Help me decide on external HD

[b3six]

My primary computer is a Macbook Pro and I need a good reliable hard drive that I can backup the files with. I had an external that worked fine on my mac for a while but now it isn't recognized and I need to get 200GB of info off of it. So my question is:
1. Whats a reliable external drive around 500gb (or 2 250gb) that I can use with my Mac and PC without problems?


I have 2 DiamondMax 10 200GB Internal drives from my PC that I want to buy externals encasings for, so my questions are:
1. What encasing do i get for a DiamondMax 10?
2. If one of the internals has Windows XP installed on it can I still use it as an external? I'll eventually wipe the drive after I get what I need off of it.

I'm hoping to have my mind made up on what I'm getting by monday so any help is appreciated thanks for reading

 

[dawza]

The Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ and WD 5000AAKS are two cool-running, reliable drives that I have used and can personally recommend. The Samsung is particularly quiet, although the WD is only a touch more noticeable at idle.

You have a wide range of choices for external drives, depending mostly on your price range. I recently put together a setup consisting of the WD HDD listed above in an Icy Dock USB 2.0 + FW400 case, and highly recommend the combo for its ease of use, build quality, performance (especially with FireWire), and aesthetic appeal. This was for a friend who wanted an external drive to use with his PC and MBP, with the latter being the primary computer. The Icy Dock uses an excellent chipset (Oxford) and has been a consistent performer in reviews.

Regardless of which drive/case combo you choose, the main issue with respect to PC-Mac compatibility is the manner in which you format the drive. The easiest method is to use FAT32, which can be read/written by both Windows and OSX. You will have to deal with the limitations of the FAT32 file structure, though. One way to get around this, if it will be a problem, is to use MacDrive (or a similar program) on your Windows PC, and format the external drive as HFS+ (can be done in OSX or using MacDrive). This will allow you to use the drive in OSX normally, and in Windows via MacDrive.

 

[b3six]

thx 4 the reply but I'm looking to buy external drives for my new drive and casings for the 2 diamondmax 10s that i have. will the icy dock work for those drives? and how long would it take to switch the casing from 1 drive to the other? I didn't know the external cases would cost that much.. i am looking for firewire though