I'm New - Time Machine Questions And Alternatives

[lordsion]

OK so i have never owned a Mac but will get an iMac shortly when the new ones are released.


Anyways, excuse my ignorance and stupid questions, however with Time Machine on Leopard am i able to plug in any hard drive (via USB or Firewire) to the iMac's back ports and let Time Machine still work and use that hard drive as the back up hard drive? Also will it do so automatically?


Second question, is there any other device like Time Capsule that will allow me to back up wireless? if not, is there any roundabouts way to get to back up wireless?

Once again sorry for my dumb questions, I am a Mac virgin. I just hear so many bad things about TC but i just want a simple backup solution that will cause no trouble. I was thinking Time Machine on Leopard would still back up automatically and all in the background via any normal hard drive.

 

[gwihannom]

All of your questions, yes.

Time Capsule is great, because it will replace your wireless router, distribute it to wireless N if not already, and also have 500GB or 1TB of hard drive space on it. It's many devices in one, which is up to you to decide. I, for one, was looking into buying a new wireless router when I was purchasing Time Capsule anyway. Right around the same time I purchased MacBook Pro. So it was a great purchase for me. I've been using it for awhile and thankfully have not experienced problems that some of the threads have mentioned.

But if you have a more recent wireless router, already own a large external hard drive, you really don't need Time Capsule. Unlike a notebook, your iMac is not going to be "moving" around, so having a USB external hard drive connected to the back of iMac is a good idea.

As for Network Storage devices, Maxtor and WD brands do make them, but the experiences of using them weren't impressive. But some say Time Capsule isn't impressive, so that's up to you to decide.

 

[lordsion]

awww thank you i appreciate it!

 

[akm3]

Confirmation of the above, it is all true.

I have a Time Capsule that wirelessly backs up a Mac Mini and a Macbook Air, and my macbook Pro has a firewire drive attached to it that does the time machine.

It's my favorite backup strategy, it is so easy