Replacing Old External Hard Drive for Mac OS 10.6.8

Yes, any external drive with the appropriate interface should be usable. The specification for a version of macOS almost always applies to the utility software the drive manufacturer includes with the drive, not the drive itself. Most external drives, unless they're sold specifically for a Mac, will be formatted in a Windows version which an older version of Mac OS X may to be able to read. You should be able to reformat any such disk using Disk Utility.

I've never used a Verbatim drive unless you mean a flash drive. If so, then they do tend to be unreliable. If it now won't work on a machine that it worked on before and you've tried it on other machines as well and it still fails, then it probably did fail. Flash drives are particularly sensitive to static shocks. Larger SSDs tend to be more reliable, though as with anything, the really cheap ones (relatively speaking) may use lower-grade components. Reliability vs spinning hard drives is a difficult thing to judge; there are so many variables involved.

As to self-powered drives vs one with a power supply, neither will be more reliable than the other just because of the power. Some self-powered drives won't work with some computers, though, due to the USB port not providing sufficient current.

Regards.

Regards.

As long as the drive supports the connections available on your computer then you can use it. If the drive can't be read with the current format when you get it, then you'll be able to format it with a format that will work with your computer. When it states the drive is compatible with the versions of MacOS that it states, it's just mentioning that the format that it's currently formatted with is going to be compatible with those and not necessarily with the format for older versions out of the box. You can however, format it to what you like to make it work with the version that you have. Again, you're going to want to make sure that the connections that the drive uses are available on the device that you are trying to connect it to.

Thanks for the report, good work my friend.:)

Can they be reformatted to run on OS 10.6 extended journaled?

Yes.

Are self powered desktop drives more reliable than portables?

Oh yes if good brand chosen.

Should I stick with an HDD or are SSDs just as reliable?

SSD is supposed to be more reliable, but I doubt your 2009 Mini would live long enough to see a good HDD die, an SSD will be much faster, even if USB2... FW800 would be twice as fast.

I recently purchased a Verbatim Store 'N' Go portable HDD drive because it said for Mac OS 10.4 and up. I saved some stuff from the old computer to the Verbatim hard drive, then plugged it in the new computer and transferred them. When I plugged the Verbatim drive back into the old computer again it said "disk unreadable by this computer" which is weird because it worked fine the first time I plugged it into the old computer. If I'm gonna have this problem every time I do that I will keep the hard drives seperate for each computer and use flash drives to transfer files. Or do you think it's because Verbatim portable drives are unreliable and it failed?

It is weird, I'd plug it in to the new one again & see if it has failed.

I have one of these on my 2012 Mini, Might not work with USB2...

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/ENVPMCA10/

Here's a great USB/FW800 case thatyou can put an SSD in if you want...

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB

• I have one of these on my 2012 Mini, Might not work with USB2...
• https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/ENVPMCA10/

I just checked, does not work on USB2, needs 896mA & USB2 only provides 500mA.:(

Great, do let us know my friend!:)