Best Time Machine Solution for MBP?

[richard13]

To get me started with Time Machine I hooked up a USB external drive enclosure with a WDC HD I had been using off and on for my PC. While this works, the drive makes noise and I have to remember to unmount and disconnect the HD every time I want to take my MBP anywhere.

Could anyone recommend a better, quieter drive?

Do all external drives need to do the two step process of unmounting then disconnect?

What about using Time Capsule? I like my existing router and don't like the idea of paying that much for something that is essentially a backup device with a simple router but maybe this is a better option?

Thanks.

 

[MarkSTi04]

The eject device thing seems to be for just about anything you hook up to the Mac via-USB. I have a Seagate Free Agent Go, and only used it to transfer data from my PC to the mac. Its a good quiet drive. I really wanted a Free Agent Go for Mac, but its packaged with a dock and thats part of the reason why it cost a bit more than the drive I have now.

Im gonna look into putting it on the Airport Extreme and see if Time Machine will back up to it wirelessly. I don't have any experence with that yet, but Im sure there is a way to do it.

Im still sold on getting a Time Capsule at some point in the future, the only thing about it is the cost. $500 for 1TB is a lot and you can get a 1TB HD for under $200 these days easy.

I will say this in much favor to the Seagate Free Agent Go for Mac, is that it has both USB and FireWire 400/800, so that might be a good option for you. I haven't used the Firewire yet on my MBP so I don't know what happens when you connect/disconnect from it. Anyone care to comment about how that goes?

 

[Mark2000]

yeah, find a cheap airport extreme N and hook your usb drive to it. Use Airport Disk Utility to make it mount each time you connect to the network. Its pretty great.