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- Oct 24, 2010
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Good day.
I picked up my first mac product 2 months ago (MBP)...really impressed. Can't believe I didn't go this route sooner!
I'm looking to pick up an external hard drive...I plan on using the hard drive for:
- set up Time Machine for backups
- possible additional storage needs for MBP (the MBP has a 320 GB drive...I'm 80% full and I anticipate needing extra storage space for photos/music/video down the road).
- manual copy/paste backup of files on 2 PC computers/laptops
I don't plan on having the external hard drive connected all the time. I anticipate only connecting it via USB when I want TM to perform a backup or when I need to access files stored on the drive. (I'm assuming that TM works effectively this way...am I wrong in thinking that I can simply connect the external hard drive periodically and ask TM to do a backup?)
I'm hoping for advice on a couple of things:
1) There are so many different external hard drives when i run searches...given that I will need mine for both Mac and PC computers, should I be narrowing my search to certain kinds? Anything I should look for? (I had been looking at the WD Elements 1TB Desktop External Hard Drive, but I'm open to other ideas).
2) Based on some reading on this forum about the topic, I believe that I'll need to create different partitions on the external hard drive. I believe I'll need a separate partition for the TM backups. (based on a 320 GB that will eventually be filled to capacity, any recommendations on how large to make this partition?)
Second question about partitions...beyond the TM partitions, is it recommended that I run two separate partitions...one for the MBP (additional files, not for TM) and another separate partition for the PC computers that I'd be backing up?
Thanks.
Lee
I picked up my first mac product 2 months ago (MBP)...really impressed. Can't believe I didn't go this route sooner!
I'm looking to pick up an external hard drive...I plan on using the hard drive for:
- set up Time Machine for backups
- possible additional storage needs for MBP (the MBP has a 320 GB drive...I'm 80% full and I anticipate needing extra storage space for photos/music/video down the road).
- manual copy/paste backup of files on 2 PC computers/laptops
I don't plan on having the external hard drive connected all the time. I anticipate only connecting it via USB when I want TM to perform a backup or when I need to access files stored on the drive. (I'm assuming that TM works effectively this way...am I wrong in thinking that I can simply connect the external hard drive periodically and ask TM to do a backup?)
I'm hoping for advice on a couple of things:
1) There are so many different external hard drives when i run searches...given that I will need mine for both Mac and PC computers, should I be narrowing my search to certain kinds? Anything I should look for? (I had been looking at the WD Elements 1TB Desktop External Hard Drive, but I'm open to other ideas).
2) Based on some reading on this forum about the topic, I believe that I'll need to create different partitions on the external hard drive. I believe I'll need a separate partition for the TM backups. (based on a 320 GB that will eventually be filled to capacity, any recommendations on how large to make this partition?)
Second question about partitions...beyond the TM partitions, is it recommended that I run two separate partitions...one for the MBP (additional files, not for TM) and another separate partition for the PC computers that I'd be backing up?
Thanks.
Lee