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In addition, if you wish to use the Time Machine with your external hard drive, you will need to format it exclusively for your Mac. Step 2: Set the space needed for your partitions. When the drive has finished formatting, choose the “Partition” tab. Right now, our pick for best external hard drive for Mac and PC is the Western Digital My Passport 4TB. It offers the perfect balance of speed, reliability, portability and price. But there are many options out there – scroll down to see our full list of recommendations, and the best external hard drive prices too.
By day I’m trying to grow Paddle.com, and during my spare time, I’m either eating or checking out the latest news & products in the tech world. I started Let’s Talk Tech because I wanted to write about my experiences with tech, in the hope that it’d help others in the process. You can read my latest articles here. Pedro Lobo Senior Editor. A System Administrator by day and freelance technology writer by night.
I put words together to express my opinionated views on software, hardware or anything that strikes my fancy. Said words can be found in a variety of places, among which my blog.
When not spending time with my family and taking photographs, I can be found on App.net & Twitter. You can read my latest articles here. Mark Myerson Senior Editor. Mark is best known for writing about apps, but he also loves the tactile, hardware side of technology. Being a professional photographer, he’s pretty handy. We always love to read feedback from our readers, so if you have anything (good, or bad) to say, we’d love to hear from you. I do my very best to reply as soon as I can but if for any reason you don’t hear back from me just get in touch via twitter at @LetsTalkTech.
Hey guys, it’s Fabio here. Since day one, I’ve wanted Let’s Talk Tech to a be a transparent and trustworthy website, and that will never change. For that reason, I’ve decided to create this disclaimer page to state the following: Certain products that are reviewed on this website have been sent as review samples, and on occasion, brands will allow us to keep these products post-review.
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Even though my Mac Mini has 250GB of very fast SSD storage, I rely on my external Brinell SSD to store my large video files. It frees my Mac’s internal storage and allows me to grab the drive if I ever want to work away from my desk.Of course, as with any important files, I like to make sure they’re safely backed up!
That’s why I’ve started using Mac OS X’s Time Machine feature to back up not only the internal drive, but my external drive too.Here’s how you can do the same. Head over to your Mac’s System Preferences menu, the cog icon found on your Mac’s dock. Find the Time Machine icon (near the bottom) and click on it. Once you’re in, click on Select Disk to pick the hard drive you want to save your backups to. Next, you’ll need to click on Options button at the bottom.
Here, you’ll find a list of hard drives that have been excluded from your Time Machine backups. If your external hard drive is there and you want to back it up, remove it from the list by clicking on the minus button and then Save.Now Time Machine will back up both my internal drive as well as the external one to the NAS drive I have connected to the network.You can never have too many backups ?.
Table of Contents.When you haven’t a ClueYou need an External drive for a backup but Macs are special. You need to find the, A drive that will work on your Mac. So the question is really how do you choose the right kind of external drive to back up your Mac?The key is to understand what you need so you can get to the bottom ofYour specific wants and needs before you check out the choices.How best to do that? Stick with me to find out.
Best Place to Start when you haven’t a ClueIs to understand what you have;In particular, what internal drives do you have on your Mac, and what physical ports –ports are the places where you physically plug the hard drive into.BecauseBy knowing what internal drives you have tells you a lot about your range of choices.Find out by clicking on the Apple symbol, top right of your desktop screen and select about this Mac. System Report StorageMake a note of what is on your Mac. As the amount of drive space used equals the files and documents you will want to backup.You can dismiss the window by clicking on the small red button top left.The very newest Macbook Pro’s can be bought with up to 2TB of SSD internally, and the newest Macbook Air’s with up to 512 GB of SSD.SSDs are Solid State Disks drives and they are fast.Understand what is on your Mac and how much you are currently using. One Mac or SeveralIf your plan is to backup several Mac’s then do the same with each Mac. Find out what type of drives they have. The total drive size and what is currently being used. What Interfaces are On Your MacThe next thing to find out is, what ports you have and if you haven’t a clue.
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Then it’s back to About your Mac, as above. This time when you get to the About your Mac screen, click on the system report button. Find Out What You have on Your MacIf you have an 802.11ac interface then you have a more modern Mac and fast Wifi.Why is this all relevant?Because it tells you what kind of external drive could be best for backup and your options for connecting those drives. Make a note.You can dismiss the window by clicking on the small red button top left.
Internal Disk Drives versus ExternalWhat the difference is and why it’s important?I would just like to take a minute to explain the whole internal versus external thing just in case you think, wow I have so much free space, I’ll just backup to my internal hard drive. Why you typically do not backup to an internal driveA backup is your plan B or C depending on whether you have other places you keep copies of your data.It’s there in case the worst happens and you loose your Mac’s internal drive. If your backup, your insurance policy is on that same internal drive and you’ve had a drive crash then all your data is gone Including your backup.It is far better to keep your backup physically separately, on a hard drive that is external to your Mac – hence the term external drive.You can then, if the absolute worst happens restore your backup to a brand new Mac. There would be no way to do that if your backup was on your internal drives. So now that’s all cleared up let’s talk options. Interfaces USB, USB C, Thunderbolt, Firewire, WifiExternal drives are sold in a variety of capacities – storage sizes and with a range of interfaces.So let’s talk a bit about those interfaces. USB, USB C and Thunderboltis the most popular interface.
And here are the available options along with the theoretical speed of the interface. USB VersionSpeedUSB 2.0480 Mbit/sUSB 3.05 Gbits/sUSB 3.1 Gen 15 Gbits/sUSB 3.1 Gen 210 Gbits/sIt is important to note that these are theoretical maximum speeds that the interface and the drive could communicates at – ship your data back and forth, but there are overheads which mean that these speeds can be reduced in practice by 20 to 30 percent.What USB interface you have on your Mac tells you largely what USB options you have.
What does that mean?Let’s talk through an example:-Say you have USB 3.1 port on your Mac, then you could put a USB 3.1 external hard drive on and match the speed to what you have on your Mac.USB is also backwards compatible thank goodness.So you could put a USB 3.0 external drive on (it’s unlikely you would get a USB 2.0 external hard drive these days). Because of backwards compatibility your Mac would talk to the slower external hard drive at the speed the slower drive is capable of.Why would you do this?Well USB 3.0 external hard drives are cheaper than USB 3.1 drives, and if you are only needing the drive for backup and if ultimate speed is not the issue – because you have the time to do your backup, then why not.One more thing to be aware of is that the physical connections changed on Mac’s between USB 3.0 and USB 3.1.So in the example above you’d also need an USB adaptor cable – a USB 3.0 to USB 3.1/USB C adaptor cable. Easy bought on Amazon and for the cost saving again why not.Thunderbolt is also a USB based interface.Thunderbolt Gen 1 which is equivalent to USB 3.1 Gen 1 andThunderbolt Gen 2 which is equivalent to USB 3.1 Gen 2and the physical interface on the Mac for Thunderbolt is also referred to as USB C.
FirewireMacs also had ports – Firewire 400 and Firewire 800. Inside of Mechanical Hard DriveThis means that they have moving parts in them which mean they are more susceptible to knocks and bangs.
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Are lighter and more convenient but lower in quality. If used everyday then you can expect this drive to last typically for about two years.They are lower cost, the, and the are all examples of this type of portable basic drive.If you are using for a once a week plug in and backup then they could be a great option. DesktopThese drives are also mechanically based. Typically faster, better quality and designed more for daily use and they make a great backup option. They are used on a solid surface, hence the term desktop, and are not generally portable.They are not designed to be portable but there is no reason you couldn’t take one with you as long as it was in a good carry case. They are that bit larger.You should see a drive like this last you three years or more. The is a good example of this type of drive.
Solid State DrivesThese are electronically based, so much more suited to being ported around. They are top of the range, the fastest drives and the more expensive option.
A 1TB SSD drive is significantly more expensive than a 1TB hard drive.But you will get delightfully fast backups and if speed is more important to you than cash, they are a great option. The Samsung T5 is a great example of a portable SSD.And if you need to take your drive out to inhospitable environments then the LaCie Rugged SSD external drive may just be for you. Or for a non SSD drive the Transcend Military Drop Tested drive. Ok so what does this really mean?You can mix and match. Just because you have an SSD drive internally on your Mac, doesn’t mean you have to put on an SSD external hard drive for backup.
In fact it may be overkill, especially if you’re price sensitive and speed of backup isn’t crucial.With an USB adaptor cable you could use an USB 3.0 basic drive or desktop drive if that was more cost effective.At the other end of the spectrum, if you have a USB 2.0 port on your Mac, it makes little sense buying SSD drives, unless you want it for other features such as it’s robustness.Your Mac will be unable to ship the data out to the external hard drive at anywhere near the speed the SSD is capable of, so unless there is another reason,You may as well go for a USB 3.0 based drive. The speed will be down shifted to match your Mac and your pocket may be a little happier.
Type of File SystemsWhen you purchase an external drive the drive will come preformatted – with something called a file system on it.It may come formatted to FAT32, ExFAT or HFS+.For a Mac user this is of small concern because I would recommend you reformat – put a new file system on the external drive anyway.It’s quick and easy to do and means you can choose virtually any drive for your Mac. There is an article on the site. Let’s talk Backup SoftwareIt’s time to discuss the software you’ll be actually using to backup with. On a Mac your backup software will almost certainly be Time Machine and it isincluded in Mac OS.
What Time Machine Needs. A connected external drive,. Of sufficient size,. Formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system (HFS+)You can learn,. Time Machine needs to be told to use that external drive as its backup drive.Understanding how Time Machine WorksOn the first pass Time Machine will take a backup of the used space of your internal drive. The first backup is also known as a full backup and it can take a little while.