Seagate drives not compatible with Time Machine causing OS lag/hangs?

Setup-
Intel iMac (Early 2006)
Mac OS X 10.5.1
Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB External Drive
Reproducible Issues
MacOS X lags at start up with the Seagate drive connected via Firewire and Time Machine enabled.
MacOS X hangs at shutdown with the Seagate drive connected via Firewire and Time Machine enabled. The only way to turn off the iMac is to hold the power button down.
I have contacted both Apple Support and Seagate Support. The outcome with Apple resulted in finding no issues with my iMac. The same can not be said of my 35 minute call with Seagate this morning.
The Seagate rep took me through basic troubleshooting steps and then proclaimed that it was Apple's issue and that Apple had issued a patch for this problem. However, the rep was unable to even provide the name of the patch. The problem with this declaration was the fact that it was based on disabling Time Machine and restarting the iMac once. On the second, fifth and seventh reboot after getting off the phone, the iMac hung on shutdown and lagged on reboot.
To add insult to injury the Seagate rep told me not to use the touch sensitive power button on the Seagate drive, since "it doesn't always work properly." Quoted word for word.
A co-worker of mine uses Time Machine with a LaCie drive on his PowerMac G5 and has had zero issues from day one. At this point in time I'm probably going to wipe the drive and return it to Costco unless someone can suggest an alternative.

Hmmm...bought at costco
I bet it is formated with the Master Boot Record Format. it will mount and OS X will read it, but Time Machine will not be able to use it.
You need to be in finder, under go menu, choose utilities. in folder that opens, double click disk utility. This will open a window that shows all your connected drives. Highlight the seagate drive ( the top choice, thats give the drives storage size). in the top group of buttons in the right side of the application window click the partition button. The Volume scheme will show current. Highlight this and choose 1. to the right of that is a place where you can name the drive. Use only normal letters and numbers here. On the bottom of that window, click the options button, and select GUID. click OK and give it a few minutes. close the disk utility application when it is finished
After it is formatted, the drive should show up on your desktop and Time machine should recognize it.

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Which External Drives are compatible with Time Machine. I plan to utilize it for backups and to connect to an Airport Extreme.

MBP Retina, 15 inch, Late 2013. Intel Core i7. OSX 10.9.4
Which External Hard Drives are compatible with Time Machine.
I plan to use one drive for automatic backups connected to an Airport Extreme.
The connection can be USB or Ethernet and should be expandable.
OR
should I just buy the Time capsule and avoid the compatibility, connection and interference issues.
Thanks

Hi Kappy,
I just saw that on the Apple Support site that "Time Machine is not supported with USB hard drives that are connected to an AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme device", just as you have suggested.
Why is the newest model of the Airport Extreme, which is the model I have, an exception to the Time Machine compatibility?
The following information is from Apple website:
Time Machine works with:
AirPort Time Capsule's built-in hard drive (any model)
External USB hard drive connected to AirPort Time Capsule (any model)
An external hard drive connected to your Mac
Use the Time Machine pane of System Preferences to choose your backup disk(s).
Additional Information
Time Machine is not supported with USB hard drives that are connected to an AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme device.

Iomega eGo 2TB USB/Firewire 800 drive not working with Time Machine.

The drive I had for Time Machine died and I replaced it with an iomega eGo 2 TB USB/Firewire 800 drive. Time Machine finds it and backs up the disk when I first boot up but then it seems like the drive goes off line. At that point, when Time Machine tires to back up it can't get the drive to respond and my system hangs. To fix that, I turn off the iomega that fixes the hang up and I get the disconnect without ejecting warning.
I ran disk utility and disk warrior. Both apps reported the disk is fine.
Can any tell me what's up? I'm running OS X 10.7.2
Thanks.

I am having this exact same error with my new iMac 21.5" connected to a brand new Iomega eGo 2 TB Desktop Firewire 800 External Hard Drive (Mac Edition - 34796).
The TimeMachine backup works fine, but as soon as the iMac goes to sleep and wakes back up, TimeMachine doesn't respond well to any commands and all sorts of errors appear on the screen.
I will try the tip here from Kappy and report back later if this works for me.
Kappy, one thing to note is that I'm using the Firewire connection from the iMac to the eGo and experiencing this problem. The eGo has its own power supply too.

External hard drive not working with Time Machine

I have an Iomega network hard drive attached via ethernet cable to my Airport Extreme router.
I plugged the hard drive in. Everything works like it should. I can see the drive in Finder and I can read and write to the drive. I do share the network drive in a mixed WIN and OS X environment. I never had to reformat the drive and I can read/write to the drive with no problems from all of my computers.
I turned on Time Machine on my iMac and walked through the simple setup screens there. I never set anything up on the hard drive through the drive interface software. And Time Machine worked fine for about 4 months. Then all of a sudden, Time Machine just stopped backing up and I got all kinds of error messages saying that the TIme Machine backup failed.
So I went into Time Machine, turned it off, turned it back on. No luck. Same error messages.
So I started fresh. I deleted the prior Time Machine backups and I am back at the TIme Machine set up screen. OS X can see the TIme Machine share on my external hard drive and I tell the setup wizard that's the drive I want to use.
Then I get a window that says it's trying to connect to the external hard drive which I call "Cloud_Drive". After about 30 seconds, I get an error window that says
"There was a problem connecting to the server "Cloud_Drive-TimeMachine"
The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again.
At this point the external drive is still visible in FInder and I can read/write to it from my iMac. I just cannot understand why Time Machine was working and then all of a sudden it stopped.
I did go into the software management of the drive and found an area in which to turn Time Machine on on the drive's side. Which I never did before so I turned it on and then I'm prompted to enter the name of the computer and the ethernet ID. I entered the name of the iMac and I have tried using the WiFI MAC address - no luck getting TIme Machine to work and I've also entered Terminal, found a MAC address under the line titled "ether" and still the same result.
I have also changed the destination of the Time Machine files on the external hard drive and the Time Machine wizard does write a sparcebundle file to that new location but still get the same error message above.

Is it a firewire ext. HD?
Yes, many are reporting same, there is a firewire fault and TB HD on external HD from LaCie (Seagate) and from WD especially.
Technicians are looking into it.
Until there is resolution, consider setting up a USB ext. Time machine HD.
Until then consider confining Mavericks use with USB HD.
Ive tested a long line of USB HD on Mavericks, all seem fine.

Perfect Hard Drive To Use With Time Machine?

Hi,
Has anyone found out what's the perfect External Hard Drive to use with Time Machine?
I have experience with a few of WD's My Book models (Essential, Pro and Studio). The problem with all of them is that they automatically keep switching themselves off (spin down) and on (spin up) throughout the day, in an effort to save power. But it's actually quite annoying. The My Book drive will automatically turn itself off, and then turn back on again within the space of one minute. Also, going to use Spotlight (even if you've excluded Time Machine Backups from being indexed) will automatically prompt the My Book drive to turn back on, which introduces a small delay to using Spotlight.
Does anyone make an External Hard Drive, with a Firewire 400 or 800 connection, that stays on ALL the time and doesn't automatically make decisions about when it should spin down or spin up?

I'am using a 500Gb Freecom Pro Hard Drive connected on USB via my Cinema Display. I so forget about it that I often forget to disconnect it from my laptop before leaving the office... Never complained about it
Btw, it does not implements the energy saver Auto turn off/on feature which I don't need cause the time it could mostly be really useful is by night. As it stops when I disconnect the USB and start again when I connect it back.. this is perfect to me.
I must say I'm quite happy with every Freecom product I bought and this one certainly don't break the rule

What means: Promise Pegasus compatible with Time Machine RAID-support

On the (Dutch) Apple shop it is stated at the Promise Pegasus page: the Promise Pegasus is compatible with Time Machine RAID-support.
What does this mean? What is then the "physical connection path" between the TC and the Thunderbolt Pegasus RAID system?

Thanks for responding to my question. I guess I'm not sure I understand your reply though. I had no problem installing OS X on the 3TB WD Caviar Green and WD assured me that if I wanted to install only Windows 7 on it, there would be no compatibility issues. The problem lies with wanting the drive to be dual-bootable I guess via using Boot Camp (I know of no other way to go about it). The tech at OWC (where I bought the drive) said he had never heard of any problems with being able to install both Mac and Windows OS on the drive. In fact, he gave the same reply as yours: most hard drives should be able to work perfectly fine with your Mac. It's just that I can't get XP or Windows 7 (32 bit or 64 bit) to install on the 2nd partition, making the drive I have now not dual-bootable. The tech said 2TB hard drives were different and should solve the problem but when I asked him for any discernible spec I could look for in shopping for a replacement drive, he couldn't give me one, i.e. most drives should be okay. I have paid to have the 3TB installed and will have to pay to get the drive taken out and a replacement put back in -- I want to make sure whatever drive I put in this time allows me to have 2 partitions: one for my Mac OSX system and the other for my Windows enviroment (either XP or Windows 7).
If there is a work-around not involving Boot Camp, please let me know. I thought the reason for using Boot Camp as opposed to Disk Utility to create the dual-bootable drive was the benefit of using Mac drivers on the Windows side.
If there is another way, I don't understand why PC world made this blanket statement:
"Mac users should know that WD's new drives do not support Boot Camp, therefore they cannot be used as a dual-boot hard drive."

Lacie USB 3.0 - do I have to erase it to be compatible with time machine?

Just bought a LaCie USb 3.0 external hardrive. Do I have to erase it to be compatible with time machine?

I would do this:
Drive Partition and Format
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. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed.
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.) Click on the Security 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 can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
It's now ready for use on your Mac.
If for some reason Disk Utility will not repartition or format the drive it means the drive has been preformatted with NTFS to which OS X cannot write. You will need to repartition and format the drive using the MBR partition scheme and formatting FAT (MSDOS.) When you succeed with that, then open Disk Utility again and do the above process that now should work.

Partitioning an External 320gb drive for use with Time Machine and...

I want to be able to use my Western Digital 320GB external drive for use with Time Machine and to use as extra storage space on both my Mac and when I boot into Windows Vista.
Is this possible?
I was playing around in Disk Utility and would I partition the part I want to use for Time Machine with the Mac OS Journaled, and whatever I want as space for windows, use a MS - DOS format?
Has anyone done this before?
Cheers-

Unless you are using 64 bit version of MSWindows (64 bit XP/Vista), it won't be able to handle a disk with GUID partition table (GPT). Disks with Apple Partition Map (APM) or GUID partition table are the only ones that Time Machine will work with (not MBR disks). Note also that the MBR/APM/GPT are at the DISK level and not the partition level, so don't mix the format with partitioning scheme. Time Machine disks are meant to live in the Mac universe (for now, anyway) and sharing with the MSWindows 32-bit universe is not possible.
See http://img87.imageshack.us/my.php?image=macpcdiskdd06sv8.png for some additional background.

What brand external hard drive is best with time machine

what brand of external hard drive works best with time machine?

Contrary to the other two replies, I will relate what I've read here: WD drives are fine, but their (cheap?) enclosures are subject to failure. Some buy a bare WD drive and install it in an Oxford Chip external enclosure (OWC / macsales.com would be one source). And, I have two LaCie Quadras and one OWC Mercury Pro - both are generally recommended here. If you want it bootable, most WD drives do not support it:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1787/related/1/session/L2F2LzEvd GltZS8xMzUxNTIzMzIwL3NpZC9ueUFYc1g5bA%3D%3D
Please note: it's good to have an external hard drive which has its own power supply and, as mentioned, FW 800 or USB 3). You also do not need any software that comes on the external - you will most likely need to format it anyway because most come formatted for Windows, but that is easy using Disk Utility.

What external hard drives work best with time machine

What is the best external drive that is compatible with time machine?

I see a lot of people on the Apple Discussion boards mention Time Capsule. The experience I've heard from folks with the First gen units was terrible. Poorly designed, poorly manufactured (sorry Apple!). They suffered all kinds of heat stress failures etc. The follow up devices are supposed to better, but I don't think it's mandatory you buy Apple product to run Time Machine. In fact choose based on price/capacity, then possibly on Manufacturers reputation. I use a external USB dock that has a Serial ATA connector on it. That way I can swap drives out when/if they fail or get full. That way I KNOW who manufactured the actual drive itself. Often times if you get a Time Capsule the drive manufacturer is the "flavor of the month" so to speak. There's a number of outfits that make these bare SATA style docks, and you can connect them through USB (which I have) or higher speed connectors like FireWire 800 (for faster reads/writes/backups). My best recommendation is to buy one of those SATA dock devices, then buy a bare hard drive from a reputable manufacturer. Then setup Time Machine and use the left over space that it doesn't use for your growing iPhoto collection? Use your best judgement, as there's no real right/wrong way.

Seagate/Maxtor not compatible with TimeMachine

The Seagate/Maxtor OneTouch III hard drives are not compatible with Leopard's TimeMachine. The drives have a built-in sleep timer that puts them into a non-recoverable sleep after a certain amount of time. I was told by the Seagate/Maxtor Customer support that this setting could be changed with provided SW but only on non-Leopard machines. Otherwise, their only solution is to keep Mac from ever going to sleep or to disconnect all cables from the drive before the Mac is put to sleep or turned off.
If the drive goest to sleep (Mac will pop a warning that a "device was unmounted improperly) the only way to start it is to turn off the drive, pull the DC connector out, unplug the firewire connector (a must!) and then reconnect everything and turn on the power switch.
They refuse to warn the buyers through a sticker on a box, etc. They also refuse to fix their product or refund the money.
Other Seagate/Maxtor drives may have similar problems.

Yep! I own the OneTouch III Turbo. It has two 500Gb drives inside and a hardware RAID controller to select between RAID-0 striped drives vs. RAID-1 mirrored drives. I've noticed that the utility to control the drive's RAID configuration (among other things) will launch, but not work correctly, under Leopard.
I phoned them waaaay back when and they didn't know what the problem was. Now they've figured out that their software doesn't work under Leopard, posted a message to their support forums to the effect, and claim their "working on it". It's been 3 months.... not a peep out of them.
They act as though Leopard just came out so they couldn't possibly be expected to have this working. Apparently they are unaware of the Apple Developer Connection which anyone can join and allows early access to software... even Leopard. ADC members had Leopard builds ages ago. Apparently Seagate/Maxtor chose not to take advantage.
It is not ok for a backup solution vendor to not support major OS upgrades that we all saw coming more than a year back. Nor respond to it when it arrives, nor post any information for customers who only just bought the drive and don't know why it wont work. We're all in the dark.
I've learned through this experience and realize now that Seagate/Maxtor cannot be relied upon. I'll be buying my drives from someone else from now on.
Message was edited by: Tim Campbell1

Firewire issue--Backup drive not found w/Time Machine after imac sleeps

I've had a lot of problems with Time Machine on my G4 imac since starting to use it a month ago. I think I have isolated the problem:
Time Machine functions properly while the computer is in use, and it has no problem after a restart or shut down, but if the computer goes to sleep and then TM runs its hourly backup, I get an error that it cannot find the Backup Drive. Once this happens, TM will no longer work until I've deselected the drive in TM, unplugged it, plugged it in again, and reselected the drive as the backup Drive. Sometimes this requires a shut down or restart too.
Here's what I've tried:
1. connected the drive via USB--it operated without a problem
2. unplugged all devices from the computer, shut down, waited, 20 mins, restrted, plugged the external drive back in via Firewire--the problem persists as described above.
3. deleted the TimeMachine.plist file, restarted--problem persists.
I've read that the Firewire port can be reset with other procedures such as zapping the PRAM or updating the firmware. I've also read that new problems can arise after reseting the PRAM so I'm hesitant to do this. Can anyone shed some light on the PRAM option?
I cannot find where the firmware updates are located on the mac site. Could someone point me in the right direction? I've looked under downloads and after searching, came up with a long list, but nothing was labeled clearly. Each listing mentioned firmware in the header, but it seemed to always pertain to a certain issue (eg. superdrive, or installing appleworks). I could not tell what was the most recent firmware released for my machine, and I fear installing something retrograde that will create new problems.
If anyone has any thoughts on how to deal with the firewire problem, or if you think my issue with using a FW connected drive with Time Machine might be rooted with something else, please comment.
Thanks!
HM
Message was edited by: imaginary_forest

fzgy wrote:
"Mac OS X can't repair the disk. You can still open or copy files on the disk, but you can't save changes to files on the disk. Back up the disk and reformat it as soon as you can."
It's possible a heavy-duty 3rd-party disk repair app can fix it, but they're expensive (DiskWarrior is about $100), and there's no guarantee it can do it.
Am prompted to reformat but I don't have a good understanding of what this means and how to do it.
That will erase it. See Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #5.
It sounds very much like the disk is beginning to fail, although it's possible there's a bad port, cable, connection or power supply (if it has its own).
I'd suggest getting a new one, and using it for your Time Machine backups; once you have a good backup there, reformat the old one (and select Security Options to write zeros to the whole drive -- if that fails, you know the drive is toast). Use it for secondary backups, per FAQ #27. If it has failed, get a second new one for secondary backups.

Macbook won't recognize external Hard Drive and issues with Time Machine

Hello everyone,
I have just bought a new Macbook Pro with Mountain Lion and I am currently having problems with Time Machine.
The issue begun in Snow Leopard: Time Machine was taking too long to backup, and would often not finish the backup because the external hard drive would be unwillingly ejected.
Now with Mountain Lion I have reformated the drive (Mac OS Journaled) and about a third of the way through had the same issue: the drive was ejected before the backup could be finished. I restarted the machine and it happened again. However, now the computer won't even recognize the external drive when I plug it in. I have also tried to power off/on the drive itself to no progress.
I have tested the USB port with another drive and the port is fine. I have also tested the usb cable and it is fine. And Disk Utility does not recognize the drive (even when I try the >diskutil list command in terminal).
Now, I can hear the drive humming normally when I turn it on, and it is not usb-powered (my electricity current does fluctuate).
Could the interrupted backup procedures have damaged the drive? And if so, wouldn't the computer recognize it anyway?
It is a 4 year old WD 1 TB that is used exclusively for TM and has never left the house.
Thank you for your time reading this and let me know if you need any more information that could help out.
Cheers!

From your description, I'd suspect a failing drive. Maybe time for a new external, especially as you've already re-formatted and it's still playing up.
I had a similar problem with one of my clone backups a few weeks ago - it failed, I erased it, re-cloned, worked a couple of times and then it failed again. Disk Utility didn't throw up any errors after re-formatting. I guess all disks die at some point.

What is best hard drive to use with Time Machine?

I was using a WD Passport 2TB external drive for my Time Machine backup for iMac which has a 3TB drive. The drive is almost 1 year old and only bought it to for backing up with Time Machine. The drive failed when I tried to restore a iPhoto database to my iMac on Sunday. Today on Tuesday evening. Time Machine said it could not perform a successful back up due to Disk Failure. I ran the disk utility and it gave me error. I had to erase and reformat the drive.
I was able to erase and reformat the drive and ran the disk utlity again. And it says it is working fine. I dont plan to use these portable drives for backing.
I think its time to get a better Hard Drive for my Time Machine backups. Any suggestions?

WD commercial drives for consumers are the worst, as meant their "green / blue / red" series.
The best are Hitachi and Toshiba both statistically and otherwise.
BEST FOR THE COST, Toshiba "tiny giant" 15mm thick 2TB drive (have several of them, lots of storage in tiny package)    $100
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Connect-Portable-HDTC720XK3C1/dp/B00CGUMS48     /ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1390020791&sr=8-3&keywords=toshiba+2tb
best options for the price, and high quality HD:
Quality 1TB drives are $50 per TB on 3.5" or $65 per TB on 2.5"
Perfect 1TB for $68
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-Hard-Drive/dp/B005J7YA3W/ref=sr_1_ 1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379452568&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+toshiba
Nice 500gig for $50. ultraslim perfect for use with a notebook
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B009F1CXI2/ref=s     r_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377642728&sr=1-1&keywords=toshiba+slim+500gb
*This one is the BEST portable external 2.5" HD available that money can buy:
HGST Touro Mobile 1TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $88
http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Mobile-Portable-External-0S03559/dp/B009GE6JI8/ref=sr     _1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383238934&sr=8-1&keywords=HGST+Touro+Mobile+Pro+1TB+USB+3.0+7 2 00+RPM
Most storage experts agree on the Hitachi 2.5"
Hitachi is the winner in hard drive reliability survey:
Hitachi manufacturers the safest and most reliable hard drives, according to the Storelab study. Of the hundreds of Hitachi hard drives received, not a single one had failed due to manufacturing or design errors. Adding the highest average lifespans and the best relationship between failures and market share, Hitachi can be regarded as the winner.

Best hard drive for use with Time Machine

Hi,
Has anyone determined what the best external hard drive is for use with Time Machine? Is there a particular one that works exceptionally well with Time Machine, or is it much of a muchness?
I'm looking for a Firewire 400 & Firewire 800 drive that STAYS ON all the time, and doesn't automatically spin down or spin up like the rubbish WD My Book drives do.

I can't tell you if it is the "best" hard drive for you to use with TM, but I'm quite happy with the 500 GB Buffalo Technology DriveStation Combo TurboUSB I bought recently. It is quiet, quite inexpensive for the capacity (I paid about $120 for one on sale at Fry's), & completely compatible with OS X & TM.
Best of all for me, it automatically powers down when my iMac sleeps. It also spins down after a time if the Mac's Energy Saver preference "Put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" is checked; otherwise it remains spun up until the Mac is put to sleep or switched off.
It comes with "Turbo" USB & Memeo "AutoBackup" software, neither of which I installed. (The box didn't claim these extras came in a Mac version but both Mac & Windows versions were included on the CD.) Out-of-the-box, I reformatted the drive with the Apple Partition Map scheme & two partitions, a 160 GB one for cloning my internal drive & the rest for TM. The drive works perfectly for both uses & seems quite fast, as one would expect from a 7200 rpm SATA drive.

Seagate drives not compatible with Time Machine causing OS lag/hangs?

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