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AppleCrisp

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 22, 2007
97
0
Hey
I know there a seemingly billions of threads out there about Time Machine but unfortunately I am too lazy to search them so....
My question is is it a bad idea to get a USB 2.0 drive to use as my backup for time machine? Is USB too slow to backup up all my stuff or is it fast enough/ will it be suitable for Time Machine. Perhaps someone out there with a USB 2.0 drive and who has Leopard can answer my question.
Thanks
 
I typed the answer in another post. Unfortunately I'm too lazy to post it again here. Do a search. It's not like it weights 100lbs or you'll have to type a mile.
 
Ive not set up TM yet, but I just checked and you can use a USB drive. But it has to be HFS, not Fat32. My external usb drive is still fat32 because I sometimes swap files with an old Windows machine that my son is using. But within the TM setup, that drive was able to be used, but it said it needed to be reformatted.

I know the preference around here is firewire, but Ive not seen much speed difference between usb2 and firewire. I have 2 external firewire drives in addition to my usb2 one.
 
I'm pretty sure you can use a USB2 drive. I really wish you could use a drive over the network though. I know externals are really cheap these days...but I would have no need for one except for backups and I wouldn't want to waste all that other space. I just went into Time Machine and it won't let me set it up because there are no external drives connected to my computer.
 
New Time Machine Question

How is going to deal with lots of Data or Large GB files?


Like graphic artist or video?


Anyone know how how long it takes to do what it needs to with large files and GB per min?

Eric
 
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