Imac and external Hard Disk
Dear All,
I have a new IMAC (aluminium 2007) core duo extreme 2.8GHZ 2GB Ram.
I have now the need to back up my data into an external HD 500GB
I'm still confused what i have to buy.
1) Which connection:
USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Firewire 800... (even esata - sata very confused about that)
2) Which brand:
LaCie, Iomega, Western Digital, Samsung, etc....(Maxtor very bad reputation,....?!)
What is the best for Mac hardware (talking about also partition, internal hardware etc.)
3) Which tech:
I really don't need now a network one, but maybe in the future could be nice to use with Macbook with wireless. Any suggestions....???
4) Any other suggestions you can have.....
THANKS
Danilo (Venice...but in Italy)
I have a new IMAC (aluminium 2007) core duo extreme 2.8GHZ 2GB Ram.
I have now the need to back up my data into an external HD 500GB
I'm still confused what i have to buy.
1) Which connection:
USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Firewire 800... (even esata - sata very confused about that)
2) Which brand:
LaCie, Iomega, Western Digital, Samsung, etc....(Maxtor very bad reputation,....?!)
What is the best for Mac hardware (talking about also partition, internal hardware etc.)
3) Which tech:
I really don't need now a network one, but maybe in the future could be nice to use with Macbook with wireless. Any suggestions....???
4) Any other suggestions you can have.....
THANKS
Danilo (Venice...but in Italy)
Comments
1) Which connection:
USB 2.0, Firewire 400, Firewire 800... (even esata - sata very confused about that)
Firewire 800 is best out of those. iMacs don't have eSATA connectors. Next down it's firewire 400 and then USB 2, which is marginally slower.
2) Which brand:
LaCie, Iomega, Western Digital, Samsung, etc....(Maxtor very bad reputation,....?!)
What is the best for Mac hardware (talking about also partition, internal hardware etc.)
I go with Lacie as I find them reliable but I've used Western Digital and Maxtor and haven't had problems with any of them. A bad hard drive can come from any of them.
3) Which tech:
I really don't need now a network one, but maybe in the future could be nice to use with Macbook with wireless. Any suggestions....???
I have a Lacie one of those too. It plugs directly into the router via ethernet. Some routers allow attaching a standard USB 2 drive so you don't have to buy a special drive.
Do you think I can plug an e-sata plug to the Imac 2007 in such way?
Do you have any recommendation about back up? someone told me no external disk but the boring DVD...
I prefer external disk...by the way...
Ciao
Danilo
Many thanks Marvin!! Grazie!
Do you think I can plug an e-sata plug to the Imac 2007 in such way?
Do you have any recommendation about back up? someone told me no external disk but the boring DVD...
I prefer external disk...by the way...
Ciao
Danilo
No. Apple choose to forgo eSATA for Firewire's sake. There's also no expansion ports to speak of.
External FW400 or FW800 disk. TimeMachine with Leopard.
Will TimeMachine do a backup? I've heard rumors that it may not.
4) Any other suggestions you can have.....
THANKS
Danilo (Venice...but in Italy)
If you don't have a backup app yet, check out SuperDuper. It's the easiest BU I have found. Before Superduper, I used several iterations of Retrospect and other BU apps that came with external HDDs. For ease of use, none came close to SuperDuper. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles than more expensive ones have , but it costs only $27.95 USD. You can download a freebie that only backs up the entire disk or the User. It also does a fully bootable back up.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDup...scription.html
As for the backup, I would just use free solutions like using Finder (dragging folders) or Terminal (cp command) for the time being and upgrade to Leopard's Time Machine. After seeing it in action (a friend put it through pretty exhaustive testing), I think it does what most of us need. sequitur, Time Machine's sole purpose is backup. Of course, it does with style.
If I were to buy one, I would go with SuperDuper.
Another vote for WD My Book Pro. Looks very nice with good price for triple interface (FW400/FW800/USB2).
As for the backup, I would just use free solutions like using Finder (dragging folders) or Terminal (cp command) for the time being and upgrade to Leopard's Time Machine. After seeing it in action (a friend put it through pretty exhaustive testing), I think it does what most of us need. sequitur, Time Machine's sole purpose is backup. Of course, it does with style.
If I were to buy one, I would go with SuperDuper.
I erred in a previous post when I asked if Time Machine would backup. What I meant to ask was if it does a fully bootable backup. Was that part of the testing you and your friend put it through?
Do you think I can plug an e-sata plug to the Imac 2007 in such way?
Afraid not, the only computers that could do that are the Mac Pro with a PCI card or a Macbook Pro with an expresscard adaptor. However, real-world tests show that it's not much benefit compared to FW800. Hard drive read/write speeds are limited anyway.
Do you have any recommendation about back up? someone told me no external disk but the boring DVD...
I use both and I do DVD backups maybe every month or so for regularly updated stuff (using DVD+RW) but all the time for archives. My external drive is mainly there as a bootable backup (using Superduper). I actually just manually update my external as I tend to put extra stuff on there and I don't like the idea that an automated backup might overwrite files that I've changed on the external deliberately to be different from the internal.
I actually don't think I'll ever use Time Machine, I'll probably just keep it turned off because it doesn't create a folder structure that is easy to browse through on the drive. It just has a bunch of incremental changes. Usually, I just want my current setup on my internal and the last backup on the external laid out exactly the same way and this is what Superduper does.
So, in short, I would recommend a Firewire 800 drive (possibly Lacie but other makes are good too) and SuperDuper for backing up.
What I meant to ask was if it does a fully bootable backup. Was that part of the testing you and your friend put it through?
From what I can recall, Time Machine creates a special folder on the backup disk (it won't delete existing data). You can restore in one of two ways: (1) use Time Machine to graphically browse previous backup sessions and restore files/folders and (2) boot using Mac OS X installation DVD (needs to be 10.5 obviously) and it will recognize the Time Machine backup disk and offer restore option.
By extensive, he tested using various backup devices (network drive, SAN, RAID, FW external, USB external via AirPort Extreme) and verified results by verifying contents, permission, date, and other attributes. He didn't divulge exact details, but assured me that it works well enough for the masses.
I just got a new MBP about a month ago. Can I boot up from an external HD connected via USB or FireWire?
Yes to both
Yes to both
Umm no. You can boot from most external Firewire HDDs but not all support it. You can not boot from an external USB2 HDD.
If you don't have a backup app yet, check out SuperDuper. It's the easiest BU I have found. Before Superduper, I used several iterations of Retrospect and other BU apps that came with external HDDs. For ease of use, none came close to SuperDuper. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles than more expensive ones have , but it costs only $27.95 USD. You can download a freebie that only backs up the entire disk or the User. It also does a fully bootable back up.
http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDup...scription.html
I also like Super Duper. Very easy and very reasonably priced.
You can not boot from an external USB2 HDD.
I believe you can now boot from external USB drives.
I believe you can now boot from external USB drives.
Yes, you are correct.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58430
What's New to USB?
Beginning with the Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) and the iMac (Slot-Loading), two new features to USB are most apparent: support for USB audio devices and booting from USB drives.
Umm no. You can boot from most external Firewire HDDs but not all support it. You can not boot from an external USB2 HDD.
Intel Macs you can
I've been using a WD MyBook Pro 500GB external for over a year now, and I love it. It's got 2 FW800, 1 FW400, and 1 USB, perfect capacity for you, great price, and great 3 year warrantee. Highly recommended.
I bought one of these some time ago too in anticipation of FW800 being on my next Mac.
Very happy. No fan and very fast.