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Question about backing up stuff on my MBP

wgilles

wgilles

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 21, 2008
315
0
I take a ton of photographs and don't want to loose them so I want to get an external HD to back up my stuff. I think I have this correct but am unsure: Can I take an internal Hard drive and put it in a HD enclosure and use that as an external HD for time machine? Can I use these 2 products together?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144171
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817113055

Or can someone recommend a combo? I need 250GB.

EDIT:
I don't think I stated what I want to do correctly. I am not looking to replace or upgrade my notebook HD. I want an external HD for backing up my HD, like a Time Capsule does, but I don't feel like spending the money on one. Hope that cleared it up.
 
wgilles said:
I take a ton of photographs and don't want to loose them so I want to get an external HD to back up my stuff. I think I have this correct but am unsure: Can I take an internal Hard drive and put it in a HD enclosure and use that as an external HD for time machine? Can I use these 2 products together?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144171
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817113055

Or can someone recommend a combo? I need 250GB.
Click to expand...

If you want to swap drives (internal to external encloseure and vice-versa, you need SATA drives 9.5mm hight.

I would suggest looking at OWC.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MS8U5250HB8/

I have done this many times. Take the new drive out of the enclosure (very easy with just a few phillips screwdrivers) and put that into your mbp. Take the original mbp drive and put that back into the enclosure. Boot off the enclosure drive and use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone the external (old drive) to the internal (new drive). Then you can boot off of your internal drive and erase the external.

One thing to note, you will need to reformat the new drive with the GUID partition map or the mbp will not boot from it. Do this prior to cloning using Disk Utility and the Partition tab.
 
here is a combo, it's 320gb.

images
 
wgilles said:
I take a ton of photographs and don't want to loose them so I want to get an external HD to back up my stuff. I think I have this correct but am unsure: Can I take an internal Hard drive and put it in a HD enclosure and use that as an external HD for time machine? Can I use these 2 products together?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144171
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817113055

Or can someone recommend a combo? I need 250GB.
Click to expand...

Yes you can buy an internal drive and put it in an enclosure; however the hard drive you chose is a desktop 3.5" drive and the enclosure is a 2.5" enclosure.

You can either buy one of the preassembled external drives already suggested or you can buy:
Choose a drive from this page:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150380+1035907918&name=SATA+1.5Gb/s
OR this page:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150380+1035915133&name=SATA+3.0Gb/s

Then get the enclosure you chose.
 
I don't think I stated what I want to do correctly. I am not looking to replace or upgrade my notebook HD. I want an external HD for backing up my HD, like a Time Capsule does, but I don't feel like spending the money on one. Hope that cleared it up.
 
wgilles said:
I don't think I stated what I want to do correctly. I am not looking to replace or upgrade my notebook HD. I want an external HD for backing up my HD, like a Time Capsule does, but I don't feel like spending the money on one. Hope that cleared it up.
Click to expand...

Yes I assumed that and that's what I suggested accordingly; how much is your budget and I can go into specifics for you. Also do you want an external that run on AC or USB/Firewire powered. Bus powered is smaller and a big more expensive per gigabyte; AC powered is less portable, but you can get bigger capacities.
 
alphaod said:
Yes I assumed that and that's what I suggested accordingly; how much is your budget and I can go into specifics for you. Also do you want an external that run on AC or USB/Firewire powered. Bus powered is smaller and a big more expensive per gigabyte; AC powered is less portable, but you can get bigger capacities.
Click to expand...

I'll just go AC powered because it will stay on my desk at all times. I'd like to spend under 150 bucks if possible. Thanks
 
The cheapest method is buying a 250GB MyBook drive from Western Digital (if drives that small are still made). It's the desktop-size hard drive inside a case that needs power. If you have an AEBS, you can network that drive.

If you need something more portable or just without the power supply, get a Passport 250GB drive from WD. It's a laptop hard drive in a case.

Don't bother buying an enclosure and drive when you can buy them already made and much purtier than at least the recycled tin can I found.

If you buy a drive that isn't made by WD, you have a big "I told you so!!!" coming from me! I would never recommend another hard drive in my life to someone. I also know that the My Book drives work with the AEBS.

Also, check prices on the bigger drives. Sometimes a 500GB drive is only about another $20. If that's the case, DO IT.
 
wgilles said:
I'll just go AC powered because it will stay on my desk at all times. I'd like to spend under 150 bucks if possible. Thanks
Click to expand...

Best Buy has the My Book 320GB for $115 and the My Passport 250GB for either $100 or $120. Just a reference since most people have a Best Buy nearby.
 
Buy this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148298

Yes I like Seagate, they make the best drives. 750GB with free shipping

Get this enclosure:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817173040

I have that enclosure and it's very good.

Total would be $170. Yes you are about $20 over but that's a lot of space for so little money.

Also if you want to use eSATA and don't have card, I have this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839229001

Works for me.

If you don't need so much space you can save quite a bit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148136

This one is 500GB, shipping isn't free, so the total would be around $125 with shipping.

If you want to use eSATA, but don't have an eSATA card, I would recommend this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16839229001

Cheaper than what Apple recommends and it works; just be sure to get the drives from the SiliconImage website:
http://www.siliconimage.com/support/supportsearchresults.aspx?pid=32&cid=3&ctid=2&osid=3&

First one is the one; if you are going to run RAID on it, then you will need the second one, but you won't for now so no need.
 
Michael CM1 said:
The cheapest method is buying a 250GB MyBook drive from Western Digital (if drives that small are still made). It's the desktop-size hard drive inside a case that needs power. If you have an AEBS, you can network that drive.

If you need something more portable or just without the power supply, get a Passport 250GB drive from WD. It's a laptop hard drive in a case.

Don't bother buying an enclosure and drive when you can buy them already made and much purtier than at least the recycled tin can I found.

If you buy a drive that isn't made by WD, you have a big "I told you so!!!" coming from me! I would never recommend another hard drive in my life to someone. I also know that the My Book drives work with the AEBS.

Also, check prices on the bigger drives. Sometimes a 500GB drive is only about another $20. If that's the case, DO IT.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll have to check those out. I do like Western Digital. I've had a WD HD in my parents desktop for almost 8 years now with no failure, great piece of hardware.

EDIT: I was just surfing around looking for a good deal and found this one:
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=206409667

Seems pretty good to me.
 
I use one of those as a back-up for my iMac and it works great. Nice price too. If you use google checkout for the first time with Buy.com you get $10 off.
 
Bobioden said:
I use one of those as a back-up for my iMac and it works great. Nice price too. If you use google checkout for the first time with Buy.com you get $10 off.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip, I'll take advantage of that! Thanks to everyone else too for the help.
 
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