[rewind]

I have a MacBook Pro with a 500gb hard drive. I would like to use Time Machine to schedule a back up every now and again to an external hard drive. To save me keep plugging in an external hard drive, could I buy a network hard drive to allow me to do this? Would something like this work? http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/iomega-...ixiqi&istBid=t

If so, do these hard drives have built in wi-fi or do they have to be connected directly to the router?

Thanks.

[gemma-the-husky]

a "normal" copy back up takes a long while - especially over wireless.

I think the fancy backup management systems do an incremental thing

backup everything today - then on future occasions backup changes to the original backup.

---
I actually use a wired NAS that features a mirrored disk. so you save most of your files on the network, and they are automatically copied to the mirror

mine is a netgear stora. I tried using just a HDD, but it's so much effort to do it all manually.
I can highly recommend the stora.

you still maybe need an incremental backup to snapshot your c: drive

[flagpole]

Originally Posted by rewind

I have a MacBook Pro with a 500gb hard drive. I would like to use Time Machine to schedule a back up every now and again to an external hard drive. To save me keep plugging in an external hard drive, could I buy a network hard drive to allow me to do this? Would something like this work? http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/iomega-...ixiqi&istBid=t

If so, do these hard drives have built in wi-fi or do they have to be connected directly to the router?

Thanks.

Yeah it would allow you to do that. that particular one is wired only. they do come with wifi but it's not necessarily the best technique.

there are a couple of things which you should be aware of.

firstly backups are incremental. so after the first one it's only the changes that are copied. so there is no reason to not do them daily or weekly.

secondly. my understanding of the way TM works is it is designed to fill the destination drive. so it keeps the old copies until it needs that space again. thus making old versions of the files available. the downside of this is it will ultimately fill the destination drive. meaning that you can't use the drive for anything else such as media streaming unless it allows you to partition it.

[rewind]

Originally Posted by flagpole

Yeah it would allow you to do that. that particular one is wired only. they do come with wifi but it's not necessarily the best technique.

there are a couple of things which you should be aware of.

firstly backups are incremental. so after the first one it's only the changes that are copied. so there is no reason to not do them daily or weekly.

secondly. my understanding of the way TM works is it is designed to fill the destination drive. so it keeps the old copies until it needs that space again. thus making old versions of the files available. the downside of this is it will ultimately fill the destination drive. meaning that you can't use the drive for anything else such as media streaming unless it allows you to partition it.

Instead of using Time Machine then, what is a good FREE way of doing regular back-ups? I was looking at those ClickFree hard drives QVC sell.

Would a NAS server be better then? Or is this overkill for what I want (i.e. a back-up of my Mac hard drive)? Couldn't see many places with the Netgear Stora in stock.

[paulj48]

Originally Posted by flagpole

my understanding of the way TM works is it is designed to fill the destination drive. so it keeps the old copies until it needs that space again. thus making old versions of the files available. the downside of this is it will ultimately fill the destination drive.

You could create 2 seperate 'shares' on the NAS so you could use 1 for TM and the other as a general share although TM recommends a backup device of at least double the size of the drive its backing up so a 1TB is recommended for your 500gb MBP

What is the problem with just plugging in a portable USB drive? it'll be faster, cheaper and ultimately should be more reliable. I backup my MBP with TM just once a week (it only takes a few minutes) and it's no big hastle, if I've done some important work I'll do an extra TM backup.

Dont forget when TM is switched on it creates hourly backups on your local drive anyway.

[paulj48]

Originally Posted by rewind

Instead of using Time Machine then, what is a good FREE way of doing regular back-ups? I was looking at those ClickFree hard drives QVC sell.

If you own a Mac then you should be using TM, its built in, free and easy to use.

[rewind]

Originally Posted by paulj48

What is the problem with just plugging in a portable USB drive? it'll be faster, cheaper and ultimately should be more reliable. I backup my MBP with TM just once a week (it only takes a few minutes) and it's no big hastle, if I've done some important work I'll do an extra TM backup.

Is it really that simple then? So if I just get myself a portable 1tb USB 3.0 hard drive, Time Machine will do what I want?

[cp2]

Iomega?!!

Read a few user comments, rather than magazine/website reviews on sites like Amazon before choosing this.

[paulj48]

Originally Posted by rewind

Is it really that simple then? So if I just get myself a portable 1tb USB 3.0 hard drive, Time Machine will do what I want?

Yes!

My advise though (depending on home much you value your data) is to rotate 2 external hard drives with one kept off site.

My MBP has over 10 years worth of irreplacable family photos so I keep 1 portable hard drive at work and one at home and rotate them every week. I actually have one hard drive as TM and the other as a Carbon Copy Cloner backup (but thats another question) both encrypted.

How much do you value your files?

[flagpole]

Originally Posted by rewind

Instead of using Time Machine then, what is a good FREE way of doing regular back-ups? I was looking at those ClickFree hard drives QVC sell.

Would a NAS server be better then? Or is this overkill for what I want (i.e. a back-up of my Mac hard drive)? Couldn't see many places with the Netgear Stora in stock.

a portable hard drive with ethernet connectivity is essentially a NAS drive.

TM is the best solution. IMHO.

Originally Posted by paulj48

You could create 2 seperate 'shares' on the NAS so you could use 1 for TM and the other as a general share although TM recommends a backup device of at least double the size of the drive its backing up so a 1TB is recommended for your 500gb MBP

What is the problem with just plugging in a portable USB drive? it'll be faster, cheaper and ultimately should be more reliable. I backup my MBP with TM just once a week (it only takes a few minutes) and it's no big hastle, if I've done some important work I'll do an extra TM backup.

Dont forget when TM is switched on it creates hourly backups on your local drive anyway.

I'm not sure why plugging in a usb hard drive would be any more reliable. but an automated process that runs in the background, to me, would be better.

[paulj48]

Originally Posted by flagpole

I'm not sure why plugging in a usb hard drive would be any more reliable. but an automated process that runs in the background, to me, would be better.

Just from the view point of usage of the hardware in hours, I have an old Lacie NAS thats was powered on 24/7 that lasted a few years untill the PSU broke.

[rewind]

Thanks guys. So with that in mind, any decent USB 3.0 1tb hard drives around? Any particular makes I should avoid/recommend?

What about this? http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/wester...xmxaa&istBid=t

[flagpole]

Originally Posted by paulj48

Just from the view point of usage of the hardware in hours, I have an old Lacie NAS thats was powered on 24/7 that lasted a few years untill the PSU broke.

i take the point. but for a backup solution to fail the primary and the backup need to fail. generally i'm inclined to think that having an automated solution is worth it because of the frequency of the backups.

[!!11oneone]

Originally Posted by rewind

Is it really that simple then? So if I just get myself a portable 1tb USB 3.0 hard drive, Time Machine will do what I want?

Yes, it's that simple. I have a portable 1Tb drive USB drive that I plug in every now and then to do backups.

The only annoyance is that if I don't do it for a little while (usually coz nothing important has changed on the machine) I get "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup" dialogue boxes popping up that I have to dismiss.

Of COURSE you couldn't do the backup. I haven't plugged the blimming disk in.