Getting a MacBook Pro, but it only has 512mB of storage and cannot be upgraded. My plan was to use an external drive as the main drive but it does not need to be portable.

Would a SSD type drive that is driven of the USB-C power be OK?
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1388898-REG/lacie_stfr5000800_rugged_5tb_portable_hdd.html


Or would I be better off with a drive that will basically stay on my desk 99% of the time with it's own plug?
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1428660-REG/lacie_stha4000800_4tb_d2_usb_3_1.html

I vote own power supply.

Based on my own experience, the little portable laptop powered drives fail much faster.

Agreed on the self powered one/ And if its not going to leave your desk then get one of a decent size too, say like 2-4TB

saw em off said:

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I would go with a NAS. Synology is a good brand.

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I didn't think about that.

Would it be possible to set up an NAS that would talk to my current PC so I can upload all my photos/videos, then link in my new Mac and still read the drive?

Or even better, I've got two HDD on my PC (main + backup). Could I just throw the backup HDD into the NAS and now all my photos/videos are there and I don't have to transfer anything?

EDIT to add:

Right now, my photos and videos are taking up about 1TB of storage. However, since I'm making the switch, I'm going thru my HDD and deleting a bunch of stuff that I don't want/need. I used to take photos for all my kids' sports teams so I have 1,000's of photos and a few 100 videos to go thru (doing it a bit at a time) of other kids that I don't want to store any more. I just care about my kids photos. That should cut my photo and video numbers down significantly. I also have a lot of stuff stored on OneDrive, but prefer to have it local for quicker access, esp. the video.

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Would it be possible to set up an NAS that would talk to my current PC so I can upload all my photos/videos, then link in my new Mac and still read the drive?

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Yes

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Or even better, I've got two HDD on my PC (main + backup). Could I just throw the backup HDD into the NAS and now all my photos/videos are there and I don't have to transfer anything?

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If you do this all you would need is a drive "enclosure". A NAS would provide you more robust drive storage/backup and that expensive functionality would be wasted.

If you go with the NAS you could add multiple drives for a RAID array if you want some redundancy too

dubi said:

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Quote:

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Would it be possible to set up an NAS that would talk to my current PC so I can upload all my photos/videos, then link in my new Mac and still read the drive?

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Yes

Quote:

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Or even better, I've got two HDD on my PC (main + backup). Could I just throw the backup HDD into the NAS and now all my photos/videos are there and I don't have to transfer anything?

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If you do this all you would need is a drive "enclosure". A NAS would provide you more robust drive storage/backup and that expensive functionality would be wasted.

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I didn't think a Windows HDD would talk to Mac?

You're saying I can just plug my back up drive into an enclosure (I actually have one) and my new Mac would be able to read the files?

Also, what do you mean on the bolded part?

agracer said:

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dubi said:

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Quote:

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Would it be possible to set up an NAS that would talk to my current PC so I can upload all my photos/videos, then link in my new Mac and still read the drive?

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Yes

Quote:

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Or even better, I've got two HDD on my PC (main + backup). Could I just throw the backup HDD into the NAS and now all my photos/videos are there and I don't have to transfer anything?

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If you do this all you would need is a drive "enclosure". A NAS would provide you more robust drive storage/backup and that expensive functionality would be wasted.

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I didn't think a Windows HDD would talk to Mac?

You're saying I can just plug my back up drive into an enclosure (I actually have one) and my new Mac would be able to read the files?

Also, what do you mean on the bolded part?

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Any HDD can talk to a mac you will just have to format it in Apples proprietary file system unless it is formatted in ex-FAT or FAT

All I do is Nguyen said:

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agracer said:

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dubi said:

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Quote:

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Would it be possible to set up an NAS that would talk to my current PC so I can upload all my photos/videos, then link in my new Mac and still read the drive?

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Yes

Quote:

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Or even better, I've got two HDD on my PC (main + backup). Could I just throw the backup HDD into the NAS and now all my photos/videos are there and I don't have to transfer anything?

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If you do this all you would need is a drive "enclosure". A NAS would provide you more robust drive storage/backup and that expensive functionality would be wasted.

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I didn't think a Windows HDD would talk to Mac?

You're saying I can just plug my back up drive into an enclosure (I actually have one) and my new Mac would be able to read the files?

Also, what do you mean on the bolded part?

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Any HDD can talk to a mac you will just have to format it in Apples proprietary file system unless it is formatted in ex-FAT or FAT

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My current HDD is formatted, I think NTFS. I was asking if I could just plug that into a HDD enclosure and my new Mac could read the files on the drive.

Maybe I just need to use DropBox or OneDrive and select some files as local storage on the MacBook for quicker access. I don't need instant access to all of them

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and that expensive functionality would be wasted.

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Quote:

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Also, what do you mean on the bolded part?

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You can have a drive enclosure that would act just like a flash drive. Or you can have a NAS that, as a good rule, should be configured to to have redundancy (drive failure won't cause you to lose data). You are paying for the device AND the software to handle the multiple drives. So I am talking about multi drive backup.

agracer said:

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All I do is Nguyen said:

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agracer said:

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dubi said:

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Quote:

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Would it be possible to set up an NAS that would talk to my current PC so I can upload all my photos/videos, then link in my new Mac and still read the drive?

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Yes

Quote:

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Or even better, I've got two HDD on my PC (main + backup). Could I just throw the backup HDD into the NAS and now all my photos/videos are there and I don't have to transfer anything?

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If you do this all you would need is a drive "enclosure". A NAS would provide you more robust drive storage/backup and that expensive functionality would be wasted.

---

I didn't think a Windows HDD would talk to Mac?

You're saying I can just plug my back up drive into an enclosure (I actually have one) and my new Mac would be able to read the files?

Also, what do you mean on the bolded part?

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Any HDD can talk to a mac you will just have to format it in Apples proprietary file system unless it is formatted in ex-FAT or FAT

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My current HDD is formatted, I think NTFS. I was asking if I could just plug that into a HDD enclosure and my new Mac could read the files on the drive.

Maybe I just need to use DropBox or OneDrive and select some files as local storage on the MacBook for quicker access. I don't need instant access to all of them

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Whether the drive is in an enclosure or installed internally the file system would have to change. Macs cannot read NTFS as that is proprietary to Windows.

I am unsure if you move them to a cloud service if they would be able to be read. I think it could work? I haven't personally tried it tho

My macbook could read the dropbox files that were saved with a PC.

Cant test now since I no longer own a mac....

dubi said:

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My macbook could read the dropbox files that were saved with a PC.

Cant test now since I no longer own a mac....

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We use Dropbox at work with both PCs and Macs with mostly no issues. The only problem that occasionally arises is with files created on the Macs with special characters in the filenames (colons, commas, etc.) These files will be accessible on the other Macs no problem, but the files will not show up on the Windows computers. Just change the filename and it fixes the issue. Other that small little quirk, we don't have any problems

seems like I should just look at a cloud system and 'check box' the files I want to keep on the local HDD for faster access (like video files) and sync them to the cloud off hours to save time waiting for uploads/downloads.

I was just hoping to make it easier to transfer and access existing photos files. My internet connection is fast enough for streaming, etc (1GB connection). but the upload is painfully slow at times.

Also, OneDrive is not really a back up system. It's a cloud storage. I had synced the wrong folders at one time (just stuff I didn't care about or want to waste cloud space on) and when I unsync'd those folders, OneDrive deleted those folders in the cloud and the files on my HDD. Now WTF would they do that?

A friend suggest dropbox, but I already have a $49/yr sub for MS365 and I rather not spend more money on subscriptions if I can make better use of OneDrive and how it works..

Maybe check that the 2nd drive in your desktop is in a MAC format and map that drive for use on your laptop. I do that but with all PC's using an 8tb secondary drive on my desktop and access from all the laptops at our house. This lets you use everything you already own.

As an FYI, I am using backblaze to backup all the computers in our house.

I bought this baby for Time Machine backups. It's tiny and super fast.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJV2KBFV?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

With a NAS and something like Tailscale you can mount your NAS as a regular drive from anywhere.

It's really nice to be able to access your NAS like a regular mounted drive. I have a NAS I use for file storage and another for backups in addition to iDrive.

Tailscale is free for personal use

With Synology and most other NAS setups you can set up an NFS share. NFS is a good way to cross boundaries between different client OS's because it doesn't care what the filesystem on the disks are. You would just do a one time config on your Mac and Windows machines to mount the NFS share at startup.