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Best 2 TB Time Machine Compatible Drive
- Thread starter yustas
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ANY external HD will work. No need to buy "Mac" external or anything like that since the drive can be formatted to HFS+ in Disk Utility.
Not to seem like a paid endorser here but I bought all my back up hard drives from OWC and have been very pleased with their professional service and how great the drives work.
http://www.macsales.com/
http://www.macsales.com/
Yours going to have to quantify what you mean by best. The fastest external drives that you can currently buy will be ones with FW800. USB 2 is painfully slow and so is the time capsule. External drives with fw800 are more expensive, but worth it in my opinion.
I've found the g-drive pro to be the fastest. 70+ MB/s transfer rates
Unless you are changing adding say more than 5 gigs of data *daily* FW800 is unnecessary for backup. USB 2 is fine.
several to choose from here: http://dealmac.com/
several to choose from here: http://dealmac.com/
Another vote for the G-Drive.
I have a collection of others, Seagate and Western Digital to name two that have been relegated to minor league status for various reasons.
Since buying the G-Drive, it's reliability has convinced me it won't be leaving my desktop.
I have the 2TB version, I've heard there is a 3TB out now ... and I want one.
When I get the new iMac the config will be ...
1 TB Internal
2 TB Data/Image/Media Files
3 TB Time Machine
.
I have a collection of others, Seagate and Western Digital to name two that have been relegated to minor league status for various reasons.
Since buying the G-Drive, it's reliability has convinced me it won't be leaving my desktop.
I have the 2TB version, I've heard there is a 3TB out now ... and I want one.
When I get the new iMac the config will be ...
1 TB Internal
2 TB Data/Image/Media Files
3 TB Time Machine
.
I do not care about speed all that much. Once the initial backup is made, the incremental backups are not going to be huge in size and even if they are, usb 2 is fast enough for me. By the "best" I mean the best quality, low noise and heat, features, etc.
Are you talking about this one? Why is it better than, say, a Western Digital drive? Whose drives are they using?
Any external HD will work however if quality is important then I'd recommend any of these three for the quality and feature set:
OWC Mercury Elite Pro series
Lacie Quadra D2 series
G-Tech G Series
OWC Mercury Elite Pro series
Lacie Quadra D2 series
G-Tech G Series
$350 for a 3TB drive? Doing the low demand work of TM?
3TB for $130: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148750
MORE than enough drive for TM.
G tech uses Hitachi drives, probably this one (IF its a 7200 rpm one), $179 at newegg. So you are paying $180 for the case.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145472
Lacie uses who knows?
OWC uses Hitachi as well.
3TB for $130: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148750
MORE than enough drive for TM.
G tech uses Hitachi drives, probably this one (IF its a 7200 rpm one), $179 at newegg. So you are paying $180 for the case.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145472
Lacie uses who knows?
OWC uses Hitachi as well.
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Save the cash and get a USB one then. Take your pic from the WD passport or seagate Freeagent.
What features, besides the ones you listed, are you after?
Edit: sorry, it's the WD Elements
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Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk (Model #: STAC2000100). It's $110 for a USB2 2TB drive - but you can upgrade to FW800 if you want more speed ... and Seagate has promised a ThunderBolt adapter later this year.
Don't install any of Seagate's crapware on your Mac (or worse, overpay for the "Mac" version) - just format it to HFS+ as soon as you open the box.
EDIT: Sorry, it's $89 at Newegg now. Also, make sure you get it shipped FedEx (and not UPS) from Newegg - turns out a lot of people have gotten bad drives (all brands, internal and external) from Newegg after letting UPS throw them around a few times.
Don't install any of Seagate's crapware on your Mac (or worse, overpay for the "Mac" version) - just format it to HFS+ as soon as you open the box.
EDIT: Sorry, it's $89 at Newegg now. Also, make sure you get it shipped FedEx (and not UPS) from Newegg - turns out a lot of people have gotten bad drives (all brands, internal and external) from Newegg after letting UPS throw them around a few times.
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Since I am planning on using Time Machine, I do not know if there are any features besides the ones I have already mentioned that I am after. It is nice to have the ON/OFF button. What features besides networking do these drives have? They all seem to be pretty basic.
I am new to MACs, but I am assuming that I do not need Seagate's software to reformat the drive and it can be done from Snow Leopard, right?
I use a Western Digital Elements. It was dirt cheap, and it's essentially silent - I can go months forgetting it's even on my desk. For Time Machine, USB 2.0 isn't an issue.
Yes, as badger mentioned. You go into utilities-->disk utility and can format the drive there. Are you planning on connecting the drive to a windows computer at all?
They pretty much all have an on/off button. None of these drives have networking features. You connect them to your computer via the USB port.
Not to the PC, but I am planning on running Windows 7 on the iMac, which is probably the same thing.
That's what I've just got
2TB FW800 G-Drive ($239 amazon)
3TB Western Digital (only $160 amazon)
Just remember that win and osx use different file systems and it becomes a headache for the normal user so when you're formatting the drive choose exfat. This is a file system that win and osx can both read from and write to without 3rd party addons and headaches.
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