Recommended External Backup Drive Size

Hi,
My friend bought a new iMac, 500GB. What size backup drive ought he buy?
Thanks.

That depends on what backup app he's using.
Time Machine usually needs 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up (see #1 in the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip,* also at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).
If he's using CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, a 500 GB drive would be fine, unless he's having it also keep "archive"copies. If he is, then more space will be needed.
And yes, having two separate backups is highly recommended, as is having something off-site, either with a portable external HD or an app or service that will back up via the internet.

Similar Messages

External (Backup) Drive No Longer Recognized After Mavericks

Since installing Mavericks on my iMac (was running Snow Leopard) I can only see partial information from my WD My Book Live external backup drive. Finder lets me see the two partitions but only some of the files on that drive. However, the Disk Utility does not see the external drive at all. This is mostly impacting Time Machine which also does not seem to recognize the external drive at all. I cannot enter Time Machine to access my old backups and cannot create new ones.
I would prefer not to re-format the external drive since it has other files on it that I don't want to lose.
All helpful suggestions appreciated!

lettertosteve
PROBLEM SOLVED! It was as simple as going to the WD (Western Digital) site and downloading a few updates for the My Book Live.
You need to NOT connect any WD MyBook right now under Mavericks, you have a high likelihood of severe data corruption
WD is telling its customers to REMOVE WD SOFTWARE especially on WD MyBook
keep your WD MY BOOK unconnected right now until a resolution unless you have a backup of ALL DATA on your MyBook stored elsewhere
http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/bd-p/passport_mac
Bill_S
Community Manager
External Drives for Mac Experiencing Data Loss with Maverick OS (10/30/13)
There are reports of Western Digital and other external HDD products experiencing data loss when updating to Apple's OS X Mavericks (10.9). Western Digital is urgently investigating these reports and the possible connection to the WD Drive Manager, WD Raid Manager and WD SmartWare software applications.
Until the issue is understood and the cause identified, WD strongly urges our customers to uninstall these software applications on their systems before updating to OS X Mavericks (10.9), or delay upgrading. If you have already upgraded to Mavericks, WD recommends that you remove these applications and restart your computer. WD has removed these software applications from our web site solely as a precaution as we investigate this issue.

How do I delete a folder that I moved to Trash from my external backup drive when a virus was detected? Trash will not delete the folder.

I have tried unsuccessfully to remove a folder from Trash. My anti-virus program (Sophos) detected a virus which had to be manually removed. I tried (unsuccessfully) to find and remove the infected file. I moved the Folder from my external backup drive and placed it in Trash. Now I cannot get Trash to delete the folder. It asks me if I wish to delete "unlocked" or "all" items. Either selection does not delete the folder. I went to change the permissions to "read & write" and unlocked the folder, but it is still there. I tried to "move" the folder from Trash back to the external harddrive but it seems I can only "copy" it and not "move" it. I am afraid that by copying it, I will not have the folder in two locations (Trash & External HD).
Would appreciate any suggestions and guidance on this. I hope that I have explained the problem clearly!
Thank you!

Before deleting it we should know more about this folder and its contents.
If it is invected and is using other apps, or other apps are still using it, then it cannot be deleted in the normal manner.
You might contact Sophos and ask them about it.
If you are using TM or have a backup of your system before the infection occurred, then you can delete the item(s) in Trash, but there is the possiblity of system corruption and the need for a reinstall, if any of these files are necessary for the OS to work properly, even though they are infected.
Sophos may not have been able to remove the infection from inside a file which is why they suggested manual removal.
You might consider downloading and running ClamXav first and see if it can't do better than Sophos.
All that being said, you can always remove the contents of the Trash using the terminal. Usually as administrator, or in some cases as root (su). Unless you are very familiar with the terminal I do not suggest doing this without some study.

Bonjour to find my external backup drive?

I have a Western Digital My Book that is attached to my router. It regularly backs up items from my older Mac.
I want to do the same for my new MacBook Pro but don't know where to begin,
Do I use Bonjour to find my external backup drive?
Thanks.

Hey MMilesGray13
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities. The external hard drive is it part of a networked attached storage; it would just show up on the side bar of Finder.
Mac Basics: The Finder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2470
It would show up in spot number 8
Regards,
-Norm G.

External backup drive connected to airport router giving "... backup disk image ... /.../... is already in use" error.

I just added an external backup drive to my airport router for my desktop and my laptop to use. Initial backups worked, but now I'm getting "... backup disk image ... /.../...MacBook Pro.sparcsbundle is already in use." This message is on laptop even after stopping timemachine on the desktop. The initial backup worked for both machines. Is this a timing problem? It shows the last backup happened earlier this evening, but I'm concerned about the major amount of work I did after that time.
Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

You can't use that configuration for Time Machine backups, if that's what you're doing.
Mac 101: Time Machine

"Edit in Photoshop" opening Photoshop on external backup drive

When I use the "Edit in Photoshop CC" command in LR 5, it is opening Photoshop CC that is located on an external backup drive (a clone of my boot drive) connected to my computer via USB 3.0.
How do I force LR to open the Photoshop CC on my boot drive?
I'm running OS X Yosemite 10.10.1.

It didn't work because you told iTunes where to store media from this point on, not where the old media are located. Your "library" is more than media the way a city library is more than a pile of books in an empty lot somewhere.
Hopefully you copied the entire iTunes folder (and in doing so all its subfolders and files) intact to the other drive. If you did, open iTunes and immediately hold down the option (alt) key (shift on Windows) so you get a prompt to select a library, then guide it to the 'iTunes Library.itl' file in the moved iTunes folder. If you didn't then do so or you will have to rebuild the iTunes window structure from scratch.

I have a MacBook Pro and it cannot locate my Western Digital External Backup Drive.

I have a MacBook Pro and it cannot locate my Western Digital External Backup Drive. It used to work prior to Maverick but now it doesnt. Do I need a different cord or what can I do so I can use Time Machine with this drive?

Your problem is really with "Time Machine", backup software included with OS X since version 10.5, not with your Time Capsule router. For more information on Time Machine, check these Web pages:
Time Machine FAQs
Time Machine Troubleshooting

How do I prevent OS X from opening apps on external backup drive?

I have an external backup drive connected to my iMac and powered on 24/7. I do a nightly clone of my boot drive to this backup. I've been having a problem lately where OS X will open an application that is on the external clone of my boot drive instead of the internal boot drive itself. One example of this is when I use Lightroom and choose "Edit in Photoshop", instead of opening Photoshop on my iMac boot drive it opens it on the external clone of the boot drive.
Is there some way I can prevent OS X from "seeing" the applications on the clone, and opening them? Thanks.

Hi,
In System Preferences > Start Up Disk is one device set as the Start Up Disk ?
It may not be clear just looking at the left to right scroll area (depending how many drives and Partitions) but selecting one can often help.
At Start Up the computer looks for a valid Boot Disk.
If it does not seem to be set it is supposed to go through some checks to find out which one to Boot from. Most occasions it will pick the last Drive/partition that it was Booted from. However the order in which the Internal Drives are connected to the system may also pay a part, particularly of the Current required Boot drive is not the original hard drive (Or at least in it's physical place, cable connection-wise).
Also Click on the desktop and open Mac Help (Help Menu in the Finder) and see what that has to say.
11:30 AM Thursday; August 26, 2010
Message was edited by: Ralph Johns (UK)

Weird startup screen from (external) backup drive

Whenever I boot from my external backup drive it starts up with this screen:
http://mysite.verizon.net/oliverlu.lu/startup.png
I don't where it's coming from, it started doing it on its own, how do I get rid of it? tia

there have been a number of reports of such popups coming up after installing snow leopard. i got one myself one the first boot after SL install. but I haven't seen it again and the word from apple was that they are harmless and can be canceled out and then should not come up again. you may want to redo the cloning from scratch (erase the clone completely first). you might get it on the first boot from the clone but see if it goes away after that.

Reinstall All Aps from external backup drive

Hello all,
I tried to install Leopard on my G5 and came across an Error that did not let the installation finish. My issue is that all of my Applications and updates were moved to my backup disk. My external backup drive is bootable and does have all of my Applications and Documents. I would like to totally erase the original internal HD and then reinstall the Apps from the external backup drive. Can this be done?
Now when I about to try a reinstall of Leopard I will need to bring b ack my Applications from my backup disk, I hope with out the difficult of reinstalling all of the Apps and the various updates to the install.
How can I just get back all of my Applications from the backup disk.
Thanks for you thoughts.
DickB

Dick Barrett 2 wrote:
Hello all,
I tried to install Leopard on my G5 and came across an Error that did not let the installation finish. My issue is that all of my Applications and updates were moved to my backup disk. My external backup drive is bootable and does have all of my Applications and Documents. I would like to totally erase the original internal HD and then reinstall the Apps from the external backup drive. Can this be done?
Now when I about to try a reinstall of Leopard I will need to bring b ack my Applications from my backup disk, I hope with out the difficult of reinstalling all of the Apps and the various updates to the install.
How can I just get back all of my Applications from the backup disk.
Thanks for you thoughts.
DickB
If you backup is bootable, then you should be able to move everything properly by using the Leopard migration assistant.
Moving an app directly may cause file/app ownership problems which can be fixed, but it is best to use the migration assistant to move as many apps etc, as possible first.

Reformatting a WD external backup drive.

I have a 20" iMac and use a WD My Book 500GB external backup drive. This drive is now full and won't perform any more backups; I want to reformat the drive to clear everything out and start again but am having problems. I go into: Applications/Utilities/Disk Utilities and then select the external drive - only one icon is showing for this on the LH side of the screen - but instead of 4 or 5 tabs coming up that would allow me to format the drive, all I get showing is the contents of the ext drive, showing in two folders. Anybody any ideas as to how I can get round this problem?? Many thanks for any suggetions.

Hi Barry,
Many thanks for that but I actually found a way of doing it! Going into Applications/Utilities/Disk Utilities didn't bring up the info I needed but I started playing around and found that the way to do it was to hit CMD and the Spacebar which opened Spotlight and then type in: Disk Utility. This took me to a screen that DID contain the info I needed and it was then very simple to erase everything that was on the backup drive!!
Why I couldn't get to this using the former route I don't know but the latter route works!

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

External backup drive doesn't show in System Preferences/Startup Disk

Using SuperDuper!, I thought I created a bootable backup on my LaCie FW 200GB ext. HD. I opened System Preferences/Startup Disk to try booting from the LaCie by changing the Startup Disk to the LaCie. The LaCie didn't appear, there. My Mac HD is there, and a Network Startup icon with a question mark in it, is there. I'm on a standalone machine. My Ethernet port is used for a cable modem.
I Restarted and held down the Option key to see if the LaCie would show up that way. No luck. The LaCie is mounted on my desktop, and the System Profiler shows it on the FW bus. So, I don't really have a bootable backup drive (or volume). The LaCie is not partitioned, nor is my internal startup disk.
I did use Disk Utility & found I had to repair the LaCie. Initially, DU said the disk couldn't be repaired, but on a repeat, the LaCie shows as repaired.
How can I get the LaCie to show up in System Preferences/Startup Disk?

Select the external drive's icon and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. In the pane labeled "Ownership and Permissions click on the small triangle gadget beside the word Details. You should see at the bottom a box labeled "Ignore permissions on this volume." If there's a checkmark in the box uncheck it. Close the Get Info window. Now see if the drive appears in the Startup Disk preference.
If you still have a problem then you might try the following:
Extended 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.
3. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled, if supported.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process will take 30 minutes to an hour or more depending upon the drive size.
Next clone your system to the external drive:
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Set Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only.
2. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
3. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
4. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
5. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
6. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
7. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
8. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
For added precaution you can boot into safe mode before doing the clone.

Recommended External Hard Drives?

Looking to get an external hard drive to store photos,music,movies etc.
I have heard not so good things about Western Digital, but have heard good things about Lacie and this product:
http://www.newertech.com/products/ministackv2_5.php
Anyone have any recommendations and personal experiences?
I am planning to use this over Firewire of course.
Thanks.
Jason

I agree with Geordies comments about people only posting when there are problems and not about when the product is working fine but unfortunately I had a one of the few bad ones. After buying my iMac I bought one of those WD My Books for Time Machine backups and was not impressed. Two or three time a minute between the hourly backups the Book would spin for a few seconds and then spin down repeatedly non-stop. When it did spin down you could feel a vibration in the desk as the disk came to a stop. So I took it back to Costco and the clerk said they had had a few of them returned. After hearing that I took the refund rather than exchange. I've purchased and used WD drives for years with never a problem and I still like the brand but the My Book I can't recommend. I'm sure they are not all bad but watch for that if you do buy one.

Recommended external hard drive for R&R?

I just got my new T420 and I want to get an external hard drive for Rescue & Recovery backups. I used R&R to back up and recover all the time with my old T60, but it's too small. I'm looking at a couple of Seagate hard drives. Does anyone know if I need to re-format the external hard drive to get rid of any software on it before using R&R? Or does it even matter? Any experience with Seagate for R&R backups?

Just get a large enough drive. I recommend a drive or drive enclosure that supports eSATA for fast backup speeds.
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Recommended External Backup Drive Size

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