I was wondering is Mac users general had good experience with the? I was thinking about getting either the 1TB or 2TB for backup/storage. It also says it has for the Mac. And the drive can be read by both PC and Mac. How does that work? And does anyone know if it is formatted for Mac OS Extended (Journaled)?
You should be able to locate the seagate external hard drive on your Mac computer once it is ready to Use Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB External Hard drive. After locating the drive, go the Finder window and open it.
Also, what does journaling actual do. I read a few conflicting threads, it either actively defrags to increase speed and prevent data corruption especially in the case of a power outage or it significantly slows down the disk. I am familiar with OWC products. I had good experience with them.
Formatting Seagate Backup Plus Drive
Are not Seagate products decent too? I saw a good deal on a Seagate drive in a store. I was also wondering since EHD can be so slim nowadays, if that ever presented a problem in terms of performance and durability? So if I do a complete reformat of the Seagate drive using the Apple Disk Utility, it will remove the NTFS driver completely and it will not be dual platform anymore, correct? General speaking, is NTFS really considered problematic and why? Seagate's quality of enclosures do not match those of OWC, while a Seagat drive will work investing a bit more normally results in a product that simply lasts longer, therefore becomeing less expensive in the long term.
They are also extremely easy to replace the HD in too, so eventually when the HD fails you simply buy another, slide it in and you are back up and running. NTFS is designed MS Windows, while OS X can read from it, OS X will not write to it natively however there are some work arounds. The trouble with the work arounds is they tend to be unreliable so while it may work fine one day the next you can have troubles, IMHO steer away from that format.
How To Format Seagate Backup Plus
Is a mac g4 any good for 2015. That drive is bus-powered, meaning it can get power only from the computer's USB ports. Unless you need small size so you can pack the drive around with you while traveling, consider instead a self-powered drive. If traveling with the drive is not an issue, also consider a larger desktop-type drive that holds a 3.5-inch form factor drive.
The larger drives are historically more durable than the 2.5-inch laptop drives as would be installed in the Seagate you linked. There are a fair number of reports in these forums of bus-powered drives working for a time and then not being recognized. With age, electric motors can demand more power than when new and, if that demand exceeds what a USB port can provide, the drive stops working.
IF you MUST use a laptop-class mobile external on a desktop computer, at minimum consider adding a self-powered USB hub to the purchase. It will overcome any lack of power issues the drive experiences: OWC makes a mobile, bus-powered drive that can also use an optional power brick--best of both worlds. I have one and like its having a FireWire interface. However, you have a choice of interfaces. There is another important thing to consider, besides the power of the EHD: the connector. If your Mac has already USB3, make sure that you buy a USB3 drive, much faster.
If your Mac has USB2, your next one will have usb3! Do not choose the Firewire connector, incompatible and not faster. As rkaufmann (🙂) said: do not format as NTFS. Format as Mac OS Extended (journaled): the NTFS drivers iavailable for OSX are not completely free of issues. If you realy want to exchange files with a Windows computer use an USB stick (Fat32). And do NOT install anything that comes with the EHD drive ('smart' software ntfs or other drivers). As Allan (🙂) said, the best solution is to buy a EHD with its own power, if you have a wall outlet free.