# External Hard Drive Recommendations for Time Machine



## MacWbee (Mar 12, 2006)

What brand of external hard drive should I buy?

Right now, I'm thinking of buying a Newertech Ministack V3 because it has firewire 800 which my iMac has and it has an intelligent fan design which runs if it gets too hot. My iMac is inside an armoire. 

External Hard Drives by NewerTech® - miniStack® v3 for any Mac or PC

I also read somewhere that heat is one of the leading cause of hard drive failures therefore important to have a fan built-in to the hard drive. Having Firewire 800 I'm thinking that I don't have to use the enclosed AC adapter.

But I find this product a bit on the expensive side. And I don't know what else is considered a good external hard drive. 

Your suggestions please.


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## Demosthenes X (Sep 23, 2004)

Buy it. That's very good pricing for FireWire800 AND eSATA interfaces, and port functionality.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Except there is no speed gain over FW 400 on any single drive other than a Tornado.


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## pictureman (Jan 4, 2008)

I just bought a hard drive for time machine. now i need it for other things, can i just eject it and use it for whatever?


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## RISCHead (Jul 20, 2004)

The doc is right - sustained disk transfer rates on a single disk are far lower than what FW800 provides. No need to pay extra for FW800 (forget e-SATA) for a single disk enclosure.
If you have a RAID group spanning 4 or more drives, you can drive combined transfer rates up closer to the pipe bandwidth.


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## RISCHead (Jul 20, 2004)

pictureman said:


> I just bought a hard drive for time machine. now i need it for other things, can i just eject it and use it for whatever?


If you no longer want to use TM or have the protection it provides, you may stop TM from system preferences and use the disk for whatever.

If you wish to continue using for TM, but only temporarily want to use available unused storage for other things, you can switch off TM, create a folder for your personal use. Once you're done, delete your folder and turn on TM again.


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## Black (Dec 13, 2007)

Time Capsule is coming out in a few days. You can preorder now. Wireless etc etc...


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

I think I will order a time capsule. Can it be hooked up as a central backup to more than one mac via wireless. I have 3 macs I would like to backup with it wirelessly.


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## pictor (Jan 29, 2007)

Yes, that was part of the purpose to making the product. They wanted to be a shared repository for multiple macs.

What I am not 100% sure on (though I think it's possible) is whether time capsule can be partitioned, and use part of it as as a regular drive.


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## Sean.Perrin (Aug 13, 2007)

I'm happy with my 500 Gig Western Digital MyBook with 2 FireWire and USB. I divided it into two partitions (250 each) one for extra file storage from my mac and a bootable master system backup, and one for time machine.


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

Might as well jump in here, sorry if this has already been covered here or elsewhere.

Does Time Machine absolutely require an external drive, or could I use the drive I have mounted in my G5's second bay as the destination volume?

I've been doing manual back-ups to the second drive but I've been curious about Time Machine and was thinking of giving it a whirl...


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Works fine internal and it's faster.


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

OK, thanks - I know what I'm doing this weekend...


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

That will take all of 30 seconds - better plan something else too


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

Why, I think I'll be shovelling snow this weekend... a big storm is forecast for Friday. tptptptp


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## gggfff (Dec 18, 2006)

Sean.Perrin said:


> I'm happy with my 500 Gig Western Digital MyBook with 2 FireWire and USB. I divided it into two partitions (250 each) one for extra file storage from my mac and a bootable master system backup, and one for time machine.


Great drive. Running for a year and a half, and no problems what so ever.

MIght pick up another one soon. Costco has it for $139.99.


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## Atroz (Aug 7, 2005)

gggfff said:


> Great drive. Running for a year and a half, and no problems what so ever.
> 
> MIght pick up another one soon. Costco has it for $139.99.


Watch out if using these with the new Al iMac's with the FW800 ports. The WD MyBook I have (and many others have reported) don't work on Firewire on these. I got mine to work only by chaining it through another Firewire (OWC) drive.


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## wcg (Oct 13, 2007)

Atroz said:


> Watch out if using these with the new Al iMac's with the FW800 ports. The WD MyBook I have (and many others have reported) don't work on Firewire on these. I got mine to work only by chaining it through another Firewire (OWC) drive.


I can vouch for this on FW400 with a My Book. I use it elsewhere but I thought I'd test it out using FW and no go. This has been talked about on the 'net here and there.

I have a OWC Mercury Elite Pro which is a great drive as well. Re. the FW400 vs 800 on a single drive this is news to me. I ran a speed test using FW800 and got about 45-50 MB/s. I haven't tried the same test with FW400, will try now though.


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## burnabybill (Nov 5, 2007)

*Partitioning an external drive?*



Sean.Perrin said:


> I'm happy with my 500 Gig Western Digital MyBook with 2 FireWire and USB. I divided it into two partitions (250 each) one for extra file storage from my mac and a bootable master system backup, and one for time machine.


I have a LaCie external disk. How do I partition it? Thanks for any help.


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## makuribu (Oct 26, 2005)

burnabybill said:


> I have a LaCie external disk. How do I partition it? Thanks for any help.


Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder) is the easiest way. There might also be something on the CD from LaCie, if you still have it.

Remember that re-partitioning a drive will wipe out all the data, unless you use something like VolumeWorks.
VolumeWorks - Repartition Mac OS X Hard Drives Without Erasing Them, Shrink Volumes, Expand Partitions


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## burnabybill (Nov 5, 2007)

*Thanks*

:clap:


makuribu said:


> Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder) is the easiest way. There might also be something on the CD from LaCie, if you still have it.
> 
> Remember that re-partitioning a drive will wipe out all the data, unless you use something like VolumeWorks.
> VolumeWorks - Repartition Mac OS X Hard Drives Without Erasing Them, Shrink Volumes, Expand Partitions


Excellent! Thanks very much.

Bill


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## wcg (Oct 13, 2007)

*FW800 is faster than FW400 for single enclosure*



RISCHead said:


> The doc is right - sustained disk transfer rates on a single disk are far lower than what FW800 provides. No need to pay extra for FW800 (forget e-SATA) for a single disk enclosure.
> If you have a RAID group spanning 4 or more drives, you can drive combined transfer rates up closer to the pipe bandwidth.


I mentioned earlier in this thread that I was surprised this was the case. So I got around to testing this and I do see a improvement of FW800 over 400 for a single driver enclosure (about 50 MB/s versus 20-35 MB/s for 400) using QuickBench. It does test with large file sizes and 800 is still 2x faster.

Screenshots from QuickBench with large file option on - first one is FW400, then FW800 then internal SATA HD on my iMac. Note that FW800 approaches performance of the SATA drive.


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## wcg (Oct 13, 2007)

*Usb 2*

Here's USB 2 thrown in for good measure.It seems that USB2 is faster than FW400 which didn't used to be the cased on Macs. Note that if I do the USB test through a USB 2 hub I get half these speeds!

I still think FW800 is the way to go, I paid a small premium for the OWC drive and I think it's worth it.


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

MacDoc said:


> That will take all of 30 seconds - better plan something else too


You were joshin', huh - I ran the first Time Machine backup this evening and it took about 90 minutes to complete. Interesting, but I'm not convinced I need this solution. One thing that I don't like about it is that both drives in my G5 are really busy all the time now.


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## gwillikers (Jun 19, 2003)

Speaking of FireWire 800, it's nice to know that the new MacPro's have a significantly faster FW 800 implementation...



barefeats.com said:


> We did a quick test with the LaCie Little Big Disk (dual 7K notebook drive RAID 0). On the 2006 Mac Pro, we get 55MB/s READ/WRITE. (100MB blocks, QuickBench) With the 2008 Mac Pro we get 75MB/s READ/WRITE!
> 
> We understand this gain is due to the fact that the FireWire interface is now on the PCI Express bus.
> 
> Real World Speed Tests for Performance Minded Mac Users


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## Guest (Feb 2, 2008)

wcg said:


> Here's USB 2 thrown in for good measure.It seems that USB2 is faster than FW400 which didn't used to be the cased on Macs. Note that if I do the USB test through a USB 2 hub I get half these speeds!


I'll think you'll find that you will only get faster speeds on USB2 when using large files like this. For things like doing backups and/or dealing with a lot of small files the overhead on USB2 will likely drop the performance back down to below that of FW400 -- just a guess, but an educated one.


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## PierreB (Mar 5, 2007)

*MyBook*



Sean.Perrin said:


> I'm happy with my 500 Gig Western Digital MyBook with 2 FireWire and USB. I divided it into two partitions (250 each) one for extra file storage from my mac and a bootable master system backup, and one for time machine.


Have the same equipment and has worked very well. 

I have recently become concerned at having both backups (TM + other) - if the drive dies I would be SOL.


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## allanyong (Jan 22, 2006)

Those major brands are not bad, such as West Digits, Segate, and ex Maxtor. 

However, u can also buy the harddrive and enclosure separately. It will give u more flexibility for ports and functions of your external hard drive.


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## heebie (Dec 28, 2007)

*Firewire 800 on USB 2 HD*

Hi everyone,

Hope I'm not flooding this thread with large pictures but I really need some help.

I've done my research and needless to say I can't find anything so I'm here for help.

I own a Maxtor 3200 Personal Storage 500GB external hard-drive and it is USB 2.0 based.

I recently 'acquired' a *something* (I don't know what it's called) but it's a chip with a USB port, a Firewire 400 port and two shiny Firewire 800 ports.

Is there a way that I can, even if it's a little clumsy-looking, replace the chip in the external HD with this amazingly nice one?

Now the point of the question is not because I don't know how to separate the two pieces of plastic of the shell, but because I don't really understand the ATA, SATA, eSATA and all that and their compatibility.

Thanks for your time in advance.

Heebie

P.S. Here are some pictures (if they work) of the chip/module/thing that I got.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

heebie, I'm a little intrigued/concerned by the "'acquired'" part.


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## heebie (Dec 28, 2007)

Why, because of how it was "acquired" or because of its state? I got it off a friend's dead external which had overheated and had burnt out the power. So, he being a rich fool, scrapped it. Any advice?


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

I have a Seagate Freeagent 320 FW/USB on my iMac aluminum 24 and it works just fine. Has a 5 year warrantee, which is better than many.
I also bought a WD MyBook 500Gb from Costco and am using it for my mini and the firewire works fine.
It all comes down to how critical is your data, what is your backup strategy ( I do full clone every day at 2am), etc etc.


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

The Doug said:


> One thing that I don't like about it is that both drives in my G5 are really busy all the time now.


Drives are much quieter now - the activity last evening must have been Spotlight indexing the new contents of my destination volume (or something). Well and good.

Launching Time Machine from the Dock makes for some purdy visuals.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

heebie said:


> Why, because of how it was "acquired" or because of its state? I got it off a friend's dead external which had overheated and had burnt out the power. So, he being a rich fool, scrapped it. Any advice?


Yes. Keep up with your current friends.


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## staples57 (Nov 19, 2007)

I'm using a 1TB Western Digital MyBook (FW, USB2.0, eSATA)... EXCELLENT!
...fast,reliable & large enough to hold everything 

The best $300 I've spent.


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## heebie (Dec 28, 2007)

HowEver said:


> Yes. Keep up with your current friends.


What? Is that some kind of joke?


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

heebie said:


> What? Is that some kind of joke?


Um, yeah. You said you had a rich friend who gave you stuff, and asked if I had "any advice."

.


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## heebie (Dec 28, 2007)

Can you give me any advice about the harddrive...?


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

heebie said:


> Can you give me any advice about the harddrive...?


Well, one problem is that the pictures are so out of focus it's hard to read any information.
But I would just try the interface "carefully" outside a box. 
Connect a hard drive to the IDE connector and power of course, then connect one of the USB or firewire ports to the Mac and then see if you can "see" the hard drive in Disk Utilities. Try that with all the ports.
If everything works electrically and you can format the drive, then you can take a look at the mechanical aspect of fitting it into an existing drive. But I would think it's highly unlikely that it would fit.


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## nickb_rock (Feb 2, 2008)

I've got a 500GB Western Digital 3.5" SATA drive that I got for around 110 bucks when I bought it. I bought a Vantec 3.5" Hard Drive enclosure for it and it's great. I'm glad I went this route than buying a stand-alone external because I can swap drives that I want to buy and have multiple backups. It was also cheaper than anything else at the time.

If you don't have an airport extreme, go with TimeCapsule but if you already have wi-fi where you're at, I wouldn't suggest it. Sure draft-N is great, but you're loosing the awesome speed of USB 2.0


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## jamesB (Jan 28, 2007)

nickb_rock said:


> the awesome speed of USB 2.0


Mmmm', never seen "awesome" and "USB 2.0" used in the same sentence before.

jb.


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## nickb_rock (Feb 2, 2008)

well its much better than Firewire 400 thats for sure... and it arguably beats 800 too... I dunno, its not an eSATA speed but its good enough for me!


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

nickb_rock said:


> well its much better than Firewire 400 thats for sure... and it arguably beats 800 too... I dunno, its not an eSATA speed but its good enough for me!


I'm reading something wrong here.......I think.

Are you saying USB 2.0 is faster than FW400 and even FW800?
Or are you talking about eSata?


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## nickb_rock (Feb 2, 2008)

Sorry for any confusion... eSATA is faster than both firewire 800 and 400, not to confuse anyone. What I mean to say is that USB 2.0 is faster than the FW400 drives I've looked at, although not faster than any FW800's. I meant that eSata beats them both but i use USB 2.0 and its good enough for me.

I didn't mean to start a USB vs Firewire debate, my appologies.
Firewire 800 would be awesome for externals but what I was saying was that a USB 2.0 connection would be far faster than wi-fi !

My USB enclosure has a transfer rate of 480 Mbps
Firewire 400 enclosures I've seen have transfer rates at "up to 400 Mb/sec"

If you wanna spend the extra cash and get a firewire 800, you're getting up to 800Mbps... pretty self explanatory


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

nickb_rock said:


> My USB enclosure has a transfer rate of 480 Mbps
> Firewire 400 enclosures I've seen have transfer rates at "up to 400 Mb/sec"


If you test your "480 Mbps" USB enclosure with real typical data, you will find that the actual transfer rate is nowhere near 480 Mbps.

In fact, in every test I have ever done, FW400 is about twice as fast as USB 2.0. You will also see that confirmed if you check on the net.

I think eSata is faster than any of these interfaces, at least in theory, but I haven't tried it yet.


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## nickb_rock (Feb 2, 2008)

Again, I didn't want to start a debate. I'm just going by specs, ive never done any benchmarks... I just wanted to give an example of what works for me, and stay on topic with the thread.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> Sorry for any confusion... eSATA is faster than both firewire 800 and 400, not to confuse anyone


Not on a single drive it's not. Don't add to confusion.


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## Sean.Perrin (Aug 13, 2007)

burnabybill said:


> I have a LaCie external disk. How do I partition it? Thanks for any help.


Disk Utility


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## Tom Thomas (Feb 7, 2005)

Check out this URL there is a good deal on new 500 gb externals 
FS: 4 x Western Digital My Book 500GB Essential Edition - RedFlagDeals.com Forums


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## heebie (Dec 28, 2007)

Thanks krs, I know the pics are bad but I didn't realise you had to read anything. Well thanks all the same.


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## taco taco burrito (Jun 6, 2003)

*externals*

hey there. i have 2 500 gb la cie porsche designed external drives. they are ONLY usb2... now i have to admit, i didn't wanna buy them without FW at least, but it did not make a difference. where ever the bottle neck is i don't know, but i get exactly the same transfer speeds with those externals as i do with my other firewire ones...
exactly the same... and i got them at futureshop on sale for $129 each. and they are damn good looking, although they are a bit warm...
i would recommend them if you don't abosolutely need FW... or just buy an empty case at college and spadina and a regular ide drive and shove them together. its pretty much that easy!


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

Sean.Perrin said:


> Disk Utility


You prepare your drive using Disk Utility on your mac. I did this and it's easy. I am using superduper and it even provided recommendations (ie zero the drive, etc) Partitioning is click and drag.


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## lookitsmarc (Feb 2, 2008)

Alright it looks as though from this thread people like the Western Digital MyBook and the NewTech Ministack.

I would like to get a 500 GB or 320 GB drive that will be backing up a 120 GB MBP and a 120 GB MB. Can I partition it three ways (120/120/Rest)?

Should I get the MyBook Studio Edition or Ministack V3?

Is there somewhere in Ottawa where either of these are available?


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## keebler27 (Jan 5, 2007)

lookitsmarc said:


> Alright it looks as though from this thread people like the Western Digital MyBook and the NewTech Ministack.
> 
> I would like to get a 500 GB or 320 GB drive that will be backing up a 120 GB MBP and a 120 GB MB. Can I partition it three ways (120/120/Rest)?
> 
> ...


marc, 

has someone explained how time machine works? (if that's not what you'll be using for backups...disregard pls).

If it is, I don't completely understand it, but i know this - my imac's main internal hd is 250 GBs. I took a 500 GB external figuring I would be ok. wrong. even though I had 170 GBs used on the internal (the external had nothing on it)...it backed up once, then the next time, told me to bugger off and find a drive with more space ( the external that is). So.... you may need something bigger.

I just spent around $280 today at pccyber.com - bought a vantec esata/fw/usb enclosure for $65 and a 1 TB internal for $ 189. best part about this external vs my WD mybook - it's aluminum - dissipates the heat very nicely. I've transferred approx. 6 hours of digital video straight and it's still not as warm as the mybook was and the 'book was only running for maybe 20 minutes.

sorry to throw a curve at the last second, but it might save you some cash and get you what you need for now and down the line.

PC Cyber Canada - For All Your Computer Needs

PC Cyber Canada - For All Your Computer Needs

Cheers,
Keebler


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