External hard drive recommendations

Faith

I'm just looking for recommendations for external hard drives that work well with Time Machine. I've looked on amazon.co.uk and it's a little hard to figure out what works well with macs. Half the reviews tend to say a particular one didn't work at all, while the other half say the same one was perfect! I don't want to spend a huge amount of money - say a maximum of £70, excluding P&P. The more space, the better, while staying within budget. I know I could just keep shopping around, but personal recommendations are best.

Sad Professor

Just about any external usb hdd will work with a Mac. You'll just have to format the drive as HFS+ in Disk Utility when you get it. Seagate or Western Digital are the big brands. Unless you want Firewire, don't bother with the "Mac versions". Maybe a WD Elements or a Seagate Expansions.

timefora_J

I have no problems with both a Western Digital and Fujitsu drive. Both were internal drives and I bought a really cheap and small enclosure on ebay for under a tenner, both worked with no hassle.

aidan_walsh

I had a Western Digital MyBook doing all my Time Machine backups for about a year and never had any problems with it.

Jev/N

I've a firewire Maxtor Onetouch here, does the job very well - never any issues from it

ashleey

G drive mini for me. FireWire 800 and no external power supply. Plus it fits in your pocket if you travel. Maybe slightly above price bracket though. No fan as made of aluminum. Got it on apple webstore

Leatherman

I got a 1TB Apple time capsule, wireless backup makes for a reassuring option.

johnk123

I have two external WD drives which are both over 2 years old and (touch wood) no problems with them. Any drive should be fine for time machine backups

Ado86

Have a Segate external HD and had no problems with it. Says on the packaging that its for Windows, but just format it when you get it and it'll do fine. It backs up with Time machine effortlessly, so much handier than having to do it manually - and also saved me a few times when I accidentally deleted something I shouldn't have!

Lurching

I have a 2TB Mac time capsule. Using it as my router, and it basically means I have over 2TB of a hard drive on my laptop. I store all my music on it. It takes maybe 5 seconds for it to spin up when you select the first song, but after that, its instantaneous.

whiterebel

Sad Professor wrote: »

Just about any external usb hdd will work with a Mac. You'll just have to format the drive as HFS+ in Disk Utility when you get it. Seagate or Western Digital are the big brands. Unless you want Firewire, don't bother with the "Mac versions". Maybe a WD Elements or a Seagate Expansions.

1 or 1.5TB Expansion has a terrible reputation. One packed up on me, and I went searching........stories all over how bad that drive is.

Sad Professor

whiterebel wrote: »

1 or 1.5TB Expansion has a terrible reputation. One packed up on me, and I went searching........stories all over how bad that drive is.

Reviews for the 1.5TB do seem slightly more negative alright, but to be fair, if you did a search for almost any hard drive you'd probably come up with the similar results. However, from what I've heard, anything over 1TB is unreliable - regardless of brand/model.

Hard drives are pretty sh*t in general tbh and always have been.

faceman

I have a 1gb seagate too, never any issues from it.

Just one thing to be aware of faith so you dont get burned with Time Machine. It doesnt back up photos in iPhoto correctly. Ive lost photos from a previous restore and google search showed up that Im not the only one.

Its not all doom and gloom, i did get the photos back in the end, but they never integrated back into iPhoto correctly.

whiterebel

Sad Professor wrote: »

Reviews for the 1.5TB do seem slightly more negative alright, but to be fair, if you did a search for almost any hard drive you'd probably come up with the similar results. However, from what I've heard, anything over 1TB is unreliable - regardless of brand/model.

Hard drives are pretty sh*t in general tbh and always have been.

I go a lot with Amazon now for reviews, as there seems be a fair balance between the ordinary Joe and the technically able. The expansions got crucified on that by everyone. Western Digital cheap drives are problematic, too, but if you spend a few quid more you seem to get a better quality drive. I have gone for caddies now instead, and a dirty great LG NAS Box rather than messing around with smaller drives.

The Black Oil

I've had a 1TB Seagate HD for a few months now. It came in handy recently as I accidently deleted the wrong partition and had to reinstall Leopard. I used Time Machine to import stff. I still had to reinstall Safari 5 and some large security/software updates, but apart from that, everything else was in tact. I don't have the drive plugged in all of the time, just once or twice a day.

thisisadamh

I got a Seagate Essentials 500GB drive form easons this time last year for about €50. Still working fine. I looked in Easons a few days ago (athlone) and they had 1TB Seagate drives for €59 I think. Good deal.

ismiseuisce

I have a LaCie 2TB d2 Quadra. It works like a dream. However, they are expensive. I got is as a gift. I wouldn't have paid that much for a hard disk myself.