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What external hard drive should I get for my mac book?

L

lalbert4

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 2, 2009
4
0
I bought my macbook last august and am just now getting around to backing up my files (why I waited this long is beyond me).

I'm not sure what kind of external hard drive to get. I simply want a copy of my files on something that's not my computer. Storage, in case something happens to my Mac and that I could transfer onto a new computer.

I don't need anything fancy, just something I can back stuff up on.

I'm not a techie and I am still learning the ways of being a mac.
 
Get something like this. By the sound of it you don't need anything fancy, just something reliable. By the sounds of it, a 3.5" USB drive will be just fine (they're normally the cheapest). Western Digital and Seagate are both good manufacturers.
 
BlueRevolution said:
Get something like this. By the sound of it you don't need anything fancy, just something reliable. By the sounds of it, a 3.5" USB drive will be just fine (they're normally the cheapest). Western Digital and Seagate are both good manufacturers.
Click to expand...

Just an FYI...not sure if it was specific to my local store because online the prices aren't the same but I was in Target today and saw they had all WD externals with less than 1 TB on clearance---I believe the 500 GB My Book was selling for $49.
 
What if I get Snow Leopard?

So, if I copy my files on to this thing and then install Snow Leopard, will I still be able to access them beyond just reading but could actually change them?!

Thanks for the advice!
 
lalbert4 said:
So, if I copy my files on to this thing and then install Snow Leopard, will I still be able to access them beyond just reading but could actually change them?!

Thanks for the advice!
Click to expand...

Once you start changing them they aren't backups any more !
If you want to use it for backups and other files then partition it, use one partition for time machine (the easiest way of making backups) and the other for other files (which wont be backed up at all).
Don't forget, should you have a theft or fire, your files may still be vunerable, so look at external back solutions such as mozy, amazon ....
 
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