Vanessa asks: I really need to get some back up Hard Drive. I’ve heard I need at least 3 HDDs. is that what I use? Also what brand or memory space do you think is required?
On a mac the best back up is a external firewire HD and then setting up time machine. Time machine is Leopard’s built in backup solution and you will need to have Mac OS 10.5 installed to use it. When they say you need 3, they are talking about having 3 duplicates of the data you want to backup. 1 on local machine + 2 Backup HD’s = 3 HDs.
If you want that much storage I would recommend something like the WD mybook mirror edition. Like this one above, which is available at Costco for $329. While it may seem like way too much HD space, if you have alot of movie, pictures or music you will find a way to fill it up fast. Plus if you use the “Mirrored” mode you will actually only have 1TB of storage as the device had 2 HD’s inside and when you set it up it will mirror the drives. This is how people get the 3 HD’s backup. If one of the drives dies inside the backup the other one still has everything on it and you are fine.
However you could go the cheaper route and just buy an external HD with one HD and you would still be okay. Anything better than no backup is better.
The last option, which I am currently using at both work and home, is to buy an Apple Time Capsule.
While you are only getting 1 HD for backup purposes, the unit also functions as your wireless router at the new standard “N” speed. It also has a USB port to add a wireless printer or expand the HDD space with another external unit. The benefit you get from backing up to this unit is that you never have to connect a devise to your macbook or iMac as it is done wirelessly. In the past I had been backing up with a regular USB external HDD, however, sometimes I would go 10–20 days before I would remember to backup. While this never really got me into major trouble, I did learn my lesson when a HDD recently died and I almost lost data that would have been backed up, had I connected my external drive. Luckily I was able to rescue the needed files. The Apple Time Capsule comes in a 500GB, and 1TB size and cost $329 and $529 respectively. However, you can find them cheaper from the Apple Refurbished Store.
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Curtis asks:
I bought a new drive and am partitioning it to limit how much Time Machine uses. How big should I make the partition?
Short Answer: I’d say around 25% larger than what your computer’s hard drive size.
Backing up is SO important, and Apple’s new operating system includes a very powerful and easy to use application called Time Machine. All you need is an external drive to backup to, and you’re good to go!
To understand how much space you need, you should know how Time Machine works. The first time you backup, it backs up your whole hard drive. From then on when it backs up your computer, it only backs up what you’ve changed. Once your backup drive is full, you can set Time Machine to delete old backups.

My lappie’s drive is
120GB and my
160GB backup drive is
EASILY big enough!
If you aren’t deleting/adding tons of files on a daily, or even weekly basis, a backup drive that’s slightly bigger than your hard drive, like 25%, is more than enough. That being said, hard drive space is CHEAP, and you’ll never wish you bought something smaller — A 500GB USB 2.0 drive from Future Shop is only $119!
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