External HD for use with Time Machine

I have a new MacBook Pro with 320GB HD. I want to buy an external HD to use with Time Machine for a back up. HOw much capacity should I be looking at for the external? Is 500GB enough or is it possible to partition a 1TB unit for use as backup and extra storage (photos, music, etc...)?
Thanks.
This should have been posted in the late model forum. Sorry.

tsoup2u wrote:
Can I use disk utility to partition once plug in HD?
Yes, you can. Click the Partition tab. Click options and set the partition scheme to GUID. One option is to have one partition a bit smaller than your internal HDD, which you can use for a bootable clone (SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner).
See this post for a great discussion of backup strategies:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9423426&#9423426

Similar Messages

Advice - External HD for use with Time Machine?

Hi,
Just wanted to know what's best for me to buy. Looking into what's available has only made me more confused...
I want a HD that:
- Works well with Time Machine and my Macbook
- Will copy everything from my computer rather than drag-and-drop or manual file choice (although that's more the program I use than the HD itself, right; Time Machine does that as far as I know?)
- Enough space for all of my video files from my video camera (there's quite a lot of them)
I want to start deleting some video files from my computer and my video camera but I don't want to lose them, so that's the major use really. As long as they'll all fit and if I want one back on my computer again it'll be easy enough to find it and put it back on...
Any ideas? Keep in mind that I live in Perth, Western Australia...
(And I apologise for the ignorance/lack of proper techy terms!)

Hi Eleanor,
I'm from Sydney so it's great to see another Aussie on here! Welcome to the forum.
Just a couple of points that I would keep in mind in addition to the correct advice already given:
Apple recommends having a dedicated drive for Time Machine, so ideally you wouldn't use it for anything else. Also, as a guideline, they recommend having a Time Machine drive at least twice as large as the primary drive in your computer so that enough space is always available. The more space, the further back your backups will go before needing to be written over.
You can put other stuff on the drive but ideally it's better (if your budget allows) to get a second external drive for video camera files and the like. Those video files also grow pretty big as you've probably noticed, so they will need room to move as well. External drives are cheaper than ever, so two drives is the best bet.
One final recommendation/option is to go for a Time Capsule as your Time Machine drive. The benefit here is that it works wirelessly so you won't have to plug it into your USB/firewire port at all. It just backs up without any action from you whatsoever, which is what makes it ideal. If you don't yet have a WiFi network, here's your chance to dive in. If you do, it's a natural fit for your network.
So my ultimate recommendation is: 1) Time Capsule 2) USB/firewire drive.
I hope that helps!
Message was edited by: Michael271

Sharing External HD For Use With Time Machine

Hi,
I have a home network with an iMac and two MacBooks. I have bought an external HD in order to set up Time Machine. My hope is to leave the HD connected to the iMac and then to mount it via the network to the MacBooks so that Time Machine can back up to there.
Is there a simple way to do this ?
Steven

There's some advice on that in item #4 of this post. It does seem to be pretty simple. You'd need to use the Sharing panel of System Preferences to start sharing that disk. What part of the setup process do you expect to give you trouble?

Partitioning an External 320gb drive for use with Time Machine and...

I want to be able to use my Western Digital 320GB external drive for use with Time Machine and to use as extra storage space on both my Mac and when I boot into Windows Vista.
Is this possible?
I was playing around in Disk Utility and would I partition the part I want to use for Time Machine with the Mac OS Journaled, and whatever I want as space for windows, use a MS - DOS format?
Has anyone done this before?
Cheers-

Unless you are using 64 bit version of MSWindows (64 bit XP/Vista), it won't be able to handle a disk with GUID partition table (GPT). Disks with Apple Partition Map (APM) or GUID partition table are the only ones that Time Machine will work with (not MBR disks). Note also that the MBR/APM/GPT are at the DISK level and not the partition level, so don't mix the format with partitioning scheme. Time Machine disks are meant to live in the Mac universe (for now, anyway) and sharing with the MSWindows 32-bit universe is not possible.
See http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=macpcdiskdd06sv8.png for some additional background.

Partitioning an ext. HD for use with Time Machine HFS+/FAT32

Hi, I hope that this question is not already answered somewhere - I did a couple of searches but couldn't find the answers I need.
I'm setting up an external LaCie 500GB HD (USB 2.0) for a friend, in order to use it for Time Machine backups (one partition) and as a non-backuped "data dump" (music / films etc.).
My plan is the following: Partition the ext. HD into a 200 GB HFS+ Journaled partition for use with Time Machine, and a 300 GB FAT32 partition for data (FAT32 to ensure the interoperability with PCs).
I have a couple of questions (apart from if you think the proposed setup is good in general):
1. The Time Machine partition would be used to back up a MacBook with a 120GB HD - in your opinion, is 200GB too much/enough/too less space?
2. In general, does Time Machine work with partitions on ext. HDs as seen in the setup I propose? (or should I use a drive with only one partition?)
3. are there any possible problems I might run into when partitioning a drive into two different file systems as HFS+ and FAT32?
4. Is it OK to use the Leopard Disk Utility for this or should I use another application?
thanks a lot for your answers!

Hi,
Could you please share the answers you found?
I'm going through a very similar situation...
Thanks!
Beto.

Best hard drive for use with Time Machine

Hi,
Has anyone determined what the best external hard drive is for use with Time Machine? Is there a particular one that works exceptionally well with Time Machine, or is it much of a muchness?
I'm looking for a Firewire 400 & Firewire 800 drive that STAYS ON all the time, and doesn't automatically spin down or spin up like the rubbish WD My Book drives do.

I can't tell you if it is the "best" hard drive for you to use with TM, but I'm quite happy with the 500 GB Buffalo Technology DriveStation Combo TurboUSB I bought recently. It is quiet, quite inexpensive for the capacity (I paid about $120 for one on sale at Fry's), & completely compatible with OS X & TM.
Best of all for me, it automatically powers down when my iMac sleeps. It also spins down after a time if the Mac's Energy Saver preference "Put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" is checked; otherwise it remains spun up until the Mac is put to sleep or switched off.
It comes with "Turbo" USB & Memeo "AutoBackup" software, neither of which I installed. (The box didn't claim these extras came in a Mac version but both Mac & Windows versions were included on the CD.) Out-of-the-box, I reformatted the drive with the Apple Partition Map scheme & two partitions, a 160 GB one for cloning my internal drive & the rest for TM. The drive works perfectly for both uses & seems quite fast, as one would expect from a 7200 rpm SATA drive.

Quiet external hard drive for use with Time Machine?

Few questions related to Time Machine:
1- what external hard drive that would be good to use with Time Machine, that also runs relatively quietly? Since TM runs 24/7, am looking for one that is quieter than my current G-tech.
2- Please confirm what size is optimal relative to the size of the internal hard drive.
3- I currently use a separate external hard drive as my bootable disc. Is it possible/preferable to have these be on one and the same drive?
Thank you.

1. I like these (have three of them) - literally whisper quiet:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
2. You should allow 2 - 3 times your internal drive's size for TM.
3. No, it'd be best to be on another drive - you can create separate partitions, but if/when the drive fails, both of your backups would be gone. So, keep your clone on a separate disk. In fact, it's good to have two different backups.

What sort of external drive to use with Time Machine

Hi all,
I was wondering if there are requirements to the sort of external drive Time Machine can use: does it have to be a FireWire drive or will an USB drive suffice? Additionally, what would be the best type?
Wil Dieteren

Time machine will per default do incremental backups on an hourly, daily weekly and monthly basis. Therefore you need an external harddrive that is larger than the harddrive you are backing up. Depending on how many changes and large files you work with, the requirements for the right size may vary.
I'd suggest getting an external HD that is at least 150% of your HD. 200% would be more generous.
I just bought an Iomega MiniMax 500GB and it works great with Time Machine (my iMac's HD is 320GB).

Partitioning a disc already in use - for use with Time Machine

I just bought the upgrade to 10.5 Leopard, and I want to use my external disc (LaCie 500GB - a couple of months old) to back up using time-machine. The thing is, I've already been using it to backup manually, and to be sure, I want to keep that possibility.
But when I open TimeMachine, it says it will delete all contents and format my external disc if I want to use it as my TimeMachine-drive. Could I solve this by partitioning it using disc utilities so that, say 150GB's is for TimeMachine and the rest is for manual backup and temporary backup? Or will this delete the other contents I already have on the disc (about 200GB) that I want to keep there?

I had nothing but nightmares with my LaCie 500GB drive and Time Machine. I had it partitioned, and I could never go back to previous backups to restore a file. After finally reformatting the drive back to a singe partition, I got it to work. But then a month later the drive gave out and I almost lost 250GB or my media. DIskWarrior saved that catastrophe. I ended up getting the drive repaired. LaCie would not replace it, even though it was only 3 months old. Other people with LaCie drives have had issues with Time Machine also. I went back to using SuperDuper and doing scheduled backups with a new Beyond Micro drive I purchased. I don't trust this Lacie drive anymore for backups, especially it's partitioned.
-Bmer
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What size should external back-up drive be for use with Time Machine?

I am very new to Macs.
My iMac has a 500GB hard disc - not much on it yet.
I want to back the hard disc up daily and automatically to an external hard drive using Time Machine. So that I could restore everything if the iMac failed.
1. Does the external hard drive that I buy need to be larger than the iMac's hard disc, e.g 1Tb? Or is 500Gb enough in my case?
2. Should it be pre-formatted for Mac when I buy it? Or do I have to do this?
3. Should it use firewire or USB?
4. Presumably I need to leave the external drive plugged in all the time? Or will this stop the iMac from switching on and off?
I really want the easiest solution possible as I am not very techie and I want the minimum amount of fiddling with it. So I am confused between whether to choose a Western Digital My Book Office edition or Studio edition, 500Gb or 1TB, firewire or USB, or maybe a Lacie?
Would be grateful for advice.
Thanks very much.

Welcome to the Apple forums. If you have a 500G external disk, that will work fine for quite a while with hourly, daily and weekly backups, but sooner or later it will fill up, but then it begins to delete weekly backups. The same will happen with whichever size of external disk you buy: sooner or later. . . . Nonetheless, that disk will be fine for most purposes. I have 250G and use a 200G partition for my MacBook Pro and while that was fine, it tends to delete weekly backups so I have about 6 months of backups stored. (I also make other backups of all data).
It may be preformatted, but that is unlikely. Use Disk Utility (in Applications>Utilities) and use MacOS Extended, which is selected in the Partition tab (you do this even if you only use a single partition).
The system works with either Firewire or USB 2..
You do not need to leave it in all the time. If it is connected, it will make the backups, if not, nothing will happen and it will indicate that the next backup will occur when the disk is attached. To disconnect, you would highlight the disk in a Finder panel and press the Eject icon (not while TM is running of course) then disconnect the cable.
I am not able to suggest which disk is best, although my LaCie one has not missed a beat. Others may have a different idea. Try a Google search with the disk manufacturer's name and "problems" or somesuch. No disk is perfect of course.

Any Recommendations for External HD to use with Time Machine?

Have been using Time Capsule wireless as my drive for Time Machine back-ups for a couple of years with mixed success. It also serves as a wireless router for internet service between all devices in my household.
Was recently recommended to me to invest in an external firewired hard drive to use for Time Machine so now I'm presented with a dilemma: Which one to choose?
Need 3 Terabytes and I'm looking at the Iomega Mac Companion (3TB) but see that Apple has discontinued selling it from its store and there's an issue with using USB and FW simultaneously.
Looking for feedback from anyone whose used this device and/or recommendations on another 3TB drive to purchase.
Thanks in advance.

From that broad page The hatter suggested, these specific enclosures (with or without a drive pre-installed) are pretty good.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
The one at the bottom that says 0GB is the same enclosure empty, so that you can pick a separate drive mechanism to install in it. That way you can order the exact drive you want, instead of having them choose from what they have on hand.
Wireheads will choose the 0GB and install the drive they prefer, most "regular" folks just buy it with a drive already installed and it works (after initializing) right out of the box, no assembly required.

Does it create a problem if I only connect the backup external drive every few days for use with Time Machine? Should I have purchased Time Capsule instead?

After a near miss with my 4-year old MacBook, I finally wised up and purchased a WD My Passport for Mac to back up my hard drive. I connected the Passport today and have performed the first full backup. However, I do not wish to keep it permanently connected to the laptop. Does this create a problem if I only connect the drive every few days? Should I have purchased Time Capsule instead?

Hello,
I don't think it'll cause a problem, but I'd disable/turn off Time Machine before disconnecting, then turn it back on after you connect it again.

Format a networked USB drive for use with Time Machine?

I have a spare partition on an external USB drive that is attached to a Windows box on my network. Can I format this networked partition with my Mac to act as a volume for Time Machine and will TM work with the new HFS+ partition through the Windows box it is connected to? I can temporarily attach the drive to the Mac if that will help (I guess it would) but will need to return the drive to the Windows machine it normally lives with.

Gottalight wrote:
I have a spare partition on an external USB drive that is attached to a Windows box on my network. Can I format this networked partition with my Mac to act as a volume for Time Machine and will TM work with the new HFS+ partition through the Windows box it is connected to? I can temporarily attach the drive to the Mac if that will help (I guess it would) but will need to return the drive to the Windows machine it normally lives with.
There are some unsupported techniques to do this. They all use the terminal to "hack" the system and you are on your own in doing so.
Since this is beyond the limits of this forum, I suggest searching the net (as I just did) for how to do this.

What are the best storage devices for use with Time Machine?

My backup and storage requirements are minimal but still important to me. What storage devices do my Apple using Compatriots find the best for data storage. I do think that the Time Machine is a more than adequate program for my needs but would be happy to hear any other suggestions. All input will be appreciated.

It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Yes:
Buy two external drives. Use one for Time Machine. Be sure this drive is at least twice the capacity of your computer's hard drive. Use the second drive as a bootable clone of your computer's hard drive. Should something happen you can immediately get the computer up and running from the clone until your restore from the Time Machine backup. This is what is called redundancy. Should either backup drive fail, there's another to take its place. Backup redundancy is very important. You can never have too many backups.

HT2477 what is the best external drive to use with time machine?

I already have an external hard drive that I use to backup anything I want to then delete from my macbook air. I also use Carbonite to back up everything on my mac. I am looking to switch to Carbonite to Time Machine because it's free. Can you recommend a drive? How do most people use TM? Do you manually back up once a day or do you set it to constantly back up your files?
Thanks,
Jan

I back up every day, I also have 2 back up drives, which you should also have, if your data is imporant to you.
A Time Machine back up, and a clone (which is bootable)
I use a OWC Elite,and a IOmega.
Use Time Machine on OWC:
ttp://eshop.macsales.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=adwords& gclid=COCM8O3uuLsCFSUOOgodVBEAOwuuLsCFSUOOgodVBEAOw
IOMEGA:
http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=iomega+portable+hard+drives&tag=googhy dr-20&index=electronics&hvadid=3927029335&hvpos=1t2&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2132 262008473015365&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_2k8gsvyzks_b
These are but a few that are available for affordable prices, I have had very good performance from both, there is going to be many other opinions, and all are valid, I just sat stay away from WD as they have been problematic.
Do a web search you will find tons of drives, at different prices, and capacities, choose one or better still two and back uo to 3 different systems.
I use Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner:
http://www.bombich.com/
Also check into SuperDuper:
http://download.cnet.com/SuperDuper/3000-2242_4-46651.html
Hope this helps

External HD for use with Time Machine

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