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Your iMac's Time Machine Hard Drive
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I was using a Western Digital My Book 750 GB ..... but as we speak moving up to a 1TB unit with plans to expand to 2GB.
Well, I had to get something restored on my iMac's hard drive that was accidently deleted and had to be recovered professionally (it was deleted due to an error on my computer). I took my iMac to the Apple store to have them pull the hard drive out so I could take the drive to a recovery place.
Well, Apple thought the drive had malfunctioned so they replaced it! Because the original drive was fine, I bought an external enclosure for the original drive and have been using it as my back up every since!
Well, Apple thought the drive had malfunctioned so they replaced it! Because the original drive was fine, I bought an external enclosure for the original drive and have been using it as my back up every since!
I use a Seagate 750GB SATA drive inside a Vantec enclosure. The unit is hooked up to iMac through a USB 2.0.
I prefer to buy the enclosure and drive separately -- mainly because you
seldom know what you're getting with a "pre-assembled" external drive.
- Only the fastest HD mechanisms are fast enough to take full advantage
of the speed potential of firewire 800. If the manufacturer doesn't specify
which drive they're using (or its sustained R/W transfer rates) it's a safe
bet that they're not using the highest performance drives available.
- Only SATA-based external enclosures provide a pathway for upgrades
to high-performance drives of the future. EIDE/PATA is an obsolete, dead
technology, but many "pre-packaged" externals are still using EIDE/PATA
drives. Often, the internal interface type is unspecified -- or in the case
of WD MyBooks, the manufacturer reserves the right to supply either type
(under the same model number) -- "depending on availability."
There are lots of good external enclosures out there, but my favorite is
Icy Dock's USB/FW800 model MB559UEB-1S. (It also works on FW400,
with a cheap 9-pin to 6-pin firewire adapter cable). It lacks the eSATA
capability of "quad interface" enclosures -- but (unfortunately), iMacs
don't have eSATA ports, so "quad" is nice but currently useless on iMac.
http://www.icydock.com/product/mb559ueb-1s.html
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198006
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994038
There are only a few high-capacity drives (500GB & up) fast enough to
make full use of FW800 speeds. Seagate's 7200.11 & ES.2 product lines
(105 GB/s, sustained) are available in 500GB, 750GB and 1TB. Western
Digital's 750GB WD7500AAKS is nearly as fast (95 GB/s) but I don't know
of any 500GB or 1TB Western Digital HDs with equivalent performance.
Samsung's 1TB SpinPointF is also extremely fast -- but doesn't seem to
match the Seagates in "overall performance" (see tomshardware.com).
The price of the Icy Dock enclosure plus a fast 750GB drive is typically
about the same as a "pre-assembled" external HD with unknown parts:
about $235 with the WD7500AAKS, $250 with a Seagate ST3750330AS.
LK
I'd have to agree on preferring to DIY it so I have purchased a Plaides MacPower external enclosure which does FW400/800, eSata, and USB2.
Inside is a nice Samsung 750Gb Highspeed 7200 RPM (32Mb Cache) drive attached via the FW800 port.
Very nice and fast and runs cool....
Inside is a nice Samsung 750Gb Highspeed 7200 RPM (32Mb Cache) drive attached via the FW800 port.
Very nice and fast and runs cool....
That Iomega looks like a nice one, and at a good price too. I went with a 500 GB G-Tech Drive. It seems to work okay as well. And the Time Machine app itself. What a great piece of work. Talk about set and forget. Why nobody offered something like this before I have no idea. But I'm glad it's available now. It should save a lot of people a lot of grief over the years.
Morod
Morod
I had an extra 320 GB ESATA drive laying around that I threw into a $25 USB 2 Enclosure. Works nicely. The time machine drive doesn't have to be anything fancy. It only should be at least as large as the drive inside of your iMac.
Do most of you use a hard drive that is smaller, the same size, or larger than your iMac's internal drive. I suppose it couldn't have hurt for me to buy a larger (1TB) drive for Time Machine to make backups from further in the past... but I decided on this one because of the great price.
I suppose it will be fine as long as I don't completely fill up the internal drive any time soon.
I was also considering using some sort of RAID device, but since the data will already be in two locations (internal and external) I didn't think it would be worth it. I suppose if I had it set up as a RAID 1 (maybe 0) I could have had some speed improvements... I don't know, I still don't completely understand the different flavors of RAID.
Does anyone out there use a RAID device? Could you explain your setup and why you utilize it?
I suppose it will be fine as long as I don't completely fill up the internal drive any time soon.
I was also considering using some sort of RAID device, but since the data will already be in two locations (internal and external) I didn't think it would be worth it. I suppose if I had it set up as a RAID 1 (maybe 0) I could have had some speed improvements... I don't know, I still don't completely understand the different flavors of RAID.
Does anyone out there use a RAID device? Could you explain your setup and why you utilize it?
Given that the OP asked about " Time Machine " drives for backing up data, blazing high speed drives are not really needed. Now if he asked about video editing, or game playing it would be a consideration.
It would not make sense to use a drive for backup that is smaller than the drive you are backing up.
I think 'tomshardware.com' need to visit the Seagate and Western Digital websites. Those numbers do not look right to me.
Seagate says the 7200.11 is :
Western Digital says the WD7500AAKS is:
Circuit City has the 1TB Western Digital Mybook for $239 ... it is USB 2.0 only, but what do you need for a backup drive?
It would not make sense to use a drive for backup that is smaller than the drive you are backing up.
I think 'tomshardware.com' need to visit the Seagate and Western Digital websites. Those numbers do not look right to me.
Seagate says the 7200.11 is :
Western Digital says the WD7500AAKS is:
Circuit City has the 1TB Western Digital Mybook for $239 ... it is USB 2.0 only, but what do you need for a backup drive?
I don't have an external drive yet, but will when the 1TB Time Capsule is released later this month.
Maybe somebody will correct me but it's my understanding that oversizing your time machine drive compared to your computer's hard drive is what's best.
Time machine will make multiple versions of backups based on the dates for which you make changes. Therefore, a 10 meg file can be much larger when you look at the total hard drive space it demands after a you make a few revisions over time.
Right now, I'm using my old 300GB drive as a backup for my 500GB internal drive. But soon, I will buy a 750GB or 1TB drive for backup and use my old drive for a multimedia external drive only.
Time machine will make multiple versions of backups based on the dates for which you make changes. Therefore, a 10 meg file can be much larger when you look at the total hard drive space it demands after a you make a few revisions over time.
Right now, I'm using my old 300GB drive as a backup for my 500GB internal drive. But soon, I will buy a 750GB or 1TB drive for backup and use my old drive for a multimedia external drive only.
If you have a 500GB internal and a 300GB external your total storage is 800GB. You would be wise and are right to understand that the Time Machine drive should be larger. A 750GB drive *might* be large enough but I would opt for the 1 TB.
This is assuming that the 500GB is full though, right? For example... I have a 750 internal, and just ordered my 750 external. Since my internal is only about 1/2 full though... the 750 external should be MORE than enough for now, right?
you should be fine. sounds like you did your research and just didn't buy the cheapest one you could find. don't second guess yourself. if it isn't enough room you can always look to get another or larger one in the future when they are even cheaper than they are now
It'll be fine for now. Keep in mind that your external will top out before your internal, at which point you can start using the 750 external as a 2nd hard drive and order a 2 TB external to use as the Time Machine drive.
I'm looking at a 500GB OWC Mercury Elite. They specify the "standard mechanism" as a WD Caviar SE16. I guess "standard" doesn't guarantee anything. For TM backup is it really necessary to know more? I have also been considering a Seagate 7200.11 + enclosure, but suspect I am over-analyzing this purchase.
Which specific numbers don't look right?
No, Seagate says 105 MB/s (the uppercase 'B' indicates BYTES). They also specify
1287 Mb/s (lowercase 'b' indicates bits ) but I don't know why I'd care about that).
http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/desktop/Barracuda 7200.11/100452348b.pdf
No, that's the spec for the 500GB WD5000AAKS. The spec for the 750GB
WD7500AAKS is 98 MB/s.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1543&p_created=1180994587
BTW, the 972 Mb/s spec is misleading/meaningless -- you can't translate
to MB/s by simply dividing by eight. WD doesn't provide a MB/s spec for
the 500GB AAKS drive -- but it's in the 80 MB/s ballpark.
LK
I use the WD MyBook 500 GB (I think it's 5200 rpm) that's both FW and USB. I also noticed that it is quite loud when it's running... a lot louder than my iMac.
I have considered getting the Time Capsule, partly because I need a wireless router. I'll wait a couple of months and see what's up with it.
I'm using the 80GB PATA HD out of my old, dead laptop (Sony Vaio S-150-- had a whole slew of motherboard issues), in a Macally PHR-250CC Firewire/USB2.0 enclosure. I figured going that route would be significantly cheaper than getting a larger hard drive for my Mac mini, and easier to install (already spent a couple hours putting 2x2GB in...)
Plus I can run the drive off the Firewire port, so I don't need to have an extra power adapter powering the drive.
The enclosure is pretty solidly built; the only problem I have with it is a *really* bright blue LED (Why do manufacturers do this!?). I actually want to try to get a broken Airport Express 802.11n (the ones with the same footprint as the mini) and fit the enclosure into it, but they're pretty hard to find (and I'd feel pretty bad tearing apart a working one).
Anyway, I've got it partitioned into two-- there's a partition for TimeMachine, and an NTFS partition that I have extra Windows stuff on for the rare occasion that I boot into it.
Plus I can run the drive off the Firewire port, so I don't need to have an extra power adapter powering the drive.
The enclosure is pretty solidly built; the only problem I have with it is a *really* bright blue LED (Why do manufacturers do this!?). I actually want to try to get a broken Airport Express 802.11n (the ones with the same footprint as the mini) and fit the enclosure into it, but they're pretty hard to find (and I'd feel pretty bad tearing apart a working one).
Anyway, I've got it partitioned into two-- there's a partition for TimeMachine, and an NTFS partition that I have extra Windows stuff on for the rare occasion that I boot into it.