What external HD are you using?

Which external HDD do I use?

All of them!

I have several WD externals, a couple of Hitachi G-Technology and a few 2.5" external enclosures. They have all done TimeMachine duty at one time or another.

My next will be a drive array, hopefully it will be my last!

I do love the Hitachi G-Technology units, for their form and functionality. Plus their FW interfaces work flawlessly. I've had trouble with WD's firewire implementation. You pay more for G-Force, but they have been worth it to me.

I have two of these .....

PhillyAnt said:

I know I could probably do a search but I am on my way out the door right now so I figured I would ask and get all of your wonderful opinions. What HD are you using to back up your machine (via Time Machine)? I want to get a 3tb drive asap. I currently use a WD drive on my older imac. What do you use and why do you like it?

Thanks!

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I have 4 LaCie d2 Quadra drives. I provide support for a system with 9 of these drives running 24/7. The fanless heatsink design is the tops. Have yet to have one fail.

I also support a system that has had 4 WD drives including their passport line and external RAID solution, 3 of which have failed. The WD passport drives are not designed for constant use IMO.


B

I have WD fat external 1TB and generic HDD enclosure 3.0 with Toshiba on it as my TM backup drive.

Beware of OWC, they are not all they are cracked up to be. I have had some bad experiences with their support and bummed to find out their USB 3 on the Guardian Maximus is not Apple compatible unless you send it back to them at your cost for a firmware update. Because its not "their" fault Apple has unique USB 3, which is BS because my older USB3 devices work just fine on my USB 3 Mac

3TB Thunderbolt for Time Machine

Purchased a LaCie 3TB Thunderbolt from MacMall, had it in two days and installed in Thunderbolt jack on running 27" 2012 3TB FD in about ten minutes.

Thunderbolt cable included along with power unit adapters for US and three overseas type electric plugs.

Excellent LaCie software opened on desktop upon power up of disc.
Clear instruction sequence set up disc for Mac use.

Initiated TM in new disc for backups, current load at 307 GB. Initial backup completed in about one hour.

It took my preceding disc, a D2 LaCie 1TB over four hours for same TM initial backup on USB 2 via powered hub.

The D2 now freed up for storage of iTunes and iPhoto files, etc.

Have been using LaCie externals for backup over twenty years.

PhillyAnt said:

Thanks for that info. So why would someone not want a large drive? If I eventually have 1.5 TB of info on my internal HD, I would probably regret not having a 3TB TM drive, correct? Since it has several copies of all my files, it would take up space a lot faster than just 1 copy of everything. Am I wrong there?

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While with Time Machine it's always preferable to have a bigger HDD than your internal one it comes down to how much you plan to have on your HDD and how much you use/change daily.

I have a 27" iMac on the way with 1Tb Fusion and have a 2Tb USB3 Seagate Backup HDD. I will only be using about 1/3 off my internal space, maybe less and most of my media files (outside of iTunes) are on external HDDs so not backed up with Time Machine. With this setup 2Tb will work fine but remember when TM runs out of space it just starts deleting the oldest backup.

I've got two RAID-1 drives, both in OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual Mini enclosures - one is 500GB (for my ripped movies) and one is 160GB (for my pictures)... and both are about full, lol.

I also have a 1TB WD Elements Time Machine drive and another 1TB WD drive in a generic enclosure that is for my "archived" data (stuff I need but not very often, but often enough I want it connected).

Basically, I have too many drives... a simple two disk RAID 1 2TB setup would work better for me (and be fairly cost effective), but I can't STAND the noise of those dual disk 3.5" enclosures. I've tried three (one Cavalry, one OWC, and another generic) and they were all WAY louder than my mini. I LOVE the Mercury Elite Pro Dual Minis - they look great with my Mac mini and are silent (fan-less). Too bad 2.5" drives top out (reasonably) at 1TB.

I'd thought about getting 2 or 3TB 3.5" drives, but I'd have to get new enclosures as my 3.5" drives are both in USB 2.0 enclosures, versus my 2.5" drives in the OWC's are Firewire 800 (best option for my '09 mini).