Using an external Hard Drive for iMac

[MarkWebb]

As my Hard Drive is now full on my 2009 iMac running El Capitan I want to move all of may data to an external drive. I have tried the WD My Cloud Home and found it to be unsuitable as it is not possible to back it up to another external drive, and furthermore there are many bad reviews about failures.

Obviously I must be able to backup this external drive to another drive using Time Machine. I am looking at the Seagate Backup Plus Hub 4TB as an option. Can anyone tell me if this would be suitable? Or is there a more suitable drive? Seagate also make a smaller portable drive, are there any compromises within the spec in buying the portable version?

The option to backup a cellphone to the external drive via an app would be useful and the Seagate had this option but I read that this option is now unsupported.

Maybe someone has done a similar thing and has a recommendation?

 

[pigoo3]

I am looking at the Seagate Backup Plus Hub 4TB as an option. Can anyone tell me if this would be suitable? Or is there a more suitable drive?

From a capacity standpoint it sounds suitable to me. Assuming that your iMac's internal drive is smaller.

I would also recommend using Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper to clone your internal HD to the external HD. Then you have an exact bootable copy if you should ever need to boot from the external drive.

HTH,

- Nick

p.s. Thread moved to better area.

 

[MarkWebb]

Yes, iMac has a 1TB Hard Drive. Thank you for that useful suggestion.

 

[MarkWebb]

Would there be any disadvantage to use a portable External drive with USB power supply for my application?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

No difference. If the drive can operate purely off of USB power, that's fine. The need for additional power has nothing to do with its operation.

 

[MarkWebb]

Thank you for that. Begs the question why would you buy a drive which is larger and needs a separate power supply and takes up another power socket?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Ideally if you can find a drive that suits your needs and works off USB, that's great. But some of the beefier external drives have components that need more power to operate. So any of the desktop backup drives like WD MyCloud or whatever will require additional power. If you go with something that's JUST the enclosure holding a drive without any additional smarts, these will usually be fine with just the USB power.

 

[pigoo3]

Thank you for that. Begs the question why would you buy a drive which is larger and needs a separate power supply and takes up another power socket?

I'm not 100% on this. But I believe the larger 3.5" drives are more durable (last longer)...generally less expensive...generally cheaper/gigabyte of storage...sometimes can be faster.

The USB powered portable drives you're looking at are 2.5" drives. Generally more expensive...are smaller...and cost more per gigabyte of storage. Their obvious positives are they are smaller, lighter, and fewer cables.

- Nick

 

[MarkWebb]

Thank you.

 

[MarkWebb]

I have gone for a Seagate 4TB external drive. I have cloned my iMac to it using Super Duper but under Devices I now have 2 items relating to the Seagate Drive, one which contains the clone of my iMac Hard Drive and another which contains sparsbundle files?

Could somebody please explain this and so I need to keep it?

 

[MarkWebb]

Backing Up External Drive with Time Machine

I am trying to setup Time Machine to backup my External Hard Drive but having a problem. I am using a 2TB Seagate as a backup drive and I am using a 4TB drive for my data and proposing not to keep data on the iMac internal drive. I have selected the 2TB drive as backup in Time Machine. When I go into Options in TM the Seagate 4TB drive appears under the "Exclude these items from backups" list but it is greyed out and I can't select it to remove it. Having read Seagate Format instructions for Mac I formatted it using Ex Fat hoping to use it on a Windows PC if necessary. Was this wrong? and could it be the reason the disk is greyed out?

 

[Sawday]

For Time Machine the correct format is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). As Time Machine works solely under OSX why would you want to access it under Windows anyway? Apart from that not sure how you intend to backup a 4TB drive onto a 2TB drive. Suggest you swap your proposed configuration, then you might be in with a fighting chance of making a successful back up.

 

[Rod]

Initially I was a little confused by your post MarkWebb but I think I get it now.
You dont want to keep data on your iMac.
So you are saving it onto a Windows compatible 4 Tb External HD formatted as ExFat. That way it will be readable on a Windows PC.
You are backing up your iMac onto a 2Tb EHD using Time Machine.
The reason the 4Tb EHD is greyed out in TM preferences is because it is incompatible and therefore already excluded.
I hope I'm getting you correctly.

 

[ferrarr]

Yes, Time machine will only backup Mac formatted drives.

 

[ferrarr]

Did you use Disk Utility to erase the drive before backing up? Seagate probably has it’s own backup software that started working on it’s own.

 

[IWT]

Hi Mark

It seems that there is some overlap between this thread and the one you posted earlier today??

http://www.mac-forums.com/other-hardware-and-peripherals/347136-external-drive-time-machine.html

I mention this, not in criticism, but combining the info from the two threads may make it easier for our members to give convergent advice.

Ian

 

[IWT]

Mark

You have a current thread running which may have a considerable bearing on how people respond to this one: http://www.mac-forums.com/other-hardware-and-peripherals/347060-using-external-hard-drive-imac.html

As I posted on the other thread, I mean no criticism, but merely suggest that getting convergent advice would be easier if the responder to each thread knew about the contents of the other - if you get my meaning.

Ian

 

[MarkWebb]

Many thanks for replies. I only have 1TB of data and the only reason I bought a 4TB is it was a good price and thought I may as well future proof. Its not essential to read the disk on a Windows PC but thought it may come in useful, but clearly thats not an option.

 

[MarkWebb]

Thanks Ian.
Yes I did use Disk Utility to erase the drive.

 

[chscag]

Both threads combined. Best to keep all this as one thread.

Thanks.