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Archive 2014 · Seagate hard drive question

  
 
Sharona
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Seagate hard drive question


I'm wondering if anyone has experience with this drive? Price is right, but is it difficult to load drivers for Mac users? I want to hook this up to my Macbook Air to download images while in Africa. Other suggestions most welcome. Thank you! Actually - I'd love to know if there is a hard drive/storage option that does not require the Macbook air, as I'm not even sure there is enough storage on it to load the images in the first place. Ack.


http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1017471-REG/seagate_stdr2000100_2tb_backup_plus_portable.html



Oct 22, 2014 at 04:28 PM
EB-1
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Seagate hard drive question


I have five of those drives, but no Mac experience.

EBH



Oct 22, 2014 at 06:46 PM
Sharona
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Seagate hard drive question


Thanks EB


Oct 22, 2014 at 07:37 PM
donmega
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Seagate hard drive question


No drivers needed. It's just plug and play. The drive is formatted NTFS but if you are going to use it exclusively with a Mac then you can just use Disk Utility to format it to HFS+ Journaled and off you go. Or as I said, you can use it as is right out of the box.

Or you could try this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?N=11076399&InitialSearch=yes&sts=pi

More expensive but it is self-contained. It will create it's own wireless access point for you to connect your MacBook Air to and you can view your images that way. You can even pop an SD card in (if that is what you're using, CF card user are out of luck) and automatically download photos to the drive.

I recently bought one and love it. It also works with IOS and Android devices.



Oct 22, 2014 at 08:58 PM
Sharona
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Seagate hard drive question


Interesting, Donmega. Why on then does it say drivers need to be installed on the B&H page? I may be using another person's Mac on the trip, so I'd like it to be as plug & play as possible. THanks for the WD idea.


Oct 22, 2014 at 10:53 PM
dcains
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Seagate hard drive question


I've plugged a variety of external drives into several MacBooks I've owned - never needed to install any drivers.


Oct 23, 2014 at 01:12 AM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Seagate hard drive question


Sharona wrote:
Interesting, Donmega. Why on then does it say drivers need to be installed on the B&H page? I may be using another person's Mac on the trip, so I'd like it to be as plug & play as possible. THanks for the WD idea.



it says "Pre loaded NTFS driver for mac"

mac doesn't do NTFS (it will now read NTFS) . I presume the drive comes formatted NTFS .

if your not using a PC then you can reformat the drive to Mac OS and be don with it . Ive tried to get my Mac to play with NTFS (not via this driver) and my PC to play with Mac format without much success . ( I know other shave done well with it . )

I can't say much about the pre loaded software , but I have read many stories of how bad all that stuff you get on drives (to supposedly make them better) is .


personally I would buy a standard external drive drive and format it how you need as it will be cheaper .
if your only mac then mac format is the way to go . if your mixing OS's then EXFAT works fine (although i have noticed on large files its much slower )



Oct 23, 2014 at 04:17 AM
Sharona
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Seagate hard drive question


So what are examples of standard external drives? I need lightweight portability in Africa…. THanks


Oct 23, 2014 at 07:25 AM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Seagate hard drive question


pretty much the same items , but generally without any of the pre installed software .

I think seagate one is called Expansion . rather than Backup Plus . they are not massively cheaper but looking around over here (UK) the Expansion is £10 cheaper than the B Plus .

ther is also a backup plus version for the mac



Oct 23, 2014 at 08:46 AM
EB-1
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Seagate hard drive question


Sharona wrote:
So what are examples of standard external drives? I need lightweight portability in Africa…. THanks


The Seagate Backup Plus/Slim is about the lightest and smallest you will find. There are also various WD Passport drives, Toshiba Canvio, etc. You should use a mobile (2.5" form factor) drive that is USB bus powered as the AC power on safari is often unreliable. Your laptop is the UPS.

EBH

Edited on Oct 23, 2014 at 06:20 PM · View previous versions



Oct 23, 2014 at 05:34 PM
aboulenein
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Seagate hard drive question


As has been said, if you will only be using it on a Mac, then just erase using Disk Utility, and repartition to HFS+ Journaled, and you should be fine.

I've done that with many portable (and non-portable/desktop) external drives, without any issues and without the need for any drivers on my Macbook Pro (Late 13).



Oct 23, 2014 at 05:59 PM
Gochugogi
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Seagate hard drive question


I use both bare Seagate and externals on my Macs and no drivers are needed. Toss the the Seagate apps--they're crap--and use Disk Utility to format as "MAC OS Extended" (Journaled) as others have advised.


Oct 24, 2014 at 03:12 AM
justruss
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Seagate hard drive question


It takes roughly 30 seconds, and no additional software, to reformat it for the Mac, as others have mentioned. Use Disk Utility, erase drive and reformat for Mac OS Extended (Journaled). It will work forever more with any macs you encounter...

If you're a little more adept with computers/software, your options expand to using a rooted Android device, a file manager, an OTG cable and external drives (though some can be finicky, and some need a power supply)... or the same with with a jailbroken iOS device, a camera connector kit w/ USB (these can also be finicky), and external drives or thumbdrives (though the former may need a powered USB hub in the mix), and iFile from Cydia.

Or you can get those wireless drives, but they tend to be slow and finicky.

It's really a shame Apple is so locked down. It's a no brainer: one should be able to plug an iOS device, particularly a retina ipad/mini, into a powered USB hub and be able to use a full file manager to at minimum copy folders between two drives/pen drives as well as import RAW/JPG/Video into the iOS device... without jailbreaking. It's a damn near perfect use scenario for photographers who don't want to lug around a laptop for backup to external sources and don't want to carry around a dedicated backup vault alongside the iOS device they are already carrying. It's marginally easier on a rooted Android device, but Apple's otherwise integrated system would allow such a use case easy to implement and easy to run smoothly... and Apple could still play it's locked-down file system game by only allowing the file manager in question to access external drives freely (limit the file manager to only importing certain files to where Apple wants them to go on the iOS device, while allowing move/copy/delete on the external drives).

/rant over



Oct 24, 2014 at 03:30 AM
Sharona
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Seagate hard drive question


justruss: couldn't agree more about Apple. I love my Mac, and my iPhone, but the exclusivity at times is really frustrating. I'd LOVE to be able to take an iPad and external drive. That would be the perfect thing for me. And I don't even own an iPad, but I'd buy one for this trip if I could use it to transfer my images to the external drive. Apple can be a real pain.


Oct 24, 2014 at 09:06 AM
Gochugogi
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Seagate hard drive question


Back in the day the iPod (& I think early iPhones too) had an external disk mode: iPod icon visible on the desktop and I could drag 'n drop files between my iPod and Mac. Sadly it disappeared a few years back and I suppose you've supposed to use iCloud or dropbox now.


Oct 24, 2014 at 12:07 PM
DanBrown
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Seagate hard drive question


Gochugogi wrote:
Back in the day the iPod (& I think early iPhones too) had an external disk mode: iPod icon visible on the desktop and I could drag 'n drop files between my iPod and Mac. Sadly it disappeared a few years back and I suppose you've supposed to use iCloud or dropbox now.


You can still mount the iPhone, iPad, and iPod as a disk using iExplorer.



Oct 24, 2014 at 12:15 PM
Imagemaster
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Seagate hard drive question


2TB is a ridiculous amount for a trip to Africa, unless you have a lot of video.

Have you thought about just a few USB thumb drives? Or many just take a bunch of CF cards.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/USB-Flash-Drives/ci/5699/N/4294542386



Oct 24, 2014 at 02:55 PM
Paul Mo
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Seagate hard drive question


justruss wrote:
It's really a shame Apple is so locked down. It's a no brainer: one should be able to plug an iOS device, particularly a retina ipad/mini, into a powered USB hub and be able to use a full file manager to at minimum copy folders between two drives/pen drives as well as import RAW/JPG/Video into the iOS device... without jailbreaking. It's a damn near perfect use scenario for photographers who don't want to lug around a laptop for backup to external sources and don't want to carry around a dedicated backup vault alongside the iOS device they are already carrying.
...Show more

They are scumbags for not allowing expansion - you pay a lot for their devices.

So you go out to 3rd party...

http://www.amazon.com/HyperDrive-iUSBport2-Wireless-iPhone-Android/dp/B00HSWWNGM



Oct 24, 2014 at 09:41 PM
Sharona
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Seagate hard drive question


Hey Image master- I went with the 1TB version that is formatted for Mac. Don't think I trust those thumb drives for this purpose and they're too easy for me to lose. I can use the Seagate for other stuff when I return.


Oct 24, 2014 at 09:47 PM





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