External Drive for Mac

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Beardy

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I've just ordered a new iMac and am going to be investing in an external drive to store my images on. One of my main reasons for upgrading is that my current 5 yr old machine really struggles with image editing.

Anyone use an external drive for images and editing those images at the moment? Obviously the quickest option is a Thunderbolt SSD drive and the cheapest and "slowest"a USB3 HD.

My choices are really either a Thunderbolt or USB3 HD given capacity needs an budget constraints.

Currently using a D7000 but will hopefully go FF with either a D600 or 800 and the associated file size in the future.
 
I use a Western Digital My Passport Studio 1TB (FW800) for my MBP, but tbf I don't edit on it on the fly. It would be quick enough though, as it tests out slightly faster transfer than USB3 on benchmark tests.
 
I got the 3tb Seagate FW drive from the Apple store. With an appropriate adapter you can use thunderbolt, but at 170 quid, that will wait. I don't edit on the fly, but FW is fast backup.
 
Thanks for the replies.

The new iMac has done away with FW for USB3. Sounds like a slightly retrograde step from a speed/back up perspective but sounds like USB3 may be okay then?
 
I ordered a thunderbolt to firewire adaptor with my iMac, can't see me ditching the drobo back up I have for a few years. Also ordered a bluray / dvd dic drive so I can chuck 25 to 50gb at a time of discs to archive and keep the fusion drive freeeeeeeeeeeee :D
 
It's USB 2 which is still quicker than a disc will burn, but osx can't play bluray films without a program. I've been looking at MacGo to that for me :D
 
Think I am going to get a USB3 Western Digital HD to use for my photo and video library....looks to be appreciably quicker than FW from what I have gleaned via Google and Thunderbolt is crazy money at the moment.
 
USB is generally faster at bursts of data and FW faster at sustained data, i cant imagine you noticing much difference (even on TB) for opening and saving photos. if you were hammering the read/writes constantly then TB and its bandwidth may come in handy (but you'll never use it to its full capability due to the speeds of current hard drives).
 
neil_g said:
USB is generally faster at bursts of data and FW faster at sustained data, i cant imagine you noticing much difference (even on TB) for opening and saving photos. if you were hammering the read/writes constantly then TB and its bandwidth may come in handy (but you'll never use it to its full capability due to the speeds of current hard drives).
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No I am sure I won't notice!

Hopefully in a few years SSD Thunderbolt drives will be affordable.....by then of course my iMac will be out of date!
 
Beardy said:
Thanks for the replies.

The new iMac has done away with FW for USB3. Sounds like a slightly retrograde step from a speed/back up perspective but sounds like USB3 may be okay then?
Click to expand...

Did not realise that - just assumed they'd have stuck with FW having backed it for so long.
 
Thunderbolt is the new baby, FW is dead :(

I think USB 3 only landed because it's part of Intel's chip architecture and they had no choice.
 
digitalfailure said:
Thunderbolt is the new baby, FW is dead :(

I think USB 3 only landed because it's part of Intel's chip architecture and they had no choice.
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Makes sense, probably cheaper chipsets/logic boards and apple can make (more) money on TB to FW adapters at £25 a pop.
 
digitalfailure said:
Thunderbolt is the new baby, FW is dead :(

I think USB 3 only landed because it's part of Intel's chip architecture and they had no choice.
Click to expand...

Shame Thunderbolt is so ludicrously expensive..... a 4TB Western Digital Thunderbolt Drive is £400, USB3 is £200.

It almost feels like Apple are deliberately forcing people into buying external drives with the storage HD/SSD/Fusion choices in the new iMac.

They have seemingly restricted SSD choices to force people to go Fusion but then you can only have a 1TB Fusion if you need Bootcamp which I do for work.

The 2011 iMac would have been a much better option for me with separate SSD and HD.

I am now going to to have an extra external HD in addition to my Time Machine back up. So I have a slimmer iMac but need an extra external HD and an external optical drive.

Form over function!
 
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