Need to get an external hard drive for Time Machine

I bought a smartdisk hard drive firewire 400 (160gb), any know anything about them? I have a 250gb internal hard drive...is this a good one, or should i exchange for something different?
TIA

I found that the best drive for the money are OWC Elite with triple or quad interface. Good bang for the buck. I have 5 (2.8 TB)of them and they are rock solid. Check them out.
Go to:
www.macsales.com
or go right to them with this link:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/800+USB2/

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    Bluehowler wrote:
    Ok, I have 3 external hard drives; unfortunately I've used them on my PC and they are read only on my iMac.  So, I need to buy a new external hard drive for Time Machine backup.  I'm a little confused; can I buy any EHD and them format it so Mac can use it or are there special EHD's I need to purchase?
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  • Can not fine external hard drive for time machine sence lion was installed

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  • Do I need to use all the hard drive for time machine or can I partition it

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    http://pondini.org/TM/TCQ3.html

  • Is it possible to use an external hard drive for time machine backup and also as a regular hard drive?

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  • I have just upgraded from a Macbook to a Macbook Air. I have been using a iomega external hard drive for Time Machine, which use a Firewire. However, Macbook Air's do not have a Firewire port and i cannot find an adaptor anywhere. Can anyone help?? Thanks

    I have just upgraded from a Macbook to a Macbook Air. I have been using a iomega external hard drive for Time Machine, which use a Firewire. However, Macbook Air's do not have a Firewire port and i cannot find an adaptor anywhere. Can anyone help?? Thanks

    There has never been a reliable firewire ---> USB adapter suitable for external high speed storage.  This was a major issue when the MacBooks lost the firewire port a number of years ago (Apple subsequently brought it back).
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  • Mac mini as an external hard drive for time machine??

    I have a mac mini from a few years ago and it is never used. I was wonder if it could be used as an external hard drive for time machine. If this can be done how do I go about setting it up for this type of useage?

    Thanks for starting this thread. I too am trying to use my old mac mini in target mode to utilize it's hard drive for Time Machine.
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  • Is it possible to use more than one external hard drive for Time Machine backups?

    I want to use two hard drives for Time Machine backups.
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    I really need some help!  I have been using an Iomega NAS 1TB HD for the past year.  And I received an error message.  I believe I have ran out of memory on this drive.
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  • Need to reformat external hard drive for time machine?

    Hello,
    We recently purchased an external hard drive for our family iMac after we had to have a new hard drive put in. We picked up a Western Digital 1tb My Book (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=725). I set up the external hd with time machine and all was fine for about a month.
    An error message of "The backup volume is read only" started appearing. I attempted to repair the disk through these directions http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3275#1 but when I was trying to follow the steps, I think I disconnected the external hd without dismounting it, so now I'd assume I need to reformat the external hd. I can't seem to find instructions on how to do this. Where should I look for reformatting my external hard drive?
    Any other tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    Hard Drive Preparation
    1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
    2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
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    Message was edited by: Kappy

  • Is it not recommended to use a partitioned external hard drive for time machine?

    1. i hv a 1 tb seagate  back up plus hard disc ..,,i want to make partitions for  using it for time machine, mac, and window repectively . is it not recommended to use a partitioned drive for time machine? some where i have red that time machine wont be able to restore data from external partioned hard drive  in case internal hard drive crashes.
    2. if i use the seagate back up plus 1tb for mac only and use time machine to take backup (roughly 250 GB) , then the rest space i cant use to transfer movies, pictures from a PC
    3. how should i best use the seagate back up plus hard drive (not seagate back up plus for mac) in a way that i use it for back up , and to work with both mac and PC?

    I use a partitioned external drive for Time Machine as well as other things.
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    Barry

  • Using External Hard Drive For Time Machine

    Hi. I will be buying a new iMac and plan to use an external hard drive by Lacie for Time Machine backups. I haven't used an external hard drive for this purpose before -- previously I've always used Apple's Time Capsule. So, I don't know if I can leave the Lacie hard drive unejected and powered on even when I've shut the computer down. The Time Capsule never needs ejecting from the desktop and is always on, but I'm not sure if the same can be done with an external hard drive when using it for time machine backups.
    So, I just need to know if, when using an external hard drive such as a Lacie for Time Machine backups, I can 1. leave it unejected even when I shut down the computer? and 2. Can I also leave the hard drive powered on even when I shut the computer down? It would be good if I could do this because then it would just always be on and ready for hourly time machine backups without my having to remember to turn it on and the eject it when it's finished for the day.
    I'd appreciate any advice or information.
    Thanks in advance.
    John

    pulp3au wrote:
    1. leave it unejected even when I shut down the computer?
    What are you referring with "unejected"? You should know that LaCie drives have got three modes: "On" (permanently turned on), "Auto" (when you turn off your computer, your external disk turns off or you unmount it) and "Off". Choose the one you want.
    pulp3au wrote:
    2. Can I also leave the hard drive powered on even when I shut the computer down? It would be good if I could do this because then it would just always be on and ready for hourly time machine backups without my having to remember to turn it on and the eject it when it's finished for the day.
    Of course. You can leave the external disk turned on when your Mac is turned off without any problem. In "Auto" mode you won't have to do anything in order to turn it on again

  • External hard drive for time machine back-ups

    Can anyone please suggest the best external hard drive to use for time machine back-ups on my iMac?
    I also use a 1TB external hard drive for my iTunes library, but I've noticed that it can be slower to access the music than if I used the iMac hard drive......any suggestions? My iTunes library is currently sitting at around 200GB.
    Thanks.
    Brian

    i'd recommend a firewire 800 drive. many folks here speak highly of drives supplied by [OWC|http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire> and [LaCie|http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11156].
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  • Using Mac mini as External Hard Drive for time machine

    I know this can be done but I am not sure how. How can I set up a mac mini as an external hard drive. Can this be used as a drive for time machine?? Any help is appreciated, Thank you.

    Personal file sharing (which may require Leopard on the Mini) or by connecting the Mini to your other Mac via Target Disk Mode. I wouldn't recommend that latter, though; too much chance of inadvertently erasing files critical to the operation of the Mini.

  • Need to format "free space" of external hard drive for Time Machine

    I just recently purchased a MacBook Air and want to set up Time Machine with my external hard drive. I'm migrating from Windows 7 so before purchasing my new Mac, I transferred about 100 GB of data from my PC to my external hard drive that I wanted to keep. The external hard drive has a partition of 100 GB (91 GB used) and 365 GB of "free space". I would like to know how to format that free space so that I can use it with Time Machine but at the same time not lose any of my data on the first partition. I've looked around in the Disk Utility but it doesn't give any options to format the free space.
    Thanks in advance for any help.

    You should be able to repartition it, but that requires that the HD was formatted with Mac OS X Extended and journaling turned on. All I can suggest is you get another HD or move the 100 GB of stuff to the MBA, erase, reformat, and partition into two pieces, copy the 100 GB stuff back to the HD, and then it's set for TM.

  • Can I use the same external hard drive for time machine and storing other files

    I have a 640GB external hard drive that I have been using for over a year for time machine backups.  My mac hard drive is now starting to fill up and I am looking to move audio, video and picture files to my external hard drive.  How do I do this without messing up my time machine backups?  Can I do both on the same external hard drive?  Do I just make new folders on the external hard drive to move the files I want?  Thanks for the help.

    If you move the files you will need to get another disk to back the files up to. You don't want to have only one copy of certain files (personal, professional etc.).

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