Hardware :: Best Portable Hard Drive For Time Machine?
Feb 4, 2010
I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or preferences on a good 500gb (or more) portable hard drive for Time Machine on my Macbook. I need it to be portable because I travel quite a bit.
I have been looking at the Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive ST905003FAA2E1-RK but I can't tell a) if this will work for my macbook and b) if it will work for Time Machine.
Any thoughts or recommendations? Would any portable hard drive that I buy on Amazon work for Time Machine?
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Aug 7, 2010
Would a USB bus-powered portable external hard drive (Like the WD Passport) be slower at backing up than an AC powered desktop external hard drive? I've got a desktop external hard drive that I'm using for Time Machine backups over WiFi connected to an airport extreme, but it's dieing and I'd like to replace it. Preferably I'd like to get a 1gb portable drive so I can use it for both backing up and travelling - however if it will result in slower speeds in transferring data then I'll just get a desktop drive.
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Feb 18, 2012
How do you restore your itunes music folder from time machine back-up to an external portable hard drive?
Info:
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
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Aug 23, 2010
I was trying to set up my Time Machine to an external hard drive. I didn't continue because it asked to "initialize" the hard drive which I had a lot of important things on.
I have another external hard drive I'd like to use but, my Time Machine has this error code of -43. What is this and how can I use my Time Machine on another external hard drive?
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Aug 28, 2009
So I currently have a Lacie "Porsche designed" 320GB external hard drive which I use for Time Machine. The major problem is that it is huge and requires an external power source. Also, the rubber bits on the bottom came off because I have had it for a while and so now whenever Time Machine backs up, you can hear the drive on the table.
I have been thinking about getting a portable drive like a WD Passport Essential because it doesn't need a power source. Does anyone have any experience of these drives with Time Machine or any others to recommend?
Also how much will running the drive when my 13" 2.53 MacBook Pro is on battery power affect the battery life? Secondly, if I have a 250GB internal HD, how big an external drive should I be looking at?
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Aug 22, 2014
I might be going mad but I have bought a new portable hard drive today & I erased it using disk utility as it was a Windows one and then added it as a new disk in Time Machine.
I expected to find a check box to encrypt the data but its not there.
I encrypted the other portable HDD's I have but can't see from the description now if they are or not. I am certain that they are however.
The new disk is 1.55 TB free of 2 Tb's, the previous one is 1.43 free of 2 Tb and my oldest is only 253Gb free of 1Tb. I guess that the difference is the amount of old data and backups I have done with Time Machine already or hasn't it backed up properly?
One last thing, on the Time machine prefs there is an option button & when I click it it says "excludes these items from backups" and it lists the new portable HDD and the size of the backup which is 447.09Gb. It estimates the size of the full backup as 492.65 Gb. What this means & whether its set up correctly?
I am using Mavericks 10.9.4 & an iMac 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 machine
Info:
iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5
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Jul 2, 2012
I would like to use FileVault to encrypt both my hard drive and time machine back up external drive. Does encryption noticeable slow down the computer.
Info:
MacBook Air (13-INCH, MID 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Sep 5, 2014
Basically I have a 750GB hard drive in my Macbook Pro and over 300GB is taken up with 'BackUp' data. This is more than the total of everything I have on the drive other than that. Time Machine has always been setup on an external drive and when searching all files on the Macbook there is nothing for backup files so don't know where it is coming from.
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
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Oct 1, 2009
I have a WD Passport Portable hard drive which I use as a Time Machine for my iMac.I'm close to filling it up and I will be getting a bigger hard drive for it.I would like to use my WD hard drive again on my daughters PC so she can save her school work. I know it needs to be re-formatted to work with a PC again but I dont know how to do it.
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Aug 14, 2010
what hard drive is everyone using with their macbook pro? I am in this market for a portable external but alot of the reviews aren't that convincing. Looking for a rugged type ..500gb and higher.
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Aug 31, 2010
I recently purchased this Portable (iomega) 500GB hard drive. I just realized it only works on my Mac's USB ports, but not with my USB Hub. Does it exceed the power limit of the USB Hub? I don't see how it is possible, because I currently have nothing else plugged into it, and it uses a power adapter.
It worked with my old Hard Drive, which is big and uses a power adapter. Now it doesn't seem to work. Also I tried on just a USB adapter that makes the cable longer, still doesn't work. Only the MBP ports work! However, the hub works for things such as phone charger, and speakers right now.
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Dec 5, 2010
Can I put boot camp onto a portable/external HDD and change boot options to run the HDD on start up? I have a very new macbook (its my first mac), so don't want to start messing around with partitions etc., as I am very new to macs...
I'm also wondering if there is a Linux/Ubuntu emulator available for the mac? And if there is one, would it be possible to partition an external hardrive into three segments, one for Bootcamp, one for Linux, and one for time capsule?
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Jan 9, 2011
With a firewire drive, can I have the drive hooked up to my iMac via firewire, but also have it accessed through USB to my Time Capsule for wireless access?
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Jan 23, 2009
I have a WD 320gb portable hard drive which has been formatted as Journaled for about 3 months. Just yesterday i decided to format the 320gb hd as FAT32 as i heard that Mac disk utility is able to format this type in excess of the 32gb that windows is able too. This now allowed me to have the HD be read by Mac and windows with ease, or so i thought. So i did that, and copied all my data onto it and ever since it has been a bit patchy.. The drive is recognised instantly by windows computers and functions fine but when plugged into my macbook sometimes it will not display at all, other times it will take a long time to read, and in other cases it will function perfectly. When the drive refuses to be read by mac I checked disk utility and it shows that the HD is definately connected but just wont show up on my desktop.
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Mar 12, 2012
My MacBook Pro won't recognize my portable hard drive, so I can't format it.
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Aug 26, 2009
Well my last couple of Time Machine back ups have been huge like 60GBs and my initial was approx. 100gbs, I thought time machine made smaller backups after the initial one not huge ones. Also, it seems like something is eating up my hdd space; last week I had 100gbs free and now I have only 50 and no major changes have been made to my mac so I am quite confused. Also, in my Music Folder I see a list of all of my artists and a folder called iTunes with all my apps but it also has a folder in that called iTunes Music which is 32 gb. That folder has a list of all my artists but I don't see a couple in the other folder that are in my iTunes Music folder. I used Disk Inventory X which gave me 10gbs.
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Jan 20, 2010
I recently bought a small capacity external hard drive. I don't download and store music, movies, et cetera so I purchased a 250gb Western Digital portable one.
I want to mostly back up my writing (I do a lot), some photos (for convenience, although I don't have many), and files (I have client information on my computer). So for the most part, they are small things.
If my computer was to crash, my worry is mostly that my writing would be lost. My question is, if I use Time Machine, does it automatically back up everything ? Or do I select things? Am I better off dragging and dropping? I am new to this.
Also, I also run Parallels as for one of my jobs, I have to use a Windows based program. I don't do anything else in my Parallels. If I was to lose the info on my computer, and Parallels was backed up, would I have to reinstall it on a new computer? This concerns me as I no longer have my Windows CD that I needed for the initial installation.
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Mar 18, 2010
I was just wondering if there is anyway to use time machine as an external hard drive? i'm running low on storage with my macbook and wanted to move some files to it permanently for storage
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Jul 5, 2010
I was trying to move all of my movies on to my external hard drive and I copied all of them (took two hours) on there. Then I deleted all but three of them off my computer and emptied the trash. I then look back at my hard drive's files and they aren't there!!! The only thing that was there was the 3 files.
But I also have time machine saved to update my external hard drive. It did and I can see the previous computer times/events/whatever you want to call it. I go to Hard drive>backups.backupdb>My Mac Book Pro>2010-05-04>Macintosh HD>Users>Me>Movies which only shows my iMovie library. I do the same thing but with Music>iTunes>iTunes media>movies to which only one file shows up.
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Nov 7, 2008
I want to transfer Word files between my PC at work and iMac at home. Will a portable USB hard drive interface with both?
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Oct 26, 2010
I just recently bought a LaCie 500GB Rikki portable hard drive. Anyways I'm trying to back up my Address Book to it. So I drag the Address Book to the hard drive thinking it would back up all my contacts. Went to test it on my wife's MacBook Pro, it just shows her contacts in there and not mine. What am I doing wrong?
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Dec 7, 2010
I am new to Mac OS. I have a new MBP 15'. I have bought a Western Digital 750GB hard drive and I even used it once to back up using Time Machine. Now I was thinking that Can I use the same hard drive on Windows and Mac both to store media? At present as it is formatted in Mac OS (Extended ) format, I think it is not recognised by Windows. But can we create such partitions of the portable drive that one of the partition can be used for Time Machine back ups and other one as FAT32 for media storage from both Windows and Mac?
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Sep 29, 2009
I have a late 2007 150 GB Macbook Black. I'd like to finally backup my data and also use it for games or other storage to play directly from, cause I'm almost out of room on my my Macbook. What kind of portable hard drive do you use, or recommend?
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Jun 7, 2008
I recently received a 'phillips usb 2.0 200gig portable storage drive. I managed to get it be recognized by my ibook g4 once and so I reformatted it for mac. Now when I try to plug it in nothing happens and it isn't found when I try disk utility. The funny thing is. When I plug it into my sisters macbook pro it is instantly found, mounted on the desktop and works as it should.
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Mar 29, 2012
I have a MacBook Pro (just got it this year) and I need a portable external hard drive. I also want to use it on my PC. Which interface would you suggest? I am not sure which connections my PC has but I know it has USB 3.0. Is there an interface on my MacBook that's faster than USB 3.0? If so, I might forget about connecting it to my PC, assuming it's significantly faster.
Info:
MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
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Mar 31, 2012
I've been backing up my MacBook Pro on an external portable hard drive. I need to delete some but not all the files from that portable hard drive permanently. When I highlight them and click to move them to Trash I get a message telling me this cannot be done because they are Read Only files? How do I go about it. I am required by work to delete them off this hard drive. Do I have to reformat the hard drive? If so how do I go about it?
Info:
MacBook Pro
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Jun 30, 2012
I recently got myself a MacBook Pro and I'm having problems transferring files from my old Windows XP based laptop. I downloaded the Windows Migration Assistant onto my old laptop but everytime I tried to run it I got various error messages telling me I needed to upgrade this and that. Now the laptop has decided to give in totally and won't switch on at all! I do have all my music etc backed up onto an external hard drive but when I connect it to my MacBook it just doesn't want to know, I assume as all the data on there is formatted as Windows.
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012), Mac OS X (10.7.4)
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Dec 22, 2008
I am a new Mac user. I want to set up Time Machine on my Mac mini as well as have an external hard drive for my audio projects. Can I use one hard drive for Time Machine and extra storage?
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Aug 27, 2010
Just finished setting up my new 27" iMac and the last piece of the puzzle is to setup Time Machine. I have an external 500GB hard drive that Im not using (even though my hard drive is 1TB, Im only using 157GB right now so the 500GB should be fine). My concern is...will it slow down the computer when its backing up since the drive is USB? Would it be worth buying a Firewire 800 external drive (~$150)?
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Oct 21, 2010
I have a Macbook Pro 13.3" running 10.6.4. I've had this computer for a year now and I have always wondered. Can my 500 GB Toshiba Hard Drive be used for Time Machine and for storing files at the same time?
I've heard about partitioning it, but will that delete the files on there? I dont have enough space on my hard drive to backup my external HD.
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