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There's someone I know whose 'tude I can't stand
It seems like she's buried her head in the sand
Her brain's on the moon,
Or maybe in deep outer space
Whenever she says it, I make a weird face:
"Why should I vote?"
Well, it makes me upset
Because voting is a privilege we've worked so hard to get.

--Adapted from Shel Silverstein

REMINDER: Don't post on LJ on Friday, March 21st!

Get what you need, need what you get

Well, it's my last evening in San Francisco, and I feel semi-accomplished. I went to the flasgship (?) Apple Store in downtown San Francisco today, intending to buy a new hard drive for use with Time Machine. I do have Apple's Backup program, but for making a "bootable clone" or something similar of my hard drive, I would need to spend far too much time specifying exactly what "folders" I want copied and to where. I've used Retrospect Express before (which comes with a number of portable hard drives), and I didn't like it-- too clunky and complicated.

Thus, my requirements for a new portable hard drive:
The Duh
* Compatible with Mac OS X 10.5.2
* USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 at the minimum

The Good
* FireWire 800
* Slim and lightweight
* Quiet
* At least 160 GB, which is enough to make a single copy of my entire HD (which is not filled to capacity, mind you) and still have some wiggle room

If only...
* Solid-state format of the HDD
* Less than $200

I'd been leaning toward the Iomega UltraMax 500 GB, which is pretty huge and pretty cheap for the size. One model even comes with FireWire 800, but reviews I've read say it craps out after a few uses, and I don't want to have to deal with that stress. I'd rather put up with something ugly that doesn't break.

The question is, should I be looking at more-expensive, larger-capacity drives, as "preparation" for the future? Or should I just stick with what I need, which is basically something to backup all my important stuff (music, photos, applications, websites, documents) quickly and easily, in case my HD needs to get reformatted?

All this pretty much came into play when I tried to play a CD (brand new), found out my Super Drive just may be crapping out on me but it's covered under warranty, which means I can send it away to get "fixed." If I do that, it'll be an agonizing X amount of time without my laptop, but it's worth it to get a better-working Super Drive. The Apple warranty explanation page says, "expect to get your HD reformatted." As if that's logical for every repair... -_- Well, I'd rather not take the chance of them doing that, as some users have said they did for a supposedly simple Super Drive replacement.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Remember: The ONE DAY CONTENT STRIKE is tomorrow. Don't post on LiveJournal. Don't comment. Don't fill out polls. Read if you must, but don't do anything else. Let them know that their removal of Basic accounts was a BAD IDEA!

I'm posting now to get my last-ditch LJ posts in. :P