After Extensive Research
After extensive research, I have found that most pros use OWC (One World Computing) which is a US internet company for Macs. I ordered mine from Canada, and they arrived promptly. They have a very rugged reliable and portable hard drive,
OWC Mercury On-The-Go-Pro that has shock insulation, free backup software, and a three year warranty. A 1TB currently runs $168 USD.
A second choice I have been using is
Seagate Free Agent Go Flex, $100-120 USD. No problems so far after a year, and like the OWC, they can be USB 2
and 3
and Firewire at the same time. I really appreciate that flexibility for now and the future.
I also use both with Mac
and PC computers along with the Paragon software on my Mac for the NTFS format. Seagate Go Flex comes with Paragon for free, but it only works with Seagates. Otherwise Paragon is $20 online.
If you find a hard drive for PC's that is cheaper than for Mac's, you can easily reformat it from NTFS for PCs to HTF+ for Macs. But first make sure the backup software is available online for Macs on the hard drive manufacture's site, or there are good free ones easily available online too.
Amazon.com has the most user reviews on their site that I have found. (But not for any OWC, for which I have not found any poor reviews.)
Western Digital My Passport gets many poor reviews compared to Seagate Go Flex.
As for USB 2, 3, or FW, I agree with
sjinsjca that FW is not needed for backups after the first time. USB 3 is in the future for Mac books I understand, but the future flexibility may be useful. Likewise, SSD is unnecessary for backups and ridiculously expensive now. I do use FW for my photos, which are stored off my Mac, for faster access for my programs.
I believe portable hard drives are not only smaller, but some are more durable, like the OWC which has shock insulation.
Now for cloud and Time Capsule. Like
sjinsjca said and many, many others, if you highly value your data, 2 backups are necessary. This can be accomplished in several ways:
- 2 portable hard drives with 1 stored offsite (neighbor, friend, work, etc) that you alternate perhaps weekly, depending on how much data you can afford to lose.
- 1 hard drive PLUS either Time Machine with a second hard drive OR internet (cloud) storage.
Advantages of Time Machine are frequent automatic backups and easy restore. I find it very convenient. A disadvantage is possible computer slow downs, and even freezes as your internal hard drive memory fills up, as mine has. Also both hard drives would probably need to be kept at the same place, depending on how often you backup.
Offsite storage is especially important in case of fire, flood, theft, etc.
Internet storage (cloud, online) can be very convenient, no offsite storage necessary, but pricey. Google it for prices. Many sites offer 2GB for free. Occasionally these sites do have troubles, hence the double backup strategy is still needed.
One more bit: Consider a bootable backup. The other backups are usually for data backup only: pictures, documents, etc. When your computer fails, you will have to get a new computer before you can access your data with them.
If you have a bootable backup you can just plug it in, USB but FW is better, and you have a useable computer again. I believe you can partition a portable backup drive to do both types of backup on the same drive if this is important to you, but double check that please.
Remember to unplug your backup (except for Time Machine) from your computer when you are not backing up. If a virus or a power surge/interruption affects your computer it may affect any connected drives as well, which could be another disadvantage of Time Machine.
Last note: YOU ARE WISE TO BACK UP, ALL COMPUTERS FAIL, IT IS JUST A MATTER OF WHEN.
