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Old 11-08-2009, 02:33 AM   #4
InvisibleSoul
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What would be better a external hdd or an enclosure
They are the same thing, except one of them you're buying pre-assembled, and the other one you put together yourself.

First, take the warranty into consideration. Sometimes if you buy an external hard drive, it only comes with a one year warranty, whereas if you buy an OEM hard drive, it'll come with at least a three year, and sometimes five year warranties.

Second, just look at the price. Often times you'll find that it's cheaper to buy a hard drive and enclosure separately than buying an retail external hard drive.

If you want the external hard drive to work with both a Mac and Windows, you have a few options.

The easiest way is to format the drive using FAT32. Obviously there are some drawbacks though, like 2GB maximum file size. You would need to do this on the Mac, as Windows will force you to format as NTFS.

Another option is to format is in Mac's HFS+ format. Windows can read the drive, but only after you have installed special software.

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