External Hard Drive question

I never had a back up and finally bought an external hard drive. My iMac started out with 232 GB so I bought an EHD with 750 GB or that is what the box said.
However when I plugged it in and before it started the "first" backup it said there was 698.3 GB and 697.7 GB available. Where did 50 GB's go? Did I get a defective one?

In 4 years I have only used 30 GB of the HD space on my computer so I think the 750 GB EHD should be large enough.

Thanks
Barbara

That is normal, (though 50gb seems excessive). You never get a full 750GB/1TB etc, it's always a little less.
Check to see if the external doesn't have some manufacturers back up software and other things installed.
You wil be able to see them in a seperate folder.

Where would I find information if there are other things included in this EHD?

It is a "G-Drive mini High Speed Portable drive by G -Technologies". It is formated for a Mac and Time Machine.
I bought it because I only have 3 USB ports and all are being used. This EHD uses The Firewire 800 port which I understand is actually faster. Several other EHD's that I saw only used the USB port
This EHD comes with a case to take it else where. I have no need for that feature, but it had what I needed so I bought it. It is working fine. I have checked and it has run a back up every hour since it was hooked up .

Dear Barbara

You did all the right things. Good quality EHD, Firewire 800. As the EHD is factory formatted for the Mac and Time Machine (TM), there's almost certainly some additional software included such as encryption possibilities; there may be instructions and other bits. Forget it.

If you really wanted to get the maximum from the EHD, you could go Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Find the EHD, Click on its sub heading, Click on Erase and Reformat the EHD as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) giving it any name you fancy eg TM Backup.

But frankly, if I were you, I'd forget all that; connect it via the Firewire 800; Click on the Apple Logo on top left of the toolbar; Select Preferences > Time Machine > Select Disk and then choose your EHD. Make sure the TM slider is in the ON position and Start Backup.

Be advised that the first time you back up will take a while; but future back ups are automatic, run in the background and take hardly any time at all.

Lastly, I'm glad you've got round to backing up. So many folks don't to their ultimate cost.

Ian

Just curious Barbara, what version of OSX is on your iMac? Reason I ask is 10.5 leopard and below read the free space differently than 10.6 Snow Leopard and above. Different way of reporting the same space on the drive, but it confuses a lot of people.

Ian Thank you! Before my Mac I had a Pc and the Hard Drive crashed. I lost everything so I should have had this back up sooner. I have a lot of craft patterns and clip art that would upset me if I lost them. Any HD can eventually fail. It took nearly an hour to back it up the first time. It was simple to hook up

dtravis I have OS X 10.5 Leopard. My computer is almost 4 years old, but works fine so I have no need for a newer one. Clearly I have plenty of free space on the HD.

Thanks again . I am so grateful for this site!!
Barbara

Since you are running 10.5, those numbers look right.

Glad you are going to start to backup as like you said, you never know when a drive will fail!

When I bought my iMac the store offered several free mini seminars and I took all of them. In one we were taught how to "Repair Disk Permissions" and told that should be done periodically . Downloads including from Apple can land in the wrong place and mess things up.

On the Disk Utility screen there is an icon on the upper left ( looks like a microscope) that will check the health of the HD. The trainer said it will say Failed if it senses the HD is going bad. When I run Repair Disk Permissions I also check the HD. It is no guarantee it can't fail after it appeared to be OK , but if it says it is going bad I will have a heads up.
Thanks again