I need recommendations in purchasing an external hard drive, to back up everything in my computer. What brand and Size?

I have a mid 2010 iMac, version 10.8.2, memory 4GB, 1TB sata disk.
Apple sent me an e-mail last year stating that my imac maybe affected to a recall. They said I have to back up my computer before sending it in to them. So its a great excuse to purchase an external hard drive.
But I am clueless. I would like to know what brand and size of memory is recommened for my imac and my needs. I will be mostly be backing up homevideos and alot of pictures, music, and some documents.
If someone could also explain about time machine? I guess its a whole separte thing from your media. I also would like to keep it affordable. I just purchased an external hard drive from www.macmall.com Seagate Backup Plus 1TB USB 3.0 Portable Drive - Black (STBU1000100).
But I don't know if that was a really great choice because for it to work with time machine I have to reformat certain things, and Im not sure if I would like to have that hassle.
I also wanted to know whats the difference between usb 3.0 and firewire. I read some forums saying that if you are to transfer videos you need to use firewire, and some agreed disagreed. Is that true?
Please help!?
I definitely would like to know what brands of external hard drives are highly recommended and good at price. The one I purchased is it any good?
Thank you!
-wjrlelidepaula

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10554
http://www.newertech.com/storage/

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I have a macbook air late 2010 and keep getting a warning that my hard drive is full and to delete things so I purchased a external hard drive (1TB) but I'm just not sure what the correct way to transfer and store files to the external drive is. First MAC

I purchased a macbook air about 5 months ago and lately i keep recieving a warning that the hard drive or disk is full and that I will need to move items to trash in order to free up space on it. I purchased a external hard drive 1 TB but I'm very new to mac and ios and unsure as to how I'm suppose to transfer my files (video, pics, music etc.) from my mac over to the external hard drive in the correct way so I won't end up deleting them permenately or screwing anything up with my mac as far as the applications and programs being able to run. Am I supposed to just copy to the external hard drive and then move to and empty the trash? That's pretty much all I could come up with, but then what if i need or want to access that file again at a later time. Also, I have an i Phone and i pad so with i cloud it automatically syncs all my purcheses and if i delete something from itunes on my mac it deletes from my ipad.
I'd appreciate any kind of input i think im just a little lost here. I have to say i love my Mac and wouldn't trade it for anything (except maybe a macbook pro w/more memory)... Is there something I'm missing???

To free up hard drive space the best bet is to move data files that you don't need access to all the time. Likely candidates are music, video, and photos. Things like word processing and spreadsheet files can also be moved but they tend not to be very large and so don't free up much space. The problem with moving the above mentioned files is that iTunes and iPhoto need to know where the files are stored.
Here's an article explaining how to move the iTunes folder. You can move the iPhoto library using the Finder but there is a slight complication. Start iPhoto, open the Preferences and click on the Advanced tab. The first option is "Copy items to the iPhoto Library". If this option is checked, copy the iPhoto library to your external folder (drag it from the Pictures folder to your external drive) and then delete it from your Picture folder. If this option is not checked, it is a bit more complicated and we'll need to talk a bit.

I recently purchased an external hard drive to back up my iMovies. When I try to open the movies on the backup I get a message "you may not have permission to modify that folder" How do I change permissions on the backup?

I recently purchased an external hard drive to back up my iMovies. When I try to open the movies on the backup I get a message "you may not have permission to modify that folder" How do I change permissions on the backup?

Hi
One Must NEVER move or alter any folders named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Projects - or - alike
on DESKTOP/FINDER - Ever ! - ONLY Within the iMovie Program ! else all connections are broken and hard to impossibly to mend !
but rather do as described here under
Moving Event's and Project's
Connection - Either connect one Mac in Target mode to the other via FireWire. Or use an external hard disk !
(Target-Mode - Start one Mac e.g. laptop - BUT keep T-key down during full up-start - Now a FW-symbol is jumping around the screen and it will work as an external hard disk when connected to the other Mac)
A. The External Hard Disk - MUST BE - Mac OS Extended (hfs) formatted to work for Video. UNIX/DOS/FAT32/Mac OS Exchange works for most other things but not for Video whatever program is used (iMovie or FinalCut)
B. Should be a FireWire one as USB/USB2 performs badly to me and especially when filling up
C. Do never Move or Alter any folder named
• iMovie Event's - or -
• iMovie Project's
on DeskTop/Finder - as this will result in iMovie losing connections to them and repair can be anything from hard to impossibly
D. Moving and Copying must be done within iMovie application and Events to Events - and - Project's to Project's.
E. Moving Project's to Event's - Do not work for me - I have to export project as a QuickTime movie then Import this into Events.
Event's window can show two faces
Like this
or like this
from one hard disk Event - You can move it to the other hard disk
You can not (at least not me) move Event to Project or other way around only
Event to Event and Project to Project
Yours Bengt W

Need advice on purchasing an external hard drive

Greetings, oh wise Apple users. It has been suggested that I purchase an external hard drive to store my iDVD projects on. Can anyone give me a checklist of what to look for? My Mac is a G4 flat panel with 800 MHz and 512 MB. I'm currently using OS X (10.2.8) but am upgrading to 10.4 soon. Many thanks in advance for your help.

Firewire and an 'Oxford' chipset are a must for Macs with USB1.1 like yours. Here's some examples:http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
Personally I'd go for one with a built in USB and Firewire hub as I'm always running out of ports (like the mini stack V2).
If you think an new Intel iMac or MacBook Pro could feature in your computer line up in the next year so, go for one with FW800.
mrtotes

Do I need a 250 gig external hard drive to back up my 250 gig computer?

Hi,
I was wondering If I need as big of a external hard drive as my computer to back it up. Can I chose to back up everything but applications? I also Have my itunes and iPhoto library mapped on and external hard drive. Can I Back those up too? One more thing. Can I store stuff on the same hard drive that backs my computer up if it has enough room?
Thank you,
Caleb

{quote:}You have to remember that fundamentally thats all TM really is, a backup utility.{quote}
Please don't be like someone we both know very well and telling me what I HAVE TO remember and what I DO NOT have to use etc.
Going back in the past is a feature, it's even more than a feature, it's almost the main reason to use TM imo, as otherwise there already are some other backup utilities available that work very well.
It's very fine by me how you use TM, so that you don't need a huge HD (or several) because you care only of the current state of your files.
But please, do not begin a kind of campaign that may lead Mac users in general, to more and more neglect the time part of TM, using only the backup part, until Developers more or less begin to stop developing this part as "commonly useless".
Time Machine is MORE than just another backup utility.
Please do not influence in a sense where it would become less than what it is.
Enhancements ideas already:
We need it to be able to split its folder (automatically or manually), so we can assign it several separate drives where it manages to room its thing.
Because HDs are eventually going to die, backing up on several drives (not one huge one) is a better way, but TM must be able to recover even if one of the drives is missing.
See, this kind of evolution concerning time aspects, that may be neglected if we begin to set everyone's mind to the "just another backup tool" mode?

Need advice on purchasing an external hard drive for video editing

Hi,
I looking for advice on which external hard drive to get. The main purpose for the hard drive will be storing video files on for use with Final Cut Pro. I have the 12 inch powerbook G4 so I plan to use the FireWire (400) port to connect the drive. I'm interested in getting comment from others who use their external hard drives for video editing.
Thanks!

Firstly your decision to use FireWire is a good one, as not only will it free up the USB it performs much better on sustained transfers.
That said you're still limited by the FireWire interface, so opt for a drive with a big cache (16MB would be good) and fast spindle speed (7200rpm+).
Some of the newer enclosures are compatible with SATA drives. While these are easier to install and theoretically will perform better, I'm not sure that the performance would justify the extra cost.
Matt

Hello, can I use an external hard drive to back up Iphone without using computer?

I am trying to back up my husbands iphone directly to an external hard drive. Is this possible?

Or were you thinking of something more like this? http://iomega.com/about/prreleases/2011/20110104-superhero-iphone-backup.html
If he's running iOS 5 or higher, he can backup to iCloud.

I need to back up my imac running Tiger (no time machine) so that we can upgrade OS. It is set up for multiple accounts. How do I capture all files in each account using newly purchased USB external hard drive?

I need to back up my imac running Tiger (no time machine) so that we can upgrade OS. It is set up for multiple accounts. How do I capture all files in each account using newly purchased USB external hard drive? Thanks!

Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
Or you can simply use the Restore option of Disk Utility to clone the drive to the backup:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
Select the destination volume from the left side list.
Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
Check the box labeled Erase destination.
Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.

My macbook pro's memory is full and I purchased an external hard drive. I am using timemachine, but need to earse/free up some memory on my laptop. How do I do this?

My macbook pro's memory is full and I purchased an external hard drive. I am using timemachine, but need to earse/free up some memory on my laptop. How do I do this?

Christinag1317 wrote:
My macbook pro's memory is full and I purchased an external hard drive. I am using timemachine, but need to earse/free up some memory on my laptop. How do I do this?
Ok when you refer to "memory" that is the Random Access Memory which is temporary memory the processor (worker) uses to store stuff while it's using it. Power goes off whats in the memory is gone.
Your storage drive is where data is pernamnetly stored if the power is on/off.
So what you really mean to say is your storage drive is filled up and you need to make some room.
You have a TimeMachine drive, what this does is makes a image of your internal storage drive as a backup method, it also allows some "back in time" restoration of your previous deleted files depending how much space is on that drive. The more space, the less data you have, the more days you can go back in time to retrieve something.
Unfortunatly the TimeMachine drive is not a extra space storage drive, it automatically rotates what appears on your internal storage drive. So if you delete something from the internal drive, it eventually gets deleted from the TimeMachine drive.
So you need to make some more room on your internal drive, this is rather easy, all you need is ANOTHER external drive and connect it to the Mac. Give it a name like ExtraStorage#1 and thenyou will have to decide which of your User files you really don't need on the internal drive.
For instance the best choice would be to move some movies out of your Movies folder to another MoviesExtra folder on the ExtraStorage#1 drive.
Movies take a LOT of drive space and you can always copy them on or off, or watch them from the ExtraStorage#1 drive as well. But if your going to do this a lot, you should consider getting a Firewire 800/400, USB 3,2,1 combination drive as Firewire 800 is fastest and decently priced (Thunderbolt is very high priced and overkill at this time)
The other things like Documents are quite small, Pictures can take a lot of space if you have a lot, but if you need them on the internal drive then that's better. Music one tends to use a lot or manage playlists and such, but perhaps some music you may which to move off or "prune", I suggest always burning data DVD's of music especially for extra backups.
Once you have freed some room on the internal drive, this liitle neat program will show you what is taking the largest amount of space on your internal drive.
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/
After a scan, right click on the big squares to "revel in Finder" to show you what's taking the largest amount of space, be warned it also opens up hidden system files and folders, which you won't be able to move. So concentrate on what's inthe Users folder.
Likely if you have a lot of Movies this is the biggest culprit on most standard internal hard drives. Also if you have something in iTunes that's auto-downloading something like PodCasts and not deleting the older ones and you forget. So go there and fix things and that can free up drive space.
If you bought a small SSD with your new Mac, then the price of that SSD has come back to haunt you with low storage space, you will have to think carefully what you can live without on the internal drive.
Once you have slimmed things down, TimeMachine will update to reflect your slimmer internal drive. What this means is there is only one copy of your data on the ExtraStorage#1 drive.
You need to maintain two copies of your data at all times on seperate hardware, so now you need ANOTHER storage drive (ExtraStorage#2) to copy everythinng of ExtraStorage#1, or else if you drop or have a mechanical problem with ES#1 all that data will be gone!
If you wish to learn more then I suggest reading these two links
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16276201#16276201
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

Do I need external hard drive to back up my iMac before update to mountain lion? My is OS 10.6.8

Do I need external hard drive to back up my iMac before update to mountain lion? My is OS 10.6.8.

First, repair your hard drive and permissions:
Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your Snow Leopard Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer.
If DU reports errors it cannot fix, then you will need Disk Warrior and/or Tech Tool Pro to repair the drive. If you don't have either of them or if neither of them can fix the drive, then you will need to reformat the drive and reinstall OS X.
Second, make a bootable backup to an external drive using the Restore option of Disk Utility:
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility in the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag
       it to the Destination entry field.
5. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to
      the Source entry field.
6. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Third, purchase and download Mountain Lion from the App Store. Be sure you meet the requirements for Mountain Lion:
Upgrading to Mountain Lion
To upgrade to Mountain Lion you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or Lion installed. Purchase and download Mountain Lion from the App Store. Sign in using your Apple ID. Mountain Lion is $19.99 plus tax. The file is quite large, over 4 GBs, so allow some time to download. It would be preferable to use Ethernet because it is nearly four times faster than wireless.
     OS X Mountain Lion - System Requirements
       Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion
         1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 7,1 or later
         2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 5,1 or later
         3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
         4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 2,1 or later
         5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
         6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
         7. Xserve (Early 2009) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
To find the model identifier open System Profiler in the Utilities folder. It's displayed in the panel on the right.
     Are my applications compatible?
         See App Compatibility Table - RoaringApps.
     For a complete How-To introduction from Apple see Upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion.

Need backup software for Seagate external hard drive

I need a little handholding here. I have an iBook G4 running 10.4.10. My husband bought me a Seagate external hard drive to use to back up the hard drive on my iBook. The only problem is that I don't think the external hard drive came with any software. I'm looking for something that I can set once that will automatically back up my hard drive periodically. Does such a thing exist?
Thanks for any advice you can provide.

Hi there-
Most good backup software allows you to schedule backups. I've tried a number of programs and the two best I've found are SuperDuper and Synk.
Both are very user-friendly--good for simple folks like me.
http://www.decimus.net/
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
SuperDuper is my favorite because it easily allows you to "clone" your hard drive, giving you a bootable backup in case the worst happens to your computer and you need to restore everything. It's MUCH faster than reinstalling everything. You need to make sure your external hard drive is capable of being booted from, however.
Synk is also very user friendly and you can try it for 30 days for free. I would highly recommend either of these.
Hope this helps.

Purchasing an external hard drive

Hey, I am looking into purchasing an external hard drive (preferably aone thats firewire 800 capable). I've looked into mainly the maxtor one touch II and the Lacie d2. The lacies seem to be getting relatively bad reviews with a lot of them saying that they crash after a little while. The maxtors (firewire 800 edition) seem not to break down as much but they are a bit more expensive. I wanted to wee if i could get advice from anybody who is more educated on the reliability of certain hard drive companies. I dont mind to spend a little more money if i know it will be worth it because I really do not wnat to end up with a faulty hard drive that will just break down after having it for only a year or so. Please let me know which of the two is worth it to buy, or if there are any other brands that are recommended. Thanks so much!

As far as internal drives go I have been impressed with Samsung Spinpoints, they seem to run quite cool and from the experience I have had are pretty speedy as well. Plus they seem quite quiet, which is always a good thing. Go for 7200rpm drives with an 8Mb cache.
As for FireWire and USB adaters I know Wiebetech make some good ones, take a look here:
http://www.wiebetech.com/products/superdrivedockplus.php
http://www.wiebetech.com/products/ComboDock.php
Otherwise try googling "FireWire Hard Drive Enclosures" and see what you come up with.
Phil

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

You'll get better performance if you use a Firewire hard drive (especially if you buy a 7200 RPM drive). Firewire's IO speed is significantly faster than USB 2. USB 2 has a theoretical max speed of 480 Mbps except that it has extremely high over-head. The fastest speeds you can typically get are about 300 Mbps. Firewire, on the other hand, has very little overhead. The fastest speeds you can get are very nearly 800 Mbps. You will typically be constrained by the maximum read/write speed of the drive, not the speed of the I/O on the Firewire bus. Now if you had one of those nice shiny new Macs with the Thunderbolt I/O and a Thunderbolt drive (Light Peak) ... I think they alter space and time so that your data arrives before you know you want it.
Also... unless you want to buy a solid state drive (very expensive), try to keep your hard drives from becoming much more than about 60% full if you want great performance. A nearly "full" hard drive is, on average, only about half as fast as the same hard drive when nearly empty.
USB 2 will work perfectly fine... just not as fast.
Also... it's much safer to move the entire Aperture library than to "relocate masters". Your images must be managed. You can Aperture manage them, or you can manage them. But someone has to manage them. If you "relocate" them so that they are no longer stored inside the Aperture library then you'll need to work out a system of how you decide to organize things and it's critically important that you don't start moving files around or deleting things without Aperture's knowledge. If you do, you'll break the links to your masters and start having problems with missing masters. If you have Aperture manage the library then you don't need to worry about any of that stuff.... it's safer.
Do make backups (use the Aperture Vault or use some other backup program, but make sure you back up your work if you care about it.) There are only two kinds of hard drives in the world: (1) those that have failed and (2) those that are going to fail. There are no exceptions to this rule. Hard drives are cheap. Backup software is built into Aperture and into your Mac.

I need to move the iTunes library to an External Hard Drive to free up space on iMac. Need suggestions on type of External Hard Drive to use. A Multimedia Hard Drive like LaCie LaCinema Classic HD Multimedia Hard Drive OR a Large Desktop Hard Drive?

I need to move an iTunes library to an External Hard Drive to free up space on iMac. I Need suggestions on type of External Hard Drive to use. Should you use a Multimedia Hard Drive like LaCie LaCinema Classic HD Multimedia Hard Drive OR a standard Large Desktop Hard Drive like Western Digital/Seagate/LaCie?

There is no benefit to the multi-media feature on the first drive you mentioned. If you are going to look at differences between certain drives, I'd look at the differences in reliability first.

Setting up an external hard drive to back up my MacBook Pro?

I am currently using a 320GB Western Digital external hard drive to back up my MacBook Pro using Time Machine, soon however I am going to be putting Windows 7 onto my machine so I am trying to figure out how I am going to back up the Mac OS X and the Windows partition at the same time using this hard drive. I am thinking about completetly erasing the drive and putting 2 partitions on it in 2 different formats (one for Mac OS X and one for Windows). I am also thinking of using Carbon Copy Cloner instead of Time Machine because it creates bootable backups. However, now that I am thinking about using Carbon Copy Cloner I am wondering if FAT32 will work for both partitions? (I have been using Mac OS X extended (journaled) only because it works with Time machine). I need help though because I would not know how to go about completely erasing/resetting the drive etc.. then partitioning it and formatting it. I am also wondering if there is a windows equivalent of CCC or Super Duper to back up the Windows partition. Thanks for your help in advance.

I'm inferring from the way you wrote about using Windows that you plan on using it through Boot Camp. Have you considered using VMware Fusion (or Parallels) instead? Then Time Machine would back up the virtual machine along with everything else. You also have the advantage that you can use both Mac OS and Windows at the same time - you don't have to choose one or the other. There are two disadvantages. First, since both Mac OS and Windows are running simultaneously, you need more memory. I'd recommend no less than 8 GB if you run any serious software on either OS. You can get away with 4 GB, but at times the system will be really slow. Second, the virtual machine images are BIG - mine typically run over 20 GB - so you'll probably want a bigger backup drive if you go this way.

I need recommendations in purchasing an external hard drive, to back up everything in my computer. What brand and Size?

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