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Before I buy a HDD - which have the most/least Time Machine probs?

T

TheNorthWaves

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 13, 2007
329
18
USA
I read something like Lacie, WD-Mybook and some others were causing the majority of the problem. Aside from those, are there others to avoid?

An even better question is, what HDDs seem to be performing well with time machine? I am in the market for a HDD for this exclusive purpose. I could either assemble a HDD + a case, or buy a complete unit. Either is fine. I've been reading about it but info is a bit scattered.

Opinions?
 
I have 2 Western Digital drives, and i love them. They run perfect. The MyBook is exceptionally fast
 
I got a 250 GB Maxtor Onetouch II drive a couple of years ago and its erased all my files, had multiple b-tree faults , etc. Generally has been really unreliable.

Got a Western Digital MyBook Premium 500 GB a couple of months ago and its been a dream!
 
Nitrocide said:
I got a 250 GB Maxtor Onetouch II drive a couple of years ago and its erased all my files, had multiple b-tree faults , etc. Generally has been really unreliable.

Got a Western Digital MyBook Premium 500 GB a couple of months ago and its been a dream!
Click to expand...

Same problems here with Maxtor Onetouch. I'll never buyfrom them again, it happened to me with two different Maxtor HDD.
Now I'm happy with my Lacie Quadra... worth the money that it costs.
 
I have Maxtor externals and I've been happy with them except for one thing, there is no on/off switch on them.
 
TheNorthWaves said:
An even better question is, what HDDs seem to be performing well with time machine? I am in the market for a HDD for this exclusive purpose.

Opinions?
Click to expand...

I have been using a MyBook (WD) 320GB and have had no issues works perfectly. Time Machine had to reformat the drive from FAT32 but no issues. Works great
 
TheNorthWaves said:
I read something like Lacie, WD-Mybook and some others were causing the majority of the problem. Aside from those, are there others to avoid?
Click to expand...

I don't believe for a second that the manufacturer is closely related to the problems. Lacie/WD probably makes the most popular drives (at least in sheer numbers), thus way more people will report problems with them.

If you are in the market for a dedicated TM drive, just decide how much you're prepared to pay and line up the candidates. The Drobo isn't playing in the same league as standard drive, but no matter which drive you choose, there will be people who tell you "It runs great!" as well as "Don't go anywhere near them, it's total crap!".

Well, I might as well join those people, I can confirm that at least my WD MyBook Studio is working great with TM ;)
 
I started using a WD MyBook Studio 1 TB drive for Time Machine earlier this week. So far it is working well. It works better than the Maxtor 320GB drive it replaced, because every time I did something that would force the Maxtor to wake up I'd get the spinning beachball waiting for it. I don't have that problem with the WD (it does sleep, but waking again is near instantaneous it seems)
 
Within 3 months, all of my lacie 1TB drives failed, 2 because of crappy maxtor drive issues, and 2 because the PSU literally fried the drives.

Since then I've bought my own enclosures, and put my own WD drives in them without any problem... with any software I use including time machine.
 
I've been using a 250G AcomData E5 Series HD, and have had no problems with it. TM works great, and I had been using it for a year before I got TM with no problems.

O.T. Slightly, does anybody happen to know what brand of HD AcomData uses in their enclosures?
 
TM just copies files from one drive to another. Any drive that you can copy files on with no problems will work with TM just as well as any other.
 
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