Hey Amigos, I want to buy a 3tb external hard drive for my wife. She actually will need two. She is getting a new mac soon so USB 3.0 will be ideal. So she stores tons of video footage and pictures on them. Idealy it would be nice if you could simply plug it into the USB port and if she needed to transfer a chunk she could plug it into my PC. I saw these hard drives but they seem to be Mac and PC only and require formatting to switch. That seems like it sucks and these are highly rated. Anyone have suggestions? I am looking for reliability as my top reason to buy one model over another. Mac http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846 PC http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Securit..._sim_pc_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0Z17B5TPBYCZSGDSRGY9 Do they make a great, reliable external one that works with both Mac and PC. I saw the top rated drive on Cnet by Buffalo and it seems to be crappy now after users have had it a while. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846 Any suggestions? I already have two of those fireproof, water proof ones in the mail. Those will be her back ups to the back up. I need primary (secondary) storage if you know what I mean. http://www.amazon.com/ioSafe-SK3TB-...95112133&sr=1-1&keywords=fireproof+hard+drive
The format's not really an issue since you can just reformat it to whatever you like. Heck, the first thing I do with new HDs is reformat and repartition. Afaik, Mac has drivers for Windows' NTFS partitions and Windows has drivers for Mac's HSF+J so whatever format's not really a problem.
If it's interchangeability between computers you want, Mac's can read FAT32 drives same as a PC, but a PC can't read HFS (unless something has changed that I'm unaware of). Beat me to it. So ignore what I said about PC's and HFS.
So if I buy the mac version I can find some sort of drivers to be able to use them on my pc if I ever needed to?
Hitachi seems to make the most reliable drives. Should I try to find an external one with Hitachi insides?
Yes but I don't know if they're free since I've never needed to read off a Mac disk. But, whatever version of the HD you buy, you can just reformat it. I've owned every brand of HD and they've all been about the same. HD is probably the component of a PC I'm least picky with. A decent brand, size, price and I'm ok. But take note that some need to be plugged into a wall outlet/have a separate power adapter. These are normally 3.5" drives. The one you picked is this type, it seems from: If portability's needed, go for the tiny 2.5" drives. Those just get power from the USB.
