What do Mac longtime users like to use for Back up drives? Brand etc.

Need to get a new External back up drive. What do you guys recommend?

thanks

Stay away from Seagate and Toshiba. The rest is up to you.....

Despite what chscag said, I really don't think it matters. I do prefer to spend my money on companies that make drives that are pre-formatted for Mac (and particularly those that include Firewire, since it's faster than USB2), but hard drives are kind of like light bulbs: they SHOULD work reliably for years, but they COULD fail at *any* moment, and you generally don't get a lot of warning when they do.

I have two "computer" backup drives, a Misc. Media drive and another drive to back THAT up. The two older drives are both WD, the media drive is Iomega, the media backup is Hitachi. All work perfectly well and have done for years. My replacement internal drive is a Western Digital as well.

The reason I mentioned Seagate and Toshiba is that they both have a dismal record of failures right now. You can do the research on that yourself. As far as choosing a drive that is FW, I certainly agree with that but it's totally unnecessary to shop around and pay extra for a drive that is "Mac formatted" when you can reformat any drive yourself to the Mac standard.

Thanks for the replies. I am leaning toward the WD 1TB my book drive. Would there be any benefit over usb2.0 to get the firewire beyond the speed? I am still learning all this mac stuff and there is a ton of stuff out there. I have no preference for either the pre-formatted for mac drives or the ones that are not, that seems simple enough to do in sys pref or is it disk utility?

WD's have always been good to me. G-Tech and Lacie seem to have a very good customer service record and also make good products. Firewire is worth it only if you're consistently transferring large files or volumes of files or if you're working directly from the drive. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with USB, especially since most of the newer drives are USB 3.0 compliant.

As for formatting, I agree with chscag. Formatting is trivial. In fact, I'm currently reformatting a 700 gig drive.

Doug

I've been using OWC firewire drives - they seem rock solid. OWC

pcc said:

Would there be any benefit over usb2.0 to get the firewire beyond the speed?

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"beyond the speed"?

What else is there?

PS. My comment about the preformatted for Mac preference has been misinterpreted, I see. My fault, probably. What I meant was that I look for that as a gesture of acknowledgement that Mac users matter to the company, not that I can't format any drive to be used with a Mac.

I dont know wether to go firewire or not. I wont have any huge files just pics and vids, but would like to take advantage of the speed of firewire. My mac doesn't have usb3 only 2.

Chas, I understood what you were trying to say about the formatting, Im sure I will have ?? if I get one not already formatted for Mac though. lol

chas_m said:

...
PS. My comment about the preformatted for Mac preference has been misinterpreted, I see. My fault, probably. What I meant was that I look for that as a gesture of acknowledgement that Mac users matter to the company, not that I can't format any drive to be used with a Mac.

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As long as they're not upcharging for it that's ok. Only someone needs to mention that most hardware companies are price gouging because it's "compatible" with a Mac - (for instance - cough - Lacie - cough). I have a hard time thinking of any hardware companies that will actually supprt Mac users other than OWC and Crucial that don't just stick it to the consumer only because they think they can get it out of folks that have purchased a Mac.

(I will note that this particular aspect of recognizing Mac users has gotten better than it was when I bought my first Mac in '06.)

I agree. I've seen as much as a 15% markup or more on drives that were "Mac formatted". LaCie isn't the only one, iOmega is also on that bandwagon.

I'm using two Iomega eGO desktop drives. A 2TB for back ups and a 1TB as my main hard disk since my internal one failed earlier this year. Just noticed both have dropped about £50 on Amazon since I bought them.

WD Studio's have been good to me.

Going to go with WD. ANy of those that I should avoid? I want to use time machine and not WD's software that comes on the drive, will that be something easy to bypass?

Since my backup drives dont leave the house, I dont use any of the "rugged" type. Right now, my backup drives are both 1 TB WD drives. Have been working flawlessly since they have been installed.

pcc said:

Going to go with WD. ANy of those that I should avoid? I want to use time machine and not WD's software that comes on the drive, will that be something easy to bypass?

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plug in the drive, point TimeMachine to it, and let it do its thing. It will format the drive to what it needs, blowing the WD software off the drive. One of the easiest and most reliable backup solutions on the market right now. Of course, reliability has more to do with the hardware than the software 99% of the time in ANY backup solution.

As with what Deckyon said I ignore their software and just use TM.

thanks guys, this is what I will do. WD on the way.

I just bought a 2TB Time Capsule and couldnt be happier.
Yes i paid premium price but i expect it to last as long as i need it too and i love it being wireless that suits me because i have a house of notebooks atm . . .

Ive been using two 500Gb USB 2 Buffalo Ministations on my system for backup and archive purposes for the past year and half with zero problems.