Time Machine HDD for MBP...

CocoPops

CocoPops

CocoPops

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So I wanna start using Time Machine once Leopard is installed.

So whats recommended for use with my MacBookPro?

500gb would be nice.
 
I'll be using a 500gb Western Digital E-Sata/USB drive.

It's a bit loud/vibratey but with a good paperbook under it, it's fine. Just in the process of clearing it out for Leopard and Time Machine. :)
 
To be honest USB2 isnt that bad. Its the disks spinning up and down that takes the time (in my experience) on external drives.

While we're on the Time Machine topic - please take time to consider backing everything up BEFORE installing Leopard. No good being left with nothing to back up. :p
 
I have a 500GB Western Digital MyBook Pro for sale.

Whip me an email if you're interested and we'll do it through the MM officially :)
 
I quite fancy a twin disk setup, so it has built in RAID mirroring. Thus if 1 disk fails, I can replace it without loosing my entire backup system.
 
Nice. I'm thinking of doing a PC build with a RAID1 array because I'm terrible at backing up but if Time Machine works like its supposed to an external array might be an option for the iMac.

Hmm, options options.
 
thats the thing I don't understand and haven't seen any info on...

Does TimeMachine cache files to a dummy location and then move them to the USB/firewire/esata driver, or does it only run/work when the external drive is connected...

ie how will it work for mobile users that only connect the external drive once a week etc.
 
CocoPops said:
thats the thing I don't understand and haven't seen any info on...

Does TimeMachine cache files to a dummy location and then move them to the USB/firewire/esata driver, or does it only run/work when the external drive is connected...

ie how will it work for mobile users that only connect the external drive once a week etc.
Click to expand...

I haven't used it in the last few builds.. but it's pretty much a standard backup program with a fancy interface. It tracks a list of new/updated files then dumps them to a backup drive at midnight. The way it was originally described sounded more like a real time "shadow copy" that was then transferred to an external drive as needed, but unless they've changed it massively it's not.
 
Thats what I was wondering tho....

if the external drive isn't connected, does it take backups to a set dir and then move them to the drive later?

ie, if I never had the external drive connected at midnight, would TimeMachine be uselesS?
 
afaik, Time Machine makes a backup every hour. On a laptop the changes are saved locally and then backed up when you next plug in the external drive.

In fact, the more I think about it the more it makes sense for me to switch to Leopard. When they first started talking about Time Machine I was a bit "meh, nice to have I suppose" but it might actually turn into the killer feature for me.

I was considering building a new PC with a RAID1 array to act as a file server and backup system (mainly backing up my investment in iTunes, and using Windows iTunes to stream my music to my laptop). This was going to cost me around £700 (overspecced slightly for folding@home purposes ;)) but I'm strongly considering a Leopard + new external drive setup with my iMac.
 
USB is awful - hogs the CPU for data transfers. It's intended for keyboards, flash drives and memory card readers etc. All mac users should be using Firewire for external HDDs.
 
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