Time Machine Recommendations?

[joby866]

Hey all,

I bought a FreeCom external HDD for my iMac, and it runs great, you can never hear it and it just plugs right into USB.

However,

I kinda noticed that it isn't fast enough some times for Time Machine. (Its a 5000rpm, iMac's are 7200rpm) And it's 80GB, and Ive had my iMac for 3 days and its already filled up most of it, 69GB filled up and only 11GB free space. Should I buy Time Capsule? Or should I just buy another External HDD with a higher RPM and HDD Space.

-J.

 

[bertpalmer]

I don't know about your requirements but I don't think I would buy anything less than a 500GB. They are pretty inexpensive (£60 or $120.)

They would be large enough for time machine as well as for some external storage of items you don't want clogging up the main drive.

 

[joby866]

Ouch! I paid £50 for this one online!

 

[richard.mac]

sounds like you got a passport hard drive i.e. a 2.5" notebook hard drive which is BUS powered i.e. doesnt have a power brick.

your Time Machine external hard drive really needs to be more than the size of your iMac's internal drive as every file you modify will be backed up every hour. if youre going to fill up your iMac it should be double the size at a minium.

notebook hard drives arent made larger than 320 GB e.g. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=391 so you should of gotten a desktop external hard drive which is isntead 3.5", not BUS powered e.g. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=8 and can currently hold more than 500GB.

 

[soberbrain]

I agree with getting a Desktop hard drive.

My PowerBook AC Power port/battery was damaged so it's always on my desk now. I plugged in a desktop hard drive that has 3 partitions

1) Time machine for PowerBook
2) Time machine for iBook
3) Extra space for video projects

 

[joby866]

Well yeah, I did buy it in the first place for my Laptop. I think I'm going to buy a 1tb to last me a while.