Excuse the dumb technical question, I've never bought any sort of drive for my laptop (work-issued, MacBook, 2006, 300 GB 2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM 2 GHz Intel Core Duo). I need to get my personal stuff off of here, namely home videos that are taking up the majority of my storage.
When I look up external hard drives, there are some that say USB 2.0, others USB 3.0. Can I get either one & what is the difference? Will there be some drives that aren't compatible with my computer? If so, what specifically should I be looking for? And, any recommended sites to purchase from? Amazon?
Thank you!
We boughst a half terabyte back up drive from Amazon. You plug it into the USB port and the computer recognizes it and pops up a window that has many options. You choose "view files". Or if a window does not pop up you can go to "Start" then click "Computer" and then click on the external drive to open it. Here is the one we bought.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001UHWHO4/ref=oh_detail...
Given that your computer is a 2006, I would imagine you need to go with a 2.0. The number describes the speed (as others have said) and while you can always go lower, you can't always go higher. Sometimes it really doesn't matter and you can do either, but sometimes it does. So when in doubt, go with the "slower" just in case. Since you have a Mac, you might have some trouble. Do you also have a Mac at home? If so, it won't matter at all, because you just might have to format the drive (I don't have any RECENT experience with Macs, so this may be a non-issue now) and then it will be fine to use with any Mac. IF you're going to be trying to switch between a Mac and a PC, you might run into trouble. Again, I don't really know, it may be something they have since changed. I just know that it used to be that once you formatted a drive for a Mac, it wouldn't be recognized by the PC unless reformatted, losing all of the data. Looks like there is a way to do a dual format. Here's a link. http://osxdaily.com/2012/04/22/format-drive-mac-pc-compat...
Most external hard drives are really cheap now, so I would almost suggest getting a bigger one than what you need and you can use it as a back-up drive for your home computer. Where to buy, just about anywhere. If you want to do online, Amazon is a good place to start. Otherwise, you can look at Best Buy, Office Depot, or anywhere else that has computer products. Good luck!
They are the same same USB size it's the speed the 3.0 runs faster than the 2.0
Typically USB cable connections can be attached to any computer.
Nowadays, especially on newer computers, a "firewire" is used.
Here is info comparing the two:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/firewire3.htm
a USB or Firewire, has to do with the connectivity of the data transfer.
And the speed of the date transfer.
Just go to an Apple store, and tell them you want an external hard drive for your computer, and tell them the specs, of your computer.
Now, it depends on your computer, what type of USB it can take.
Some older computer models, cannot take a 3.0 USB.
And it does not have a slot for a 3.0
For example.
A 3.0 USB is supposed to be "faster" than a 2.0
There are USB cables, and USB flashdrives, and it also depends on what kind of USB port/slot you have on your computer.
