, etc.) & always have at least 2 copies of your most important, irreplaceable files (photos, financial, taxes, etc). The firewire drives can be daisy-chained together since they have 2 firewire ports.

The FireLite external hard drive is very quiet & dissipates almost no heat. Firewire connection makes this external hard drive as fast as the internal unit, while not requiring an additional power connection. I highly recommend it.

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