Can I use any external hard drive to back up my Mac?

Hello,
I'm new to mac's but have seen Time Capsule. I'm a little confused...
Can I go to any shop and buy an external hard drive of say 500GB and then plug it in via USB and back my mac up with the Time Machine?
It doesn't have to be a 1TB Apple own product Time Capsule? Or, does it...?
Thank you,
David

wild-weasel wrote:
And time-maschine really doesn't care, what else is on that drive, (It is not a jealous maschine) aslong as you have enough space left.
That's true, as far as it goes, but it's much, much better to partition the external HD, so Time Machine has it's own, exlusive space.  See #3 in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
And just for clarity, Time Machine is the software built in to OSX that performs backups;  a Time Capsule is a bit of Apple hardware that combines a wireless router and hard drive.   Sometimes folks can get confused if you use the wrong term.

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