portable/desktop backup hdd for time machine

beachBOYken · 7 Aug 2015 at 10:24

hi

About to purchase an imac 2.7ghz, I'm new to mac and have been researching as much as I can. I need your help on external hdd's.

I would like to purchase a 2tb external drive for use as a backup for the imac time machine feature.

I'm a bit unsure on the difference between desktop and portable external drives, without stating the obvious one is smaller and the desktop versions have a mains power supply.

Is it ok to use a usb powered portable drive with imac?

Im looking at getting maybe the seagate portable 2tb expansion or similar.

thanks

TheUncookedPie · 8 Aug 2015 at 05:42

beachBOYken said:
Is it ok to use a usb powered portable drive with imac?

It certainly is.

beachBOYken said:
Im looking at getting maybe the seagate portable 2tb expansion or similar

I've been using that for some time without issue.

beachBOYken · 8 Aug 2015 at 08:49

Thanks very much.

I do have a external desktop hdd but it's massive and was hoping to get a smaller portable instead.

hartgeh3 · 8 Aug 2015 at 15:51

I use a WD Passport 2TB Mac, works spot on and its pretty fast being USB 3.0

beachBOYken · 10 Aug 2015 at 13:38

Thanks will check that out as well.

If I use an external hdd for use with imac's time machine backup, can I use it for standard storage still or does time machine feature need the hdd all to itself?

hartgeh3 · 10 Aug 2015 at 16:52

You will need to partition the drive properly in order for it to work with both.

I have mine in 2 parts, 1TB for Timemachine and 1TB for Media

TheUncookedPie · 10 Aug 2015 at 22:17

beachBOYken said:
If I use an external hdd for use with imac's time machine backup, can I use it for standard storage

Yep

hartgeh3 said:
You will need to partition the drive properly in order for it to work with both.

Only if you encrypt the backups.

lamboman · 10 Aug 2015 at 22:30

TheUncookedPie said:
Only if you encrypt the backups.

I don't think many people will want their backups expanding to the point where it takes up most of a 2TB drive if they only have 750GB of data to actually backup.

MagicBoy · 11 Aug 2015 at 00:42

Kinda missing the point of Time Machine there, it automatically manages the backups so you can recover documents you may have deleted accidentally. That feature has saved my bacon a couple of times.

Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup drive becomes full.

lamboman · 12 Aug 2015 at 10:00

MagicBoy said:
Kinda missing the point of Time Machine there, it automatically manages the backups so you can recover documents you may have deleted accidentally. That feature has saved my bacon a couple of times.

Time Machine keeps hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups. The oldest backups are deleted when your backup drive becomes full.

I fully understand this. My point was simply that if you have a 2TB drive but only a small amount of data, there's little point in reserving the entire drive's space for TM. The majority of home users will have largely "static" data (things like media, that aren't likely to change), therefore seeing 250GB of changes is going to take a while, let alone 1.25TB worth. Depends on your usage.

beachBOYken · 15 Aug 2015 at 15:38

I got a WD passport ultra 2tb portable in the end, I never bothered with the mac version as that was more expensive. Not sure what I need to format it to for time machine, but I have a feeling that my imac will ask if I want to use it for TM when I plug it in for the first time, so I guess it will format it automatically.

cheers guys

hartgeh3 · 15 Aug 2015 at 16:16

It wont ask you when you plug it in, I'm guessing it will be Fat32 or something. You want to format it using Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (journaled)

beachBOYken · 15 Aug 2015 at 18:38

hartgeh3 said:
It wont ask you when you plug it in, I'm guessing it will be Fat32 or something. You want to format it using Disk Utility to Mac OS Extended (journaled)

Ok cheers, I thought I read something about mac os asking if you want to use this hdd for time machine when you plug a hdd in, so assumed it might format it if required to the correct file system.

MagicBoy · 15 Aug 2015 at 18:44

Only if the drive is HFS formatted.

Time Machine doesn't take exclusive use of the external drive, you can still store files on it as normal if you wish.

beachBOYken · 15 Aug 2015 at 19:54

MagicBoy said:
Only if the drive is HFS formatted.

Time Machine doesn't take exclusive use of the external drive, you can still store files on it as normal if you wish.

This is what I found on Apple, which makes me think it will format it automatically-

1.Click "Use as Backup Disk" to select this drive as your backup destination.
2.Select the option to Encrypt backups if you want to prevent other users from accessing your backup without a password.

Your Time Machine drive needs to be formatted as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). If you select an NTFS or FAT-formatted drive, Time Machine prompts you to reformat the drive. Important: Reformatting erases any files on the destination drive. If you're not sure if you want to erase the drive you connected, choose a different drive.

hartgeh3 · 16 Aug 2015 at 13:53

I think because I had the WD Mac version I didn't get that message and just chose Use as Backup Disk, but anyway any external hdd formatted correctly will work fine.

beachBOYken · 16 Aug 2015 at 14:55

hartgeh3 said:
I think because I had the WD Mac version I didn't get that message and just chose Use as Backup Disk, but anyway any external hdd formatted correctly will work fine.

Thanks, I will see if I get the prompt when I connect it and try using as time machine backup.

In any case I can format it manually.