Need suggestion on buying external hdd for time machine

[hzxu]

Since yesterday I messed up the MBR section of the harddisk when installing Ubuntu, it cost me a whole night removing/repartitioning/replacing hard disks from macbook pro and pc laptop, also I only have a 8GB usb stick so not all data can be backed up, I decided to buy an external hard disk for time machine. I am not familiar with this and have some questions:

1 What can it backup? Whole disk, everything? Only documents, music and video? Or I can select what folder to backup? What about certificates(I use XCode for iphone development)?

2 Does it backup whenever a file is modified(so there is several copies of one file at different time)? Or only the latest version of a file is backed up? I have a 160GB harddisk, how much quantity of the external harddisk do I need for this?

3 Do I have to use Apple's time capsule only? Or I can use any other brand? If so, which brand is the best?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Badger^2]

You can use any drive you want. No drive is "the best".

Heres a good drive at a great price:
http://www.frys.com/product/6002228?site=sa:Homepage

There 2 types of backup, Time Machine, and something like Carbon Copy Cloner/Superduper/Silverkeeper etc.

TM keeps multiple copies

The others only keep the latest

Both of them can be scheduled, but TM needs an add on to do specific times.

Read for yourself:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/what-is-macosx/time-machine.html
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

 

[thegoldenmackid]

Try this.