advice, suggestions on hdd new imac/and user

[rogerbottrell]

interested in buying an external hard drive for my iMac- frankly, i am not very proficient with it yet- it has been a 6 month struggle and lots of youtube tutorials--and very good response from the macrumors folks-

i think what i want is a one tb external hard drive to connect with my hub/ or do i need to connect at the usb slot on the back?--the hdd should be a 3.0 and i guess that is about all i know about it.--i intend to use it for the backup capability that i have not yet researched- how? etc--and for movie, etc storage--yes i have looked at the various suggested brands models etc all from folks who have a vested interest in moving their product i suppose--(apple pclassesonline and so on)-give me a fellow user with first hand experience anytime.thank you

 

[Weaselboy]

Pretty much every hard drive maker out there has been bought by or merged with either Seagate or Western Digital. One is as good as the other.

So just go buy a USB3 drive from one of those two in the size you need for the best price you can get. Like this or this.

Just format the drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) in Disk Utility then use OS X built in Time Machine program for backups.

You should not use the same drive for storing other files, because if that drive fails your files will be gone since they are not backed up in a second location.

Yes, you can either directly attach the drive to a USB port on the iMac, or if you have a USB3 hub, that will work also.

Ordinarily you will want to buy a drive large enough to hold 1.5 to 2X the total amount of data you expect to have to allow for Time Machine to save versions of files.

 

[Steveatesh]

I went for the PC version of the Seagate 2 Tb external USB3 drives ( they charger for the Mac version, I could see no benefits hence my decision).

I plugged it in and Time Machine picked it up immediately, sorted it the way it wanted to and it's been working a treat ever since.

I have the 1 Tb. Fusion drive, I agree with above poster you should get a larger drive, in any case there is not a lot of price difference.

Best of luck with it.

 

[joema2]

interested in buying an external hard drive for my iMac...connect with my hub/ or do i need to connect at the usb slot on the back?...i intend to use it for the backup capability that i have not yet researched- how? etc--and for movie, etc storage...

Your basic choices are between externally-powered external drives (requires AC adapter and wall plug) or bus-powered drives. The bus-powered ones are more convenient but smaller and generally not as fast.

That said there are a few fast bus-powered drives, such as the 7200 rpm HGST Touro S. http://www.amazon.com/HGST-High-Per...8&qid=1421960320&sr=8-1&keywords=hgst+touro+s

The other issue is you normally don't want important content on the same drive you're backing up. If that drive failed you'd lose both your content and the backup. Sometimes content you can re-acquire (maybe with difficulty) such as downloaded videos could be put on there, plus your normal backups.

If you delete files from your main computer after backing up to a hard drive, that's not really a backup -- it's archiving them. That's OK for some things but for important, non-replaceable items you want those in at least two places.

 

[rogerbottrell]

Thank you--two may be my solution.?

Thank you--two may be my solution.?

Your basic choices are between externally-powered external drives (requires AC adapter and wall plug) or bus-powered drives. The bus-powered ones are more convenient but smaller and generally not as fast.

That said there are a few fast bus-powered drives, such as the 7200 rpm HGST Touro S. http://www.amazon.com/HGST-High-Per...8&qid=1421960320&sr=8-1&keywords=hgst+touro+s

The other issue is you normally don't want important content on the same drive you're backing up. If that drive failed you'd lose both your content and the backup. Sometimes content you can re-acquire (maybe with difficulty) such as downloaded videos could be put on there, plus your normal backups.

If you delete files from your main computer after backing up to a hard drive, that's not really a backup -- it's archiving them. That's OK for some things but for important, non-replaceable items you want those in at least two places.