I will be using this HD w/TimeMachine for my iMac (purchased 03-12), which uses USB 2.0. Is WD HD compatible or will it have to work harder to adapt?
508475
It may slow down your data retrieval info for a brief time , until it gets all of your data loaded..then, you will never notice it's operation...Awesome product..Also, it's totally "plug and play"...
508476
I got my iMac in December 2011, so I'm fairly sure it's also only running USB2, and I've had no problems running this drive. I can't imagine you should have any difficulty. Especially since it's such an easy drive to set up.
508477
It is compatible. My mac mini is USB 2.0 and it works fine right out of the box.
508478
It should work just fine. Totally backwards compatible. I partitioned mine, my wife and I share 3TB, 2.0 USB for both. Works great! Enjoy!
508479
My Mac is USB 2.0 as well and the WD HD is perfectly compatible, no problems encountered.
508480
The WD drive I bought was Firewire 400/800 -- faster than USB2 which is all my 2008 iMac handles, but slower than USB3. You will be more up to date for your next Mac if you buy the USB 3 drive, it just won't run at top speed on your current Mac. Time Machine will run fine, just take longer than Firewire. Expect your first back up to take quite a long time.
508481
I believe this drive is backwards compatible with USB 2. I have the same drives and had no trouble with using USB 2.
508482
You should have no problem. My mac has USB 2.0 and this drive supports USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 natively. The only difference you will see is the data transfer speed, and honestly, even with USB 2.0 interface, the data transfer is pretty fast.
1040838
I would say no since the latest drives I could find were for Power PC. It looks to be pretty dated drivers for the Mac.
580084
do you want to save the files to a Time-Machine? Yes, will work. do you want to use it as Time-Machine? Yes, will work. but I do not see the benefit in this. Better get a WD-2.5" Raid. This thing is super to ad two SSDs and have a really fast drive that has even a Raid1. The USB 3.0 Controller is really fast in this one.
1317646
I'm using two of these, one with a Toshiba drive the other with a Seagate drive, both using Firewire on an iMac. I have had no problems with either one.
2167744
I am using it to back up my entire HD with my MacBook Pro. I am not using it with Time Machine. Works fast and is excellent for my use.
861043
Yes, it will work with newer iMac as well as older type with 2.0 & 3.0 however super drive from apple seem to use more power. I've used panasonic DVD RW driver similar to super drive seem to work with USB hub.
1085105
I recently received the WD 3 TB FW800 external HD and it works great with Snow Leopard. I do not have Mountain Lion so I can't say for sure, but I believe that it would also work with it just as good as Snow Leopard - I don't see any reason why it wouldn't. Since I have FW800 port and not USB 3.0 - I love this drive and am very happy with it.
439940
It will work with any machine that supports removable USB storage. If you want universal compatibility across the board, I would recommend use of exFAT over FAT32 if you have 4GB+ filesizes on individual files.You think any of those "Formatted for Mac" drives are any different from their Windows counterparts? Absolutely NOT! They're simply overcharged for being formatted as HFS lol. Also by calling Windows "Windhoes," you tend to make others not want to take you seriously ;)
1256998
I talked about this in my review, actually, as my hd didn't come with the driver.. You have to install the driver in order for it to work on the mac unless you want time machine to reformat it for you (but then it won't work on a PC). There's also this link.. http://blog.nolar.info/ntfs-3g-in-mac-os-x-lion-10-7-with-read-write-support/ Hope that helps..
332442
I have USB 3.0 on my iMac, so I don't know if the drive will work with your computer.
514550
Sorry, I do not know anything about Macs. But, I would check your owners manual. The SATA connector should be the same, but the height of the drive could be an issue, it might not fit in your HDD slot. Good luck.
1507037
Drive won't mount. A new WD Caviar 1TB HD goes into a Mac G5 just fine, and accepts the SATA power cable, but has some trouble adjusting to the Mac's right-angle data cable. But even if I prop the drive up enough to accept the data cable, the drive doesn't show up on the desktop. Nor in System Profiler or Disk Utilities. haifischHaifischRH308887haifisch
477312
The first thing you have to do is to make sure that the drive is set to the format your MAC uses. It should work perfectly fine.
2026104
I use PC not MAC. You could use this hard drive, however, WD support for MAC is not the best. I would suggest Seagate, Hitachi, or Samsung as they provide better support. You may also need to download additional drivers no matter which Hard drive you choose. I also suggest you check our ZDNET's recent article on the Best Hard Drives.
1074762
Yes. Any standard flash drive is compatible with both. Incompatibilities are actually file system issues, which a format into the right file system will alleviate anyhow. For Mac, the correct FS is going to be HFS or HFS+, whereas Windows uses the NTFSfile system and both can make basic use of the FAT file system.If the Mac in question also has USB 3.0 ports, then you will see full speed. If it only has 2.0 ports, you will see speeds more comparable to older flash drives. Check with apple for specifications on your device.
2128284
According to both the online documentation and the documents that came with the drive, the answer is yes. I can also offer my own experience as I've been using these drives with both my older iMac w/USB 2.0 interface and my new iMac w/USB 3.0 interface and both work as expected. USB 2.0 speeds are MUCH slower than USB 3.0 speeds, so expect that your throughput will be lower than the max throughput indicated on the docs; plugged into a USB 2.0 slot, the drive will operate at USB 2.0 speeds. I hope that helps! Let me know if you have other questions.
1025183
Hi. The newest hardware version of the Seagate backup plus that I have is for USB 3.0. This version is only available in USB 3.0. Seagate sells an adapter separately that can support thunderbolt. I think that you then have to buy a thunderbolt to firewire 800 adapter then, finally, you would have to buy a firewire 800 cord as the adapter (made by Apple) is very short. The thunderbolt adapter for the Seagate Backup plus is 150 dollars and the adapter is 30 dollars so you are looking at a lot of money. Alternately, you could buy the previous generation of the Seagate backup plus. Search amazon.com for "Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB FireWire 800/USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive for Mac STCB3000100" and you will find it. Hope this helps. Patrick