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thanks. i have a macbook. whats the best and easiest external hard drive to use? what is a good size to get? thanks for the help!

roachv wrote:

thanks. i have a macbook. whats the best and easiest external hard drive to use? what is a good size to get? thanks for the help!

I personally use the app carbon copy cloner with maxtor one touch harddrives.
No-one on this site will ever agree on what the "best" harddrive is ... so I am sure more people will post here about different harddrives to buy.

as for the size ... if you are making an exact duplicate of your main harddrive ... you shouldn't **need** anything bigger than your main harddrive. Just don't get one that is smaller.

Since you say you're not computer savy, note that any drive that connects to your Macbook will work as a backup (USB, SATA etc) it takes a Firewire drive to boot.

FutureDreamz wrote:

Ralph the Dog wrote:

Since you say you're not computer savy, note that any drive that connects to your Macbook will work as a backup (USB, SATA etc) it takes a Firewire drive to boot.

Unless it is an Intel.

Which it is.

Still, I'll choose Firewire over USB every time.

Roachv, please back up the Home / Library folder once a month.

I think the frequency may be subject to criticism. Please use your discretion on how often you back up your home folder. Obviously, if you are constantly working with vital data, you will want to increase this frequency. If you mainly use your machine for surfing, email, and such; once a month may be sufficient. My home folder is not that large (~2GB) only because I keep all my media on a separate partition that gets backed up less frequently. So I back up my home folder every few days and it only takes 5 minutes; just copy your home folder to another drive. I then do a full clone once every few months.

I'm in the middle of writing my thesis and there is no way I could sleep at night if I was only backing things up once a month.

Nefarious wrote:

mrreet2001 wrote:

If you don't mind reinstalling the OS and programs ... all you need to back up is your documents (photos, docs, music).

To a person new to Macs, it sounds like the Library folder in the Home directory need not be backed up.    This is the wrong impression to give.

Roachv, please back up the Home / Library folder once a month.   Later on, after you're comfortable with your Mac and regular backups, we can slim down the superfluous stuff in those backups.

you forgot to read this:

mrreet2001 wrote:

it all depends on what you deem is important and how much work you want to do in the event of a drive failure..

which is why I stated 2 complete extremes in regards to backing up ... it's what the person deems important. I have an exact copy of both of my drives becouse I don't have to time nor do I want to reinstall / resetup users ect. For me anything less would be inadequate.

On the other hand I have a friend that burns cds of his documents folder ... thats it. Thats all that gets changed ... his user account is 98% un-customized (background and dock contents is all)  and all of his mail is in web apps... so to some people it is 100% acceptable and even preferred to ONLY have data.