[MacDV] Storage

[Tim Selander]

Derek, we make a weekly TV program, and still use 800mhz G4 
Powerbooks running 10.2, attached to FW and USB2.0 disks, for 
offline editing. Work great, very stable - "If it ain't broke, 
don't fix it".

Patty, the disk will work. If it has FW, then you won't need to 
do anything but plug it in, and /maybe/ reformat it. If you're 
running 10.2 or earlier, your Mac likely does not have USB2.0 -- 
which you will definitely want if you have to use USB. USB1.0 is 
too slow for editing, and while you can still copy files over 
USB1.0, it will be painfully slow.

We found USB cardbus adapters to put USB2.0 into our Ti-books. 
Here's link to a long discussion about getting USB2.0 working on 
older Macs. Sounds like if you have 10.2.8, you will not need 
drivers...
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/299052.html

Can't remember what version of 10.2 we're running, and I'm at 
home at the moment. Our cards were generic cheapies I picked up 
here in Tokyo.

Derek is right in that older Macs could not use disks larger than 
128-130 Gigabytes. That was due to the IDE controllers, in the 
Mac itself, or the USB/FW to IDE bridge cards used in external 
drives. If the 1TB drive you looked at is external, then even old 
Macs will work with the disk. If the 1TB disk is an internal 
type, you might have to upgrade your IDE card (not possible on 
iMacs...). You should be able to Google your Mac model and see if 
it is limited to the smaller disks.

Hope that helps.

Tim Selander
Tokyo, Japan


Derek Roff wrote:
> --On Friday, February 19, 2010 12:00 PM -0800 Patty wrote:
> 
>> I was in Best Buy today and took a minute to look at some 1TB (and
>> larger) drives. Both the ones I looked at said they were for Mac
>> OS X v10.3 or later. Does that actually matter if all one wants to
>> do is hook it up and transfer files to it?
> 
> I hope no one working with video is still trying to use Mac OS 10.2 
> Jaguar or earlier.