best external drive to use with time machine?

[mrgreeneyes]

hello,

I never used time machine and I would like to start, I think it would be a good practice for me to use it.

what is the best external drive that I should be using, and size wise also? I am thinking my MacBook has a 512gb drive, so I should get at least 1tb external drive, but my MacBook also only has usb c ports, should I use a hub for the time machine drive or get a drive that has a usb c cable?

thanks for all your help.

 

[Panther61]

I like the portability of this Sandisk Extreme unit. It is very popular. I just pull it out of my bag whenever I get reminded to back-up. You might keep you laptop in a more permanent spot so I have a second Sandisk Extreme to back up my Mini. They come in a variety of sizes. I did not choose to pay additional $ for the rugged version. 1gb in the USA <$150. The portable drive also comes standard for USB C, and includes a USB A adapter.

Link to Amazon (who else?)

 

[Fishrrman]

"I never used time machine and I would like to start, I think it would be a good practice for me to use it."

For backup, either an SSD or a platter-based hard drive would do well enough.
BUT...
I'd suggest either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper as "better backup utilities".
But that's just me.

 

[Weaselboy]

Hard drives are pretty much a commodity any more. Just buy whatever 1TB USB-C drive you can find on sale.

 

[jz0309]

for backup, a hard drive is good enough, SSD sure but you can save that money. 1TB is sufficient
And I second @Fishrrman to use CCC or SuperDuper

 

[mrgreeneyes]

"I never used time machine and I would like to start, I think it would be a good practice for me to use it."

For backup, either an SSD or a platter-based hard drive would do well enough.
BUT...
I'd suggest either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper as "better backup utilities".
But that's just me.

Why would carbon copy cloner or super duper be better, than just using time machine?

 

[mrgreeneyes]

Which is better? I see lots of people use the Samsung t5 drive.

 

[Lee Cooper]

Tend to disagree that 1TB is good enough for backup. If you have on your computer 1TB hard drive, you will need around 3 TB for a realistic backup with time machine.
Time machine is incremental, it keeps copies several copies of your changed files. Few years from now your computer will still use the 1Tb drive but the 3 Tb TimeMachine drive fill be full.

For a 2tb computer good to have 5 tb backup drive for time machine.
If you have important data to backup, I will say you should consider two separately backup drives, one for TimeMachine and one stand alone.
Now, a 3tb SSD price is dramatically higher. Unfortunately even today the SSD prices are not a lot lower than 10 years ago.
Still stuck with old HDD for backup.

 

[MikeDr206]

Frankly, I don’t think it really matters, since Time Machine‘s speed has little to do with the hard drive. I have multiple TM hard drives, ranging from a 2 TB SanDisk SSD (the 2 TB version of the one pictured above) to a RAID 1 array of 8 TB WD NAS Red drives in an ioSafe Duo enclosure. As a general rule, bigger is better, so you can store more historical versions of files.

 

[MikeDr206]

I do recommend the ioSafe Duo highly. It’s pricey, but has unmatched fire and water resistant characteristics. Super silent too. USB C.

Duo

With two redundant hard drives and ioSafe’s fireproof and waterproof technology, the Duo is the simplest and most affordable way to fully protect your data.

iosafe.com

 

[MarkC426]

Why would carbon copy cloner or super duper be better, than just using time machine?

I use both TM and Superduper.
TM for incremental daily backups (Lacie d2 Professional HDD) and Superduper for cloning different drives (Bootable clone and data).
If you only use SD or CCC and don't backup everyday, you may lose files that you accidentally deleted/wrote over.
With TM they are instantly available from max an hour earlier.

 

[return2sendai]

Tend to disagree that 1TB is good enough for backup. If you have on your computer 1TB hard drive, you will need around 3 TB for a realistic backup with time machine.
Time machine is incremental, it keeps copies several copies of your changed files. Few years from now your computer will still use the 1Tb drive but the 3 Tb TimeMachine drive fill be full.

For a 2tb computer good to have 5 tb backup drive for time machine.
If you have important data to backup, I will say you should consider two separately backup drives, one for TimeMachine and one stand alone.
Now, a 3tb SSD price is dramatically higher. Unfortunately even today the SSD prices are not a lot lower than 10 years ago.
Still stuck with old HDD for backup.

Agree. I’m shopping for a new external disk myself. My 2TB iMac has 1.5TB used, so I need at least a 2TB back up disk. I currently have an old hard drive but I’m looking for maybe an SSD. Is there much difference in speeds, reliability, etc?

 

[svenr]

Agree. I’m shopping for a new external disk myself. My 2TB iMac has 1.5TB used, so I need at least a 2TB back up disk. I currently have an old hard drive but I’m looking for maybe an SSD. Is there much difference in speeds, reliability, etc?

You really don't need an SSD for backups. Wasted money IMO. Use SSD where speed matters.

 

[BSoares]

You really don't need an SSD for backups. Wasted money IMO. Use SSD where speed matters.

I agree and my TM drives are HDD but I hate how I hear them starting up every hour when TM runs. If they were SSD, I'd not have to hear that. I hate the noise of a starting hard drive so much, I actually downloaded this tool to modify the time machine schedule so it doesn't run as often. I have all my important files saved to iCloud anyways so it's not like an hourly backup is needed.

 

[MarkC426]

Agree. I’m shopping for a new external disk myself. My 2TB iMac has 1.5TB used, so I need at least a 2TB back up disk. I currently have an old hard drive but I’m looking for maybe an SSD. Is there much difference in speeds, reliability, etc?

If you currently have used 1.5TB, I would opt for a 4TB Time Machine drive.
Depending how often you create new files, your 500gb space won't last long, then you will be overwriting.