hard drives - more info

more info and some links to specific hard drives i'd recommend. things to look for:

- "bus-powered" - this means the drive is physically small enough to get its power from the firewire or USB connection to the computer, and does not need an additional power cable. this is very handy for a drive you'll be carting around nearly every day!

- "firewire" or "1394" vs. "USB" - this is the type of connection to the computer. firewire, AKA 1394, is much faster than USB. the imacs in the lab have both kinds of connections. the speed of firewire is useful for copying over large files. most of the stuff we'll do with Flash will be small, but the images and video you may use for "raw material" won't be!

- whatever drive you get, think ahead about what computer(s) you'll be using it with. if you need it to work with a PC as well as with the macs in our lab, you'll need to format the drive as a PC drive. let me know if you need help with this step.

here is a proven bus-powered firewire drive (lacie 100GB drive)
same drive, different vendor
USB-only version of the same drive

and just to give you an idea of how $ works with hard drives regarding size and portability, here is a non-bus powered hard drive (requires power cord). it holds over twice the data, a bit heavier, but costs less.