Creating a portable backup drive that's encrypted

I've been considering an off-site backup solution like Carbonite to protect my files, particularly now almost all of my photos etc are digital and on my mac. I use Time Machine to an external desktop drive for day to day backups, but want to protect against loss from theft or fire.
I'm not keen on paying annually for something like Carbonite, and instead have been thinking of a small pocket-size portable hard drive that I can take with me regularly if I'm away from home. However, I'm also conscious of losing the hard drive and not wanting anyone finding it to have access to the files on there. Is there an easy way, without buying any new software, of making a portable external hard drive encrypted, so that I can regularly backup files to it, but if it gets lost, others can't access the files on there?
Cheers

Use Disk Utility to create an encrypted sparse bundle disk image. Store the .sparsebundle file on your external drive. Mount the disk image by double clicking it. Copy your data to the mounted virtual drive. Eject the virtual drive when done. You can also store the disk image password in your keychain so that you do not need to re-enter it when you mount the image on your own Mac.
If your drive is lost, the contents will only be retrievable be somebody who knows the disk image password.

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Recommended Portable Backup Drives

I would like to purchase 2 types of drives.
1.) A 1TB+ drive that I can use as backup for my project and raw footage files, and would be able to transport back and forth from home to office.
2.) A smaller portable drive that I can use to dump raw footage on after my shoots on location, using the Canon 5D/CF cards/SD cards
Any reliable drives you can recommend? I know many that crap all over Lacie but the external drives ive been using have held up for a couple years.. Thanks in advance for your recommendations/advice

Hi,
Have a look at the Nexto Range, along with a Lacie Rugged.
depends on Budget.

SimpleSave portable backup drive--doesn't start automatically

I have the SimpleSave portable drive (Model sd320a) and have used it successfully. However, although when I first starting using it the drive automatically started when I plugged it into my computer, it no longer does. I must have changed some setting on my computer, but I can't figure out what I did. I now cannot get the device to start. I followed the instructions in the user manual (to start it through Vista Computer and clicking on the icon), but four file folders just come up and nothing I click on will start the application.
I use a Dell laptop with Vista Premium. Can you tell me how to fix this problem so the drive starts automatically again? Thanks.

I deleted some files off my backup drive [Simple Save] and now I find I have nothing on the drive at all. How do I replenish it to when I bought it a few weeks ago? Lanc

How do I fix aLaCie Backup Drive that runs constantly after Maverick upgrade

LaCie backup drive for time machine runs constaantly after Maverick upgrade. This is using resources and slows the processor

After installing Mavericks on my one year old iMac (loaded) Time Machine failed (Pegasus Promise Thunderbolt 3TB). I tried unmounting it, didn't work. Rebooted: Time Machine failed again [Time Machine couldn’t complete the backup to “Time Machine”. Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.] was the only message. Had to reboot to get Pegusus accessible again. Tried re-intalling Maverick (old Microsoft thing... reintall the OS). Didin't do anything for Time Machine, same failure. Booted into safe mode: nothing, same probelm. Repaired permissions: no joy there either. So, now have no Time Machine backups at all. And Time Machine won't work with the Pegasus. [same error message after 30 min or so every time]. ordinary file saves work fine though.
Ideas please?

Why do I need to reformat and erase backups on an external backup drive that I have been using for over a year, when I get this dialog box? The backup disk is not in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, which is required.

The backup disk is not in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, which is required.

Kappy's extensive hard drive formatting post - http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8340551 - note that instructions at end are for zeroing data.
BDAqua's Formatting instructions - http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8901255
Pondini: Formatting, Partitioning, Verifying, and Repairing Disks... - http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html

Replaced HD in my imac,had external backup drive that had everything i needed, but i only transfered a few of the files before Time Machine started a back up before i could transfer all files over, now i no longer see the old files on my external drive

My external drive looks like i still have all the info(taking up a large ammount of data on drive) but i cannot see it.

It does not immediately delete the files that are missing.. it merely tries to backup the new files it has discovered on the external drive. Since you moved the files there, the backup at least for a while will contain both copies.. and that is why it doesn't have enough space to backup.
Fixing the problem.. hmm pondini is the expert.. you should be able to delete the backup of the photos in existing backup.. there are instructions to do it.. but it is a very poor way to do things.
Much better. .archive off the existing backup.. this is long and slow but worth it. you need a usb drive of the same size as the TC drive. Then erase the TC and start a fresh set of backups.
The alternative is to use the USB drive as a new target.. but it is much slower than the TC internal drive.
http://pondini.org/TM/12.html

How do I make a backup recovery using my portable usb drive?

I have an 8gb usb flash drive, and I tried to backup my system onto it, and couldn't. It said "Please insert a usb flash greater than 7.6gb". So I inserted another portable usb drive that had over 180gb of free space, and it still keeps repeating the same message even though the drive clearly has more than 7.6gb on it, it has 180gb. So how do I correct the problem so that I can backup my recovery system? My laptop is brand new, I just bought it a few days ago, I haven't even had it a week. Here is the computer stats
Toshiba Satellite L455D-S5976
OP: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
AMD Sempron SI-42
2GB DDR2 RAM, 250GB HDD

Duplicating your post on the same Category won't help you much and it makes it difficult by
keeping track.
The problem you are having is related to the fact that your USB Drive format is FAT or FAT 32.
This type of format doesn't allow for a single file to be greater than 2GB and 4GB respectively,
and the single backup file you are trying to copy is greater than that so it doesn't allow it.
What you can do is format your USB Drive to be NTFS, which has no limit on what size a file can be
except the size of capacity the USB can store, but I'm not sure that's a good idea because of
the disadvantages of the format.
Also you can burn it to DVD's, which is recommended, or buy an external Hard Drive.
When you insert the USB go to My Computer and left click on the USB icon and go to properties
and there you will see what format it is.

Thunderbolt / USB3 questions about external backup drives for my new MacBook Pro

I have a new MacBook Pro retina 13". It has two USB3 and two Thunderbolt2 ports.
Until now on my iMac I've kept two backups on two WD USB2 drives. I have never had any problems with any of my WD Passport drives. One for Time Machine and one for CCC (a complete bootable clone incrementally created at 3:30 am every day).
I'd like to get new portable drives for my MBP for these backups going forward and have a few very basic questions, since this is the first time to have a device with a USB3 port, and the first time I even heard about Thunderbolt.
If I get a USB3 drive and need to use it to restore things on my older iMac, which just has USB2, will it generally connect and run with USB2 at a slower speed? Or would I have to get a drive with both USB2 and USB3 ports?
Is Thunderbolt just an Apple thing? Or is it a new standard widely used by peripherals now? I just never heard of it before. Is it faster than USB3?
Is it common for drives to have both Thunderbolt and USB2 connections?
Are there "hubs" for Thunderbolt like there are for USB? Considering the limited number of ports, I'm wondering the best way to connect 2 external drives. My iMac has 4 USB2 ports on the back, and I connect one drive separate to each of those ports, rather than going through a hub.
Is USB3 like USB2 in that if you have even 1 USB2 device (e.g. my Logitech headset) connected to a USB3 hub it will slow down everything on that hub to USB2?
Any recommendations for good, portable backup drives?
Thanks,
Doug

Hi Doug,
Lets see if we can address some of these:
If I get a USB3 drive and need to use it to restore things on my older iMac, which just has USB2, will it generally connect and run with USB2 at a slower speed? Or would I have to get a drive with both USB2 and USB3 ports?
USB3 is "backwards compatible" with USB2 so plugging a USB3 drive into a USB2 port should work, but at USB2 speeds.
Is it common for drives to have both Thunderbolt and USB2 connections?
Drives sold as Thunderbolt often (not always) have USB as well, drives sold as USB never (in my experience) have Thunderbolt connections.
Are there "hubs" for Thunderbolt like there are for USB? Considering the limited number of ports, I'm wondering the best way to connect 2 external drives. My iMac has 4 USB2 ports on the back, and I connect one drive separate to each of those ports, rather than going through a hub.
Yes there are (but don't expect them to be comparable in price to a USB hub) e.g. see here: http://www.belkin.com/uk/p/P-F4U055/
Is Thunderbolt just an Apple thing? Or is it a new standard widely used by peripherals now? I just never heard of it before. Is it faster than USB3?
I'ts an Apple technology (like firewire) and is far from widely used on peripherals. There ARE Thunderbolt drives etc by companies such as LaCie, WD etc but they are still very expensive (3 or 4x the price of an equivalent sized USB drive). For some this was a worthwhile expense since Thunderbolt is many times faster than USB2. But the arrival of USB3 has, in my opinion, changed the landscape. Yes, Thunderbolt is theoretically faster than USB3 (up to twice as fast) but benchmark tests have shown that in real world situations, the speed difference varies from no difference to Thunderbolt being 25 or 30% faster. When you take into account that USB3 drives are more common than Thunderbolt and are only a little more expensive than USB2 drives at present, then it's a "no brainer" as far as I am concerned.
Hope this helps.
Jon

HT6065 I updated my iMac computer to osx version 10.9.1 but now can't retrieve photo's from my lacie portable hard drive . Also when my computer comes on it does not show the finder bar unless I have another program up like Safari...should I delete my up

I have updated my iMac ot osx 10.9.1 but my screen no longer shows my finder bar unless I activate another program like mail or safari. also I can't access photos stored on my portable hard drive that was used before the update. Should I unsubscribe my update?
Jennifer

Did you make a backup of your system before you replaced the operating system?

Switching to larger backup drives

I have a Windows 2012 R2 Essentials server with a 1 TB mirrored drive. I also have four 1 TB backup drives that I rotate, with one off-site.
EDIT: I am using Windows Server Backup
However, my backup drives are almost full and I need to use larger drives. So I bought three 3 TB drives.
My question is: if I do backup setup again with just the three 3TB drives, do I lose access to all the older data that was on the 1TB drives? To guarantee backup integrity, should I instead do setup will all seven drives attached?
Thanks in advance for any answers.
- Grant

How many backups do you need? Windows Backup will maintain the amounts of backups automaticly, if it runs out of space.
How do you run your backup? Normal (schedueled backup) is done by one full backup, and the rest will incremental.
I would suggest you create a new schedule, with the new drives only taking backup of the mirror disks. If you take backup of all of it, it's double backed up..
Or, you should be able to simply add a drive to the current schedule..
Best Regards,
Jesper Vindum, Denmark
Systems Administrator
Help the forum: Monitor(alert) your threads and vote helpful replies or mark them as answer, if it helps solving your problem.

Backup Drive for Time Machine FILLS UP FAST!

*Be forewarned!*
I have a new iMac 2.8 GHz with an internal 750GB drive (about 500GB free). I bought a 500GB external drive (Western Digital Book My Book™), and after just 4 days of running with Time Machine turned on, I get this error message, "Time Machine backup failed. Time Machine needs 175GB to backup, and only 150GB available." Huh?
I just spoke to someone at the Apple Store's Genius bar, and they recommend a backup drive that is twice the size of your internal drive. (which means a 1.5 TB drive: not cheap...LaCie costs $539)
Also, come to find out some programs simply "don't play nice" with Time Machine. A good example is MS-Entourage, which has a single database file (in the Main Identity folder) which holds all the info for your email, address book and calendar. Mine is 350 MB in size, and it is being backed up IN FULL every hour because, well...I use my email. And every time any changes are made to that single file, it is considered modified, which means it is backed up every hour on the hour, which can quickly add up.
The same is true for the Windows XP or Vista VM files created by Parallels or VMware Fusion. Each are single, 2+ GB files, and each time any change is made to this 'huge' file, it gets backed up repeatedly by Leopard's Time Machine.
_So the larger the backup drive for Time Machine the better_! I'm considering giving up on Entourage (kiss Microsoft goodbye!) and switching to Apple's excellent mail, address book and calendar programs!
Tim Liszt
LisZt Design

Tim,
I just switched from Entourage to Mail (for many reasons). Thus far, I love Mail. You may want to get the Widescreen plugin for it if you like the three-pane configuration of Entourage.
You should also be careful with Address Book if you have syncing set up in Entourage. In other words, probably should turn it off, along with any daemons you may have running. I lost data twice (once before my very eyes!) until figuring this out. Used Time Machine to restore a previous address book with all my contacts.
Thanks for the other information on this thread. Since I should be upgrading my old external drive anyway, it will help in purchasing a new machine for use with TM.
Message was edited by: SPD

Canon Vixia Backup Drive? Macbook Pro

I have a Canon Vixia HF R10 and Macbook Pro. Want a Backup Drive that I can transfer to directly from Canon, then at a later date take footage from backup drive onto MacBook. I'm traveling and have a single power source in my vehicle. Wanting to dump probably about 500gb while on the road into backup drive(one that doesn't need computer connected to function), and then when i'm done traveling move footage over to macbook and begin editing.
I'm hoping for suggestions on a third party piece of equipment that will play nicely with my canon and macbook. Thanks!

Probably the simplest thing to do (all around, considering cost, portability, reliability, and workflow considerations) is to +record your videos to SD/SDHC cards and store them for later transfer to your MacBookPro/hard drive.+ (Class 4 or higher cards.)
You can put 2-4 hrs on a 16GB card and 4-9 hrs on a 32GB card depending on the mode you shoot (but don't use LP mode unless you absolutely have to, as it's the least quality mode).
There's no USB hard drive that I know of that you could just plug into this camcorder and copy the video. You would need a computer to do it.
(Even if you use a computer to copy the folders/files from the camcorder's hard drive/SD cards, you must copy the entire directory structure from the camcorder's memory, beginning at root, all the way down the directory tree. You can't just copy the .mts files and expect to have usable video. That's one of the many reasons I suggested using SD cards to record & store your videos until you get home and can transfer them to your MacBookPro. If you intend to do this, be sure to pilot it before you depart to make sure the technique works in your case.)

Portable Hard Drive Needed

I seem to be out of the office more and more and I need to have my files with me. I have a Mac G4 and have been researching portable hard drives, the only thing is, not many of the reviewers consider the older macs.
PC Magazine did recommend a portable drive for "older mac users" but I thought that I would ask the experts before I make a purchase.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2349221,00.asp - Iomega
* Reviewer mentions that it works with older macs. * Firewire cable.
Click free portable back up drive (no firewire cable- excellent reviews)dual prong usb cable
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptop-hard-drives/clickfree-portable-backup-drive/4505- 9997_7-33497721.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody
Lacie Little Disk
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptop-hard-drives/clickfree-portable-backup-drive/4505- 9997_7-33497721.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody
If any of you have experience with a portable drive with a powerbook, I would greatly appreciate your advice. I'm getting a headache.
Thank you in advance for your help.
My Mac
Mac OSX 10.4.11
Memory: 2GB DDR SDRAM
Machine Name: PowerBook G4 17"
Machine Model: PowerBook5,7
CPU Type: PowerPC G4 (1.2)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 1.67 GHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 167 MHz
Boot ROM Version: 4.9.1f1
Serial Number: W8507*RJ3
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
Version: 1.0

Is this the one that your son has? It looks like it gets good reviews and the fact that the company stands by their products is a big plus.
The OWC drive I pointed to is the same one my son uses. He's had it about a year with no issues. I like the fact that it's got a 3 year warranty, while others are sometimes 1 year. I have several desktop external drives that use the Oxford chipsets, and others would agree they interface very well to our macs.
The other benefit to firewire is if you either copy your system to the hard drive, to make a backup of your internal drive, or just install an operating system on it, you have the capability to boot and use your system if there is any problem with the internal hard drive. You can even partition the external drive into one partition with an operating system/backup and the second partition with business data. If you think this approach would be one you might use, take that into account when you decide what size external drive to get, ie, get a larger one than you might normally go with just for data.
Also, on an external hard drive whose purpose is primarily data storage, I probably wouldn't spend the extra on a 7200rpm drive, instead going with a 5400rpm drive (which is probably the speed of what's in your Powerbook). So ... if you have an 80GB internal hard drive today, round it to 100GB for backup, then add 300GB? for business data ... maybe a 400GB or even 500GB external hard drive would work for you. It would be a backup for your internal drive as well as hold your business data. Just a thought ....

WD Portable Hard Drive Won't Mount

This is the second time I have had a portable hard drive that suddenly quits mounting on the mac. First, a Lacie, and now a WD. After working with apple support and trying everything I could never get the problem fixed with the Lacie. Luckly, when I plugged it into a dell PC it came up and I was able to recover all data.
I then purchased the new drive, the WD, and copied the information over. Today, the WD quit working. It will not mount on either of my Macs, IMAC G5 and a powerbook G4. It also unfortunately will not show up on a PC either. It is a combo, firewire/usb drive. It does show up in Disk Utility but will not let you select "mount" only "info" and "eject".
Long story short....anyone have any ideas. I read some posts about data recovery with "data rescue" and other products. If I can't get it to mount, can I still get the data off?
Help!!

If software won't do it - you'll try it all if it's important enough - there's the costly way; disk recovery specialists.
It's a cruel lesson, but I'm sure you'll have a better back up system / procedure in the future. Ideally save to two disks and keep a third set of (important) back ups off site.

Can I back-up files to a portable hard drive and not use Time Machine?

I have a portable hard drive that I use for all of my Time Machine back-ups. I back-up the entire system every two or three weeks. I use the Time Machine software and it works quite well. I'm interested in backing up specific files (photos, documents, etc.) to a second portable drive every six months but I don't want to use the Time Machine software. Is there a simple way to hook up the portable drive (brand new Lacie 500 gb drive), open up the file on my desktop and drag the files to the new drive? Are there special steps I need to perform to avoid formatting the drive for Time Machine? Any tips will be greatly appreciated.

MacConvert54 wrote:
Is there a simple way to hook up the portable drive (brand new Lacie 500 gb drive), open up the file on my desktop and drag the files to the new drive?
You can do that, but you'll have to erase the drive, or delete the previous versions, each time. You might want to look at CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper. They're most often used to make full bootable "clones" of your internal HD, but can be set to back up specific files and folders as well. CCC is donationware, so you can try it for a while before sending them some $$ so they can keep it up to date. SD has a free version, but I think you'll need the paid one (about $30, I think) to do this.
Are there special steps I need to perform to avoid formatting the drive for Time Machine?
It would be best to format it for Macs, which is the same as Time Machine. What is the problem with that?

Creating a portable backup drive that's encrypted

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