Which Backup Hard Drive for Time Machine?

Question

I ordered a new iMac from Apple. I need to order my backup hard drive and someone from here on the boards recommended http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/400+USB2/. I was going to get the 750 GB backup drive (I got the iMac with 640 GB), but I see there's a 1,000 GB backup drive that's basically the same price ($2 cheaper) but has half the cache (16 MB vs. 32 MB). I'm guessing that the cache stores information as it transfers from the main hard drive before the backup records it, so that the bigger the cache, the more it can store, and probably the faster the backup goes from the perspective of the main computer (i.e. the backup slows the computer less). Do you think that having twice the size of cache outweighs have 3/4 the size of hard drive? Would you go for the 750 GB with 32 MB cache, or the 1000 GB with 16 MG cache?

Answer 1

The only one I really care about is AOL 10.3.7. It allows me to store emails, as emails, in any folder on my hard drive. The newer versions of AOL, called AOL Desktop (which are still in beta as AOL ignored Macs for about 5 years), do not allow you to access files on the hard drive other than files within the application itself. So if I can't use AOL 10.3.7 I'll lose 15 years of email. Right now I forward all my email from the two colleges where I teach to AOL and used 10.3.7 to download them to my hard drive. That way when a student writes about an issue I can look back at her previous emails and see both what she and I said. (Or when some administrator promises something, I go back and read what he actually said at he time. :-D) I routinely look back at older email, especially for work. So it's very important that I be able to continue to access my older email files, and store new emails on my hard drive in my current file hierarchy. I mean Office and other applications allow you to store what you want where you want, so I don't see why email programs no longer do.
As for the rest, I do want to keep all my Safari and Firefox settings, but as I'm using the current versions, there's not problem with them. I'd prefer not to have to take the time to reinstall everything of course. As for Office, I am using 2004 for Mac, but I've ordered 2008 for the Mac with my iMac because Apple and Microsoft have a 50% off deal for back to school, which cuts about another $35 off the usual 40% educational discount that Microsoft offers. (Apple used to offer those big discounts too, back in the 1990s, when I got my G4, but these days they offer only $50 or $100 off as an educational discount, which is one reason I haven't bought a new computer in 9-10 years!) I have the latest Acrobat too, as Adobe also had a good educational discount.
A buddy of mine who does programming for the federal government said that it's a real testament to Apple's quality that my 10-year-old G4 still performs. He said that a PC would have died about half way through. I did get the top-of-the-line model thanks to both the educational discounts of the day and to the Apple student loan program (I was in my first Ph.D. program then), and expanded the RAM, so that 10 years later I'm still able to use the G4. I do all my teaching at two colleges online now, and the computer has gradually gotten slower as it encounters more and more information it was never designed to handle. Ten years ago every website didn't have fifty dancing babies or whatever. Now every website seem to have an embedded video or three all insisting on playing at the same time. I'm looking forward to that sort of thing not bringing my computer to a halt.