Best External HD for Time Machine

Basically a beginners question here re: Time Machine. My wife has a new Macbook with Leopard (2.0GHz, 160GB HD, 2GB SDRAM, OS X 10.5) and I'm getting one for myself (2.2GHz, 160GB HD, 4GB SDRAM, OS X 10.5) for school. We both would like to use Time Machine on one external hard drive via Airport Extreme.
My questions would be this:
1. Is it possible to use Time Machine for two machines on one HD?
2. Is this possible via the AirPort Extreme Base Station with Gigabit Ethernet?
3. Which of the two HD's on the Apple Store is better suited for this? The LaCie 500GB d2 Extreme Quad HDD or Iomega 500GB UltraMax Desktop Hard Drive? Or one of the other options? Is 500GB enough space for two machines?
Thanks for the help in advance. Been reading the discussions doing research and appreciate the knowledge out there.
Message was edited by: tim healey

Hi Tim,
From what i've heard you cant back up over airport at the moment, before leopard was released apple said it would be possible but once it was released that function has been dropped.
See the link:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/10/26/appleyanks_wireless_backup_from_leopard_lastminute.html
Also Leopard 10.5.2 is rumored to be coming soon so i suppose that feature could possible come along with that update. but that is just a rumor!
Finally i have just received my iomega 500 GB, FW400 for £99.99 from the apple store.
for £40 more you could get the FW800 version which apparently doubles the speed, i decided it wasn't worth £40 extra.
I read a lot of good reviews on the US apple store about it so decided to buy. So far it seems like a good piece of kit, it is fairly loud compared to imac, but imac runs almost completely silently. the firewire cable that comes in the box isn't very long, i intend to buy a longer cable and move the drive away from my desktop.
One more thing if your thinking of getting a macbook i would wait until the end of january, I'm pretty sure apple is releasing something and it's been a long time since a proper macbook update.
Hope this helps, if you like i can let you know how the drive is after i've had it a bit longer.

Similar Messages

  • Looking at external HD for Time machine backup and for XP OS?

    Bought a 24" iMac desktop with a 500 GB HD and am going to be running up to Best Buy to snag a Western Digital external My Book 750 GB HD. Mainly this external is for Time Machine backup, photos, iTunes library, etc. but I'd like to fire up boot camp and install Windows XP OS. Question is, can I install the XP OS on the external HD so I don't have to divide and possibly mess up my internal Mac HD? Also, when I do install XP OS, how much space for a partition? XP will be mainly for just a few PC games that are PC only like Company of Heroes.

    Hi Saius,
    yeah, the more the better...
    BootCamp requires the use of XP with SP2. Without SP2 (SP1 or earlier) it either does not install or if installed can produce some odd errors.
    If you have access to a Windows XP PC you can try these instructions to slipstream the SP2 together with your 'old' XP CD to a new XP SP2 CD.
    http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxpsp2slipstream.asp
    Before spending some unneccessary dollars might be worth trying.
    It's not very difficult to do this (done it myself some years back).
    Also it is a good idea to use your external HD and make a bootable clone of your OSX volume using either SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner.
    That way in case something goes wrong, you can easily revert back.
    Personally I would not use Time Machine for that task.
    Have Fun and thanks for the star.
    Stefan

  • My 320GB external drive for Time Machine now only has enough capacity to keep a backup of one day. All my other backups are gone.  What can I do to fix this situation?

    I've been using a 320GB external drive for time machine for the last several years.  The backups always worked fine and when necessary I was able to look at & restore older data from the time capsule.  Recently, I keep getting the message that a backup cannot be completed and an older backup will be deleted. Usually this wasn't an issue because I still had several months of information on disk.  Now a one-time backup takes up 315GB and therefore I only have a backup of the previous day.  I don't understand this because I thought that the backup only saves information that has changed and doesn't copy everything everytime.  What do I need to do to get my backups to a reasonable size so that I can keep at least 1 month data stored on it.?  Please don't tell me I need a larger drive ... that would be too easy. 

    Get a larger drive for your TM backups.
    The recommended size is 3 times what you are backup. So if 315 GB is a backup then you need a 1 TB drive.
    Allan

  • I've used an external drive for time machine which has important files on it. After trying to back up my computer, it suddenly needed to be "repaired" by utilities. Now it's not being "seen" at all! How do I recover my important files off the drive?

    I've used an external drive for time machine which has important files on it. After trying to back up my computer, it suddenly needed to be "repaired" by utilities. Now it's not being "seen" at all! How do I recover my important files off the drive?

    If the external drive can be seen at all in Disk Utility, follow the instructions for repair here.

  • HT3275 New macbook, old external drive for time machine

    I got a new macbook pro a few weeks ago and set it up using my last backup from time machine. I want to use the same external drive for backups but there is no room. Can I delete all of the old files from the old computer or do I need to keep them?

    kat.hayes wrote:
    I want to use a 3 TB external drive for Time Machine to backup multiple 500GB hard drives in my Macpro. I have lots of large video files from HD cameras.
    1. Will Time Machine backup all of the hard drives in the Macpro?
    As long as they're formatted HFS+, yes.  Be sure there's enough room, though -- Time Machine needs considerably more room than the data it's backing-up.  See #1 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

  • External drive for Time Machine

    I want to use a 3 TB external drive for Time Machine to backup multiple 500GB hard drives in my Macpro. I have lots of large video files from HD cameras.
    1. Will Time Machine backup all of the hard drives in the Macpro?
    2. What is a good external hard drive to handles these types of files?
    Thanks.

    kat.hayes wrote:
    I want to use a 3 TB external drive for Time Machine to backup multiple 500GB hard drives in my Macpro. I have lots of large video files from HD cameras.
    1. Will Time Machine backup all of the hard drives in the Macpro?
    As long as they're formatted HFS+, yes.  Be sure there's enough room, though -- Time Machine needs considerably more room than the data it's backing-up.  See #1 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.

  • Adding a Dedicated External Drive for Time Machine

    Hello,
    I want to use a dedicated external drive for Time Machine backup and another drive for a SuperDuper backup. Before even adding another drive, I'm already pulling and replacing usb connections from the back of my computer.
    Can anyone tell me if a splitter is a workable solution? Something like this:
    7-Port USB High-speed Hub with Splitter Cable -- http://www.shop4tech.com/user.htm?go=view_item&id=8997&r=183 -- or perhaps other recommendations ..
    Thanks.

    ...I recall reading that USB 2 was faster ... but I think they said faster than FW 400, but the drive I have is FW 800.
    USB2 is 480mbps and Firewire400 is 400mbps. On paper, this would appear that USB2 is faster than Firewire400. But USB2 cannot handle large data transfers very effectively. I can't explain the technicals, but suffice to say that the figures I gave of 40min-versus-2-hours-for-25GB is typical of Firewire400 versus USB2.
    Firewire800 is 800mbps, so would potentially be even faster. However the physical hard drive that's installed in the Firewire enclosure would be the bottleneck as a normal "platter" hard drive is much slower than Firewire400 or 800. If it were an SSD drive, then you'd likely see a very significant difference.
    But regardless, USB2 cannot keep up with a large data stream like Firewire can. Potentially USB3, which is up to 5Gbps, would be faster than either Firewire 400 or 800, although I suspect would be on par with Firewire3200 in the real world. However since there are no adapters for either USB3 or Firewire3200 for the Mac, it's a moot point for now. (Your drive is not USB3, there are only a few USB3 drives available, and you'd need a Mac Pro to add the adapter in anyway, if they existed.)
    So are you saying that FW 800 is faster than USB 2.0 -- and that I should be using the FW connection to get better throughput? And that I can resume daisy-chaining multiple external drives through the one port?
    Definitely Firewire would be faster than USB. And I have 5 external hard drives daisy-chained through a single Firewire800 port on my Mac. So daisy-chained Firewire is the way to go.
    Like I said, for the small, incremental, hourly Time Machine backups, the speed difference is insignificant. But when the day comes that you have to restore your hard drive, (i.e.: hard drive dead so you buy new blank hard drive. Or you just want to replace with a larger drive,) if say your Time Machine backup is 80GB, that restore would probably take several hours over USB2. On my Firewire400 drive, my 100GB Time Machine restore of my Macbook Pro took about an hour and a half. (The data transfer was about an hour, but OSX took awhile after that to finish up the restore.) YMMV, of course, but IMHO, use Firewire over USB2 as much as possible. If you're lucky enough to have a Mac Pro or iMac and can use multiple internal hard drives or eSATA, then that would be even faster than Firewire800. Only owners of a Macbook Air or non-Firewire Macbook should resign themselves to USB2.

  • Brand new iMac 23.GHz Intel Core i5.  Mounts external drive for time machine, then dismounts after backup is complete.

    brand new iMac 23.GHz Intel Core i5.  Mounts external drive for time machine, then dismounts after backup is complete.

    The warranty entitles you to complimentary phone support for the first 90 days of ownership.
    If you bought the product in the U.S. directly from Apple (not from a reseller), you have 14 days from the date of delivery in which to exchange or return it for a refund. In other countries, the return policy may be different. If you bought from a reseller, its return policy applies.

  • Using an External Drive for Time Machine and Other Things

    I have a 2TB external drive which I use for Time Machine Backups on my 2 macs. The macs have HDs of 500GB and 160GB so the external drive has ample space for backups.
    Is it okay to use the external drive for other things that I don't care if they aren't backed up (like digital copies of DVDs)? i.e. Will Time Machine cause any issues if a drive is used for more than just Time Machine backups?

    rgraves wrote:
    I have a 2TB external drive which I use for Time Machine Backups on my 2 macs. The macs have HDs of 500GB and 160GB so the external drive has ample space for backups.
    Maybe. See #1 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
    Is it okay to use the external drive for other things that I don't care if they aren't backed up (like digital copies of DVDs)? i.e. Will Time Machine cause any issues if a drive is used for more than just Time Machine backups?
    It's best to put such things in their own partition. See #3 in the FAQ.
    You may also want to make separate partitions for each Mac's backups, if you're backing-up either one directly (ie, not over your network). See #4 in the FAQ.

  • External drive for Time Machine and Firewire Hub

    Just got a new iMac. My old iMac G5 was running 10.4.11 so no Time Machine. On the new iMac I am running 10.5.6 I find I have questions about how to go about making best use of this new facility available to me. Since my new iMac has only one firewire port (FW 800) I also need an additional port here.
    My thoughts are to use an external drive connected with FW 800 as a Time Machine backup and use the (usually) extra FW 800 port to extend the FW 800 and I find I can get a dual interface drive with both FW 800 and FW 400, so I could use the FW 400 for FW 400 devices like other FW 400 drives and my video camera.
    Currently I use SuperDuper to make clone backups of my HD on a weekly basis (I use 2 drives for this on a rotating basis). I plan to continue that in addition to the facility offered by Time Machine (on a separate drive).
    My questions are...
    Is it a good idea to use the extra FW 800 or 400 port on an external to connect other drives to use for clone BUs?
    If that is a good idea...
    What brand and size of drive to use for the Time Machine BU (FW 400/800 sharing)
    A. Maxtor?
    (I have several OneTouch II and OneTouch III that I use for clones, I have been using them for a few years without problem. I seem to remember reading about some problems with Maxtor, have I just been lucky?)
    B. Newertech MiniStack v3 from OWC MacSales?
    C. OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro™?
    If the OWC Mercury Eltite is a good choice...
    Is a 750 GB large enough?
    Is it worth it to get the 1TB Enterprise 7200RPM?
    Any other suggestions?
    Andy

    i needed 3 drives in total so went with my 2nd choice of buying external enclosures and then hard drives,
    at the end it cost me much much less so i endded up buy another as a spare,
    so currently using 4 NexStart combo enclosure each one fitted with a 500gb hard drive,
    i got one connected to my G5 and 3 connected by FW400 to my imac through a daisy chain,
    for time machines it doesnt matter about speed so you dont need to use up the FW800 Port,
    FW400 will be fine,
    before this i had a USB2 WD Book and was using that with time machine and never had a problem through USB,
    i always connect to a port i hardly use as i wont ever need to keep taking it off if i had to connect my camera to it for example....

  • Can I use the same external hd for time machine and storage without partitioning it?

    Hello,
    I have been using an external hard drive for my Time Machine that was only used for this purpose.
    I downloaded some files in it that I want to use, and I haven't backed up using Time Machine since.
    Can I download the files on my MacBook from the HD without running into any problems, or is there anything else I should do?
    I prefer not to partition the hd, since I will be deleting these files, or transferring them to a different HD, and using this HD only for Time Machine back ups, as I did previously.
    ** I am not sure if this changes anything, but I just updated from Snow Leopard to Lion.
    Thank you so much

    carolsm wrote:
    Thanks Kappy, I will do that.
    I just really needed these files and had no other hard drive to store them.
    Do you think that it will be okay just this one time if I download the files on my MacBook without compromising my backups?
    I will transfer them to a new hard drive, and erase them from my Time Machine external  hard drive.
    For the time being it will be fine. There is always a chance of a disc crashing and therefore not advisable practice. Some here run seperate drives with Time Machine, Cloned backup and file backup. I have a portable drive I keep Time Machine backups and file backups on. I am running that at my own risk, but no problems over the last couple of years. Just make sure I get it to my normal TM Backup disk as soon as I get home. Backing up those other files will not compromise your Time Machine backups as you asked.
    Cheers
    Pete

  • Can I use an external drive for Time Machine and storing other data?

    At the moment I have one external drive, a 500gb LaCie. My internal drive is 160gb. I don't think I'll be using all 500 of those gigabytes for a while, so I want to put them to good use. Can I make a partition on this drive and use that for Time Machine, leaving the rest of the drive for my documents and other files? If so, how would I partition the drive? I'm not fluent in Disk Utility and even though I'm pretty sure I know how to do it, I don't want to screw up. Also, how big a partition would you recommend?
    While we're here, I have a second question, somewhat relevant to the first. Could I move my Time Machine backups to a second drive if I wanted to? Also, if I used a big drive (say 1tb) could I use Time Machine to backup my current LaCie to a partition on that drive? Thanks in advance.

    videoCWK wrote:
    Does that also mean that I could back them both up on a very big drive?
    Yes. Time Machine will, by default, back up all of your external drives unless you specifically exclude them.
    Also, will Time Machine backups eat all my space after a lot of usage?
    It depends on what you do on your Mac. If you work often with very large files (video editing, heavy photo editing, big disk images, Microsoft Entourage data file, Parallels disk image file, etc) then your backup drive could fill up very quickly.
    I use my Mac mostly for e-mail, web browsing, iTunes, iPhoto, and the occasional iMovie project. I have 92 GB on my main hard drive (60 GB of which are my iTunes and iPhoto libraries, and one iMovie project.) My Time Machine backups consume 155GB on my backup drive, and that's after using Time Machine for a full year.

  • Has Anyone Used the WD My Book External Drives for Time Machine?

    I'm thinking of getting the Western Digitial 1 or 2 TB My Book (Pro Edition 2 or Studio Edition) External Drives for use with 2 MacPros. Has anyone used these and could I use them with Time Machine? Would I have to reformat them for Time Machine?
    Thanks!
    Ashley

    You may, and probably want to format them, even if not TM use, I would anyway. Not everyone is happy with MyBook Pro and TM.
    I buy bare FW devices and add disk drive of choice, or just use OWC
    http://www.macsales.com/firewire and works well.
    FW800 is also better on the new Mac Pro
    http://www.barefeats.com

  • Re-partition external drive for Time Machine

    When I originally connected my external drive to my iMac I partitioned it for Time Machine and a media library for my iTunes. I decided to put iTunes back on the main drive to increase space on the external drive for my Time Machine backups. I have deleted the Media partition but the iDisk Utility will not allow me to increase the size of the Time Machine partition. (There is no "drag" graphic/option). Any help would be appreciated. I do not want to lose the backups I currently have on the external drive.

    I've gone thru steps from this link I posted in a different forum.
    http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11538480#11538480

  • Cannot install Mountain Lion as the installer provides message that my target drive is using Time Machine. My target drive is my internal drive and I use an external drive for Time Machine. When I check the Time Macine set up under system prefereces it sh

    Cannot install Mountain Lion as installer sys the target drive I have selected is using Time Machine. The target drive I selected is my internal drive. I have an external drive that I use for Time Machine backup. When I go to System Preferences and look at the Time Machine set up it shows my target disk is the external drive. What to do?

    Yes, you’ll be able to do that.
    (116841)

Maybe you are looking for