Which external drive for use with Time Machine?

Hi all, sorry if this had been asked before (if it has I can't find it).
I wish to get a new external hard drive to use with time machine and am getting confused as which can/can't be used.
A little background- I'm currently using a 1Tb Iomega usb drive, this usually works well, but occasionally stops working and is accompanied with the message (something like) disk not disconnected properly. It is also a few years old, so probably safest to change sooner rather than later.
Anyway the confusion comes in that some drives are listed as Mac compatible and others not, the price is also usually higher for the Mac ones.
Finally I don't trust the likes of currys/pc word "advisers" enough to go with what they "want" to sell me.

coveredinoil said:

I wish to get a new external hard drive to use with time machine and am getting confused as which can/can't be used.

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There not many hard drive manufacturers (Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba). So really…as far as the actual HD is concerned…there aren't that many to choose from. When you see names like your "Iomega"…this is simply "branding"…where a company puts the actual HD into an external case…and slaps their brand name on it.

coveredinoil said:

A little background- I'm currently using a 1Tb Iomega usb drive, this usually works well, but occasionally stops working and is accompanied with the message (something like) disk not disconnected properly.

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This is probably because this external hard drive is being disconnected improperly (the USB cable is just being pulled out when not needed)…instead of the external hard drive being properly disconnected/"ejected"…or the hard drives icon being dragged to the trash can first before being disconnected.

- Nick

Around here most folks avoid Seagate drives and a 1TB Western Digital (WD) will fill the bill. It does not have to be Mac formatted. Pop it in the external caddy, power up, select in Disk Utility, format Mac OS xtended (Journaled) and into Partition and under Options ensure GUID is selected. Being the 3.2GHz i5 presume you have USB3 and I would pop it in a USB3 compatible caddy.

I currently use hard drives branded by Seagate, WD and Iomega.

My current time machine back up is to a 2TB Seagate drive. This is mains powered and permanently connected to my iMac. Ive had it for about 18 months with no problems. It's near silent in operation.

I've never had a problem with any of them. As long as you treat them carefully and, as Nick said, eject them properly before disconnecting then you should be fine. Also there's no need to buy one specifically for Mac (which normally comes at a price premium) as Harry said above.

You will no doubt get varied answers on this question, the three main manufacturers as named above get different ratings dependant on individual experience. I for example have a Transcend 250Gb USB 2 HD which is the oldest I own and it is still going strong. Having said that I would not trust irreplaceable, valuable data on it or any other drive be it internal or external. Any drive can fail for no apparent reason at any time. It's why we push backups so much. Two cheap HD's with the same data may be much safer than one expensive one. Complaining to a big name manufacturer about their defective product wont get your data back.
So buy what you can afford, stick to the big names if possible and backup, backup, backup.

Thanks all for the replies, just one thing you might help me with, the random disconnects of the drive are not happening because of incorrect use (unplugged before ejected) or removal of power, so I'm a bit lost on that, can anyone shed any light on this issue?

Is your external hard drive mains or bus powered and if mains, is it connected through a hub?

coveredinoil said:

...the random disconnects of the drive are not happening because of incorrect use (unplugged before ejected) or removal of power, so I'm a bit lost on that, can anyone shed any light on this issue?

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You've mentioned "random disconnects" and getting the message "disk not disconnected properly"…these are two different things. The term "random disconnects" was not mentioned in post #1.

This message "disk not disconnected properly" (most times) is due to incorrect unplugging of external drives. This is what I was referring to when I mentioned the incorrect unplugging in my earlier post. I never commented on the "random disconnects"…since it was not mentioned in the original post.

- Nick

Oops, the words occasional and random have been interchanged, sorry for any confusion. The message appears occasionally and at random, this happens without action instigated by me, so was thinking perhaps a drive problem.
The drive is mains powered and connected directly to the iMac.

coveredinoil said:

Oops, the words occasional and random have been interchanged, sorry for any confusion. The message appears occasionally and at random, this happens without action instigated by me, so was thinking perhaps a drive problem.
The drive is mains powered and connected directly to the iMac.

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The problems could be a result of corrupted files. You could try launching Disk Utility…and attempt to repair the drive (this may or may not help). Heck…the problem could even be a damaged USB cable.

New hard drives are not too expensive. If you feel that your current Iomega external hard drive is wonky or dodgy…replacing it is a great idea.

- Nick

As pigoo3 says there are a lot of variables when it come to finding the cause of a computer problem. Even professionals have to use a process of elimination, us ordinary users do not always have the resources to try too many alternatives. You can only change one thing at a time in this process so it can be time consuming especially with intermittent problems but I would start with a repair (disk utility). If possible try connecting with a different cable, if that doesn't work try connecting to your computer on a different USB port. I had a guy come to me with a USB HD that he demonstrated was not detected by his Mac Book Pro. He was understandably upset because it had a lot of original data on it but before giving him the bad new i suggested plugging it into the other USB port an voila there it was.
A couple of checks with other devices showed that the port itself was faulty.