Software Update, Please Help

Hi everyone i am new to mac forums and i really need your help please.
I currently own a mac book which is 10.5.8 and i really want to upgrade to snow lepoard however there is really bad reviews on the apple store online about this software update.
However i still want to get it, but before i do i want to back up my mac by using time machine but i found out that you need an external hard drive. So my questions are;

1) what would be a suitable hard drive to get which would be under £50
2) is there any other way which i can back up my mac?

Thank you to any one who can help me.

P.S i am not sure if i posted this in the right thread...

1) Do you want hard disk upgrade for your mac or an external to backup to

2) A time machine backup would be a good idea before the upgrade (an external disk would be needed)

THere is usually no problems with a snow leopard upgrade, and in fact you should save a few gigs as Snow Leopard is a leaner OS

I dont really know the difference i just want to back it up so i dont lose pictures or documents etc.
yeah i want to do a time machine back up but how do i do it, and i need an external hard drive for it i'm not sure really?

Thank you for the quick reply

External hard drive is the way to go and after purchasing a drive you will need a USB/Firewire case to mount it in. Make sure you get a SATA external drive and case. What brand? Take your pick as manufacturers are extremely limited. Seagate and WD are about the market leaders.

Hard drives are dear at the moment because of flooding in Thailand where most factories are.

Hi, i was reading some threads and they told me not to get a SATA, so once i have purchased an external hard drive i have to mount it? what is that about?

I was thinking about getting this one WESTERN DIGITAL My Passport Essential Portable Hard Drive - 500GB, ??

teresa.ob said:

so once i have purchased an external hard drive i have to mount it? what is that about?

Click to expand...

Hard drive comes as if you're going to replace one in a computer. Instead, you mount it in a case that can be connected to a computer.

Thank you

Just one more question sorry,
I have brought the wd passport 500gb, and i want to back it up using time machine. Would you recommend this?

You bought a new hard drive, right? Are you going to use it as an external drive? If so, use Time Machine(TM) to back up files from your main drive to the external.

Are you putting the new hard drive into your computer? If so, you need another one to have as an external drive to back up files to with TM.

Yeah i am going to use it an an external drive, plug it into my usb connection. Yeah i think i am going to use TM to back up files. However i have looked through some youtube videos and it looks simple to set it up so im not worried about that. But say if someone steals my laptop but i still have the external hard drive how will i be able get all my files back up?

Sorry for all of the questions...

toMACsh said:

You bought a new hard drive, right? Are you going to use it as an external drive? If so, use Time Machine(TM) to back up files from your main drive to the external.

Are you putting the new hard drive into your computer? If so, you need another one to have as an external drive to back up files to with TM.

Click to expand...

teresa.ob said:

Yeah i am going to use it an an external drive, plug it into my usb connection. Yeah i think i am going to use TM to back up files. However i have looked through some youtube videos and it looks simple to set it up so im not worried about that. But say if someone steals my laptop but i still have the external hard drive how will i be able get all my files back up?

Sorry for all of the questions...

Click to expand...

If you connect it to a other MAC Yes you aces you're files on the external HD

Hi someone mentioned something about carbon copy clonner?

They said that if i use time machine i will not be able to reboot it or something like that ?

dobby said:

If you connect it to a other MAC Yes you aces you're files on the external HD

Click to expand...

Hi can i back up my mac using time machine and super duper on the same external hard drive?

If you like to have a boot able HD than yes you neat a clone of you're HD .
But the question is is a clone use full on a other MAC ?
In my opinion it will only work if you're new MAC has the same internal hardware .
The carbon cloner make a boot able clone of you're HD even if you wish including the recovery Hd if you are using LION
Also the carbon cloner is very easy to use and it is free , and it can be use as a backup utility too
There is a difference in making a backup of only you're data and apps or the whole system .

teresa.ob said:

Hi can i back up my mac using time machine and super duper on the same external hard drive?

Click to expand...

Than you have to make two separate partitions on on you're backup drive .
One for the Time Machine and one for Super Duper

Thank you yeah i just found that out lol so i'm looking through you tube.
What one would you recommend superduper or carbon copy clonner?

teresa.ob said:

Thank you yeah i just found that out lol so i'm looking through you tube.
What one would you recommend superduper or carbon copy clonner?

Click to expand...

Never use the superdupper all I knew is that the carbon cloner works great

dobby, you seem to know your stuff, so it's curious that you don't type Mac instead of MAC. Mac is short for Macintosh, so when used in reference to Apple computers, should not be all caps.

toMACsh said:

dobby, you seem to know your stuff, so it's curious that you don't type Mac instead of MAC. Mac is short for Macintosh, so when used in reference to Apple computers, should not be all caps.

Click to expand...

Well as somebody long before me once said "What is in a name "
Well even more the intended name was Mcintosch the name of red apple .

teresa.ob said:

What one would you recommend superduper or carbon copy clonner?

Click to expand...

CCC will allow you to make further incremental backups later on (meaning it updates the backup with only recently changed files, hence taking much less time). Superduper requires a purchase for that feature.

For $29 go for SuperDuper. the registered version uses a smart little operation called Smart Backup. A weekly use of this updates any changes/updates made to your system during the week and takes 2-3 minutes. That way you will always have an up-to-date bootable copy of your internal drive.

And CCC is donationware in which the author asks user to make a donation.