External Hard Drives for DJ'ing and on the road
External Hard Drives for DJ'ing and on the road Posted on: 18.02.2013 by Eliz Saide Hey,Just wanting a bit of help regarding external hard drives. I am looking for a RELIABLE, STURDY and small enough portable hard drive that is both compatible with mac and windows. I currently have one which is 3tb but its too big, requires a power lead and for some reason does not show up on my friends computers (windows) but works fine on mine (MAC). I am aware that I had to change the format when I bought the hard drive so it showed up on mine but not sure why its not showing up on anyone elses and not going to reformat and lose all my data. I would like one that can function without a power lead for on the road use, but maybe has a power lead as well (for reliability). I am wondering what other on the road DJ's use and swear by when it comes to DJ'ing with an external hard drive on the road. There is so much variety out there that I do not want to waste my money on a mediocre one as this will be a very stable part of my DJ'ing and probably will require too. Looking one with as large as possible storage as well. Cheers M | |
| Eliz Saide 21.02.2013 |
Originally Posted by Ham
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Got more out of this thread than I hoped! |
| Cindie Somoza 19.02.2013 |
Originally Posted by manus
Originally Posted by manus
The sum of it all is basically, HFS+ (Mac OSX Extended) only works with Mac. NFTS is read/write on PC but only read on Mac, so you can't transfer from Mac to PC. FAT-32 works with PC and Mac, but is limited to file sizes of 4GB and if formatted on a PC can only have a partion of 32GB, but 2TB on Mac... but that 4GB file size is a buzz kill... and then their is exFAT, which is better as it doesn't have that 4GB limit OR any overall partion limit, however it only works on newer versions of Mac & PC operating systems, so it works on.... Windows XP SP3 Windows Vista SP1 Windows 7 Any Mac running Snow Leopard 10.6.5 (and newer) and Snow Lion 10.7 Heopfully that clears it ALL up. |
| Eliz Saide 19.02.2013 |
Originally Posted by djdunamis
The external HD I have is a Seagate 3tb. How would I change this so that both Mac and Windows could both read & write to it? I am aware that I will probably lose everything on the HD but its okay as its basically everything on my old (backup) Macbook and can easily be transfered over again. (I believe) |
| Eliz Saide 19.02.2013 |
Originally Posted by Ham
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| Eliz Saide 21.02.2013 |
Originally Posted by Ham
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Got more out of this thread than I hoped! |
| Tommy Thiner 19.02.2013 | I have a Lacie 1TB Thunderbolt and love it. I have not had any issues with it and the thing is a speed demon. Although I have all my music on it I still tend to gig with a flash drive for instances others have mentioned. If I was you I def. would invest in a high GB flash drive to take out gigging. |
| Cindie Somoza 19.02.2013 |
Originally Posted by manus
Originally Posted by manus
The sum of it all is basically, HFS+ (Mac OSX Extended) only works with Mac. NFTS is read/write on PC but only read on Mac, so you can't transfer from Mac to PC. FAT-32 works with PC and Mac, but is limited to file sizes of 4GB and if formatted on a PC can only have a partion of 32GB, but 2TB on Mac... but that 4GB file size is a buzz kill... and then their is exFAT, which is better as it doesn't have that 4GB limit OR any overall partion limit, however it only works on newer versions of Mac & PC operating systems, so it works on.... Windows XP SP3 Windows Vista SP1 Windows 7 Any Mac running Snow Leopard 10.6.5 (and newer) and Snow Lion 10.7 Heopfully that clears it ALL up. |
| Matt Kane 19.02.2013 | i bought my first wd-Passport 320gb 5 years ago and still using it. i never had any issues with it in live situations. |
| Ulysses Okelly 19.02.2013 | I have a sea gate 1tb dc powered hard drive, works well and haven't had it free or disconnect randomly, but still I would never use it out, just another thing to go wrong, especially when traktor shits its pants when you sneeze anyway |
| Doreen Schurle 19.02.2013 | FAT32 is for cross-platform support, although exFAT works too, and has less limitations than FAT32. |
| Eliz Saide 19.02.2013 | Cheers for this. I do not even have the HD with me at the moment as its at my mates but will look back at this as reference. If I convert it over to MS-DOS, will it delete whatever is on my HD then? As I mentioned before its no biggie just want a heads up so I know what to expect. Also sorry to sound like like I am repeating myself but... this will then enable it to be read on both Mac and Windows then? Cheers again. Your patience is appreciated! lol |
| Cindie Somoza 19.02.2013 | You've got a MacBook Pro, so it's as simple as Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility Then choose the Hard Drive (it has to be connected to the computer) and it's as simple as clicking the RAID tab and finding out what format it is/change the format. I had one of my HDDs as MS-DOS which is FAT and it wouldn't transfer single files larger than 4GB. |
| Eliz Saide 19.02.2013 |
Originally Posted by djdunamis
The external HD I have is a Seagate 3tb. How would I change this so that both Mac and Windows could both read & write to it? I am aware that I will probably lose everything on the HD but its okay as its basically everything on my old (backup) Macbook and can easily be transfered over again. (I believe) |
| Eliz Saide 19.02.2013 |
Originally Posted by Ham
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| Wallace Lawmaster 18.02.2013 | Lacie is very good esp for Mac. I would say I haven't had any of my WD drives fail me yet and I've had them for years. But then again, I bought internal drives and put them in cases as well. I'm assuming you formatted your drive Mac OS Extended. That case, only Mac will be able to read it. Just about the only way you can format to read on both Windows and Mac is NTFS. But with that, Win can read/write to it but Mac can only read off of it. Formatting FAT wouldn't be good for large drives and will be limited to few GBs transfer rate. Now if you can find one, a Seagate I have, had a utility to add NTFS to my Mac and format to it. |
| Cindie Somoza 18.02.2013 | I'll elaborate more on the 'proper' use of an SSD, or at least, how I use my SSDs. I have a 120GB SSD in my MacPro that I install all my programs onto, Ableton Live, etc.. I installed all the programs onto the SSD so they run optimally and faster. I then have a 1TB hard drive built into the MacPro and then a few external HDDs that I store all my stuff on. You can buy SSDs in MacBook Pro's as well now. By the sounds of things, all you want is a HDD, a few TB (so maybe just 2-3 Portable ones...the LaCie Mini you linked will get the job done, and could probably be found cheaper/second hand). |
| Eliz Saide 18.02.2013 | ahhh right i get you now. I believe I have seen them before. Very expensive, and a few hundred gb wont cut it I dont believe I wont have the money to buy multiple amounts of SSD HD's. I believe I might opt for the Lacie one for the meantime. Cheers again people for the help. Much appreciated |
| Doreen Schurle 18.02.2013 | SSDs are solid state; HDDs have spinning disks inside them. You can spot the difference because an SSD will be in the region of a few hundred gigs, a HDD will be 2-3TB in size. |
| Eliz Saide 18.02.2013 | I am sorry, maybe looking back on my original comment I made it out as if I was going to be using the hard drive to directly DJ off. That is not the case. The Hard drive is really only intended as a means of storing my music collection as back up and some files that are taking up room on my laptop and that I never really use. I do not intend to play from my hard drive. More of an, on the road back up and if needs be, be able to maybe play off it if all else fails (on another laptop, I have a back up). There is music that I want to put on the hard drive that I would not play at 90/99% of my gigs but I would like to have it on my HD just in case the moment arises. I mean I do not want to keep 60's 70's 80's etc. (Its not what I play) on my laptop because it takes up too much room and gets played once a year tops probably at a family event or party. I want this all off my laptop but I do not want to lose it completely and want to have it on me 'just in case'. I am aware how hard drives should not be relied upon for playing off as even my usb ports are messing about on my mac which I am not happy about at all considering its only 4/5 months old and bought brand new!!!. So this may be a stupid question but forgive me in advance. Are any of the Lacie external hard drives I was looking at SSD? I am not sure what SSD and HDD is |
| Doreen Schurle 18.02.2013 | I wouldn't risk a hard drive tbh. For a set, you're only going to need to play for what... 5-6 hours? If you're not taking requests and/or mainly playing commercial, with good song selection in advance you can get away with only having double, maybe triple that in terms of track time - that's only maybe 5gb at a high bitrate unless you're a lossless guy. With that in mind, you can pack a HELL of a lot of music onto an SSD, or even a handful of USB sticks. Either solution is sold-state and therefore practically immune to damage, which is what you want when you're working |
| Inez Marcinik 18.02.2013 | I'd just like to say, I would avoid using an external hard drive for gigging at all if possible. I don't know about any of you but in my experience they can cause all sorts of isssues in live situations. |
| Cindie Somoza 18.02.2013 | The regular is Thunderbolt, hence why it's more expensive. It has USB3 and Thunderbolt capabilities, the other one is just USB3. Thunderbolt is much, much quicker. If you're looking for over-all speed performance, HDD is not the way to go, even though SSD is still a bit expensive, give it a few years, probably half a year (at the rate technology moves) and it'll be cheap, it's more reliable and a lot, lot faster than HDD. I essentially run SSDs for production type stuff and then HDD for storage. |
| Eliz Saide 18.02.2013 | And I can not seem to get my head around why the bigger one of these is nearly $100 dearer than the other. To me the 'mini' one seems better as its smaller. Performance wise even the cheaper, smaller one seems faster or am I missing something here? Mini http://www.topbuy.com.au/tbcart/pc/L...ch_words=lacie Regular http://www.topbuy.com.au/tbcart/pc/1...ch_words=lacie |
| Eliz Saide 18.02.2013 | I was looking about and LaCie look like maybe the one I am swaying towards because of the sturdiness ( I read you can drive a 1 ton car over it and it still works!) Though I believe the highest they go is 1TB which is fine for me. I will probably end up buying two or else just keep all my other data on my other 3tb one. Basically I only really need the one for DJ'ing and would prefer another one for Music/ Movie Production but the production one would not be so much on the road but in the house all the time. |
| Cindie Somoza 18.02.2013 | Personal Experience: WD suck What I've read on the net': WD Suck *WD is Western Digital I have 4 WD drives, 2 portable and 2 wired. Both portable ones dont work anymore, had one for about 3 years and the other for about a year. Go SeaGate or LaCie, buy whatever size depending on what you need, I'm NOT sure that 3TB Portable drives are made yet, and if they are, they won't be that cheap. I don't put all my eggs in one basket and I also have back-up drives of everything I have. |
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