External HDD for Time Machine Backup?

[The Boosh!]

Can anyone recommend an external hard drive I can use for time Machine on my mac? I don't really know a great deal about them.

​Ideally I want one that I don't have to plug in to the mains! Any help appreciated.

 

[Carlv8415]

Anything usually above 500GB needs to be plugged in as they draw a lot of power. Western Digital do a 2TB drive for Mac, it's about £150. It's a sleek looking bit of kit, made of brushed aluminium I believe. That would be your best bet. Why don't you want it to be plugged in? If you using it for time machine how often do you plan on moving it ?

 

[The Boosh!]

Anything usually above 500GB needs to be plugged in as they draw a lot of power. Western Digital do a 2TB drive for Mac, it's about £150. It's a sleek looking bit of kit, made of brushed aluminium I believe. That would be your best bet. Why don't you want it to be plugged in? If you using it for time machine how often do you plan on moving it ?

I wanted to partition it - 250 for my mac and 250 for other s**t. I'll look at the WD one anyway though, cheers.

 

[Carlv8415]

250GB for time machine will last less than 5 days before it has to start erasing old backups. (Depending on your HDD size) to be fair at least with 2TB you will never run out of space and they do look nice them WD ones...

 

[jme_159]

I have an older version of this http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=640

Works perfectly fine and no need to plug in, nice and portable.

 

[bully]

I have something like this, it works fine, usb powered.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BWKQASI/?tag=cliospnet01-21

Revels recommended it to me so it must be good.

 

[Rob]

I have a usb powered 1GB WD drive. Works just fine. Just like this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007UOW818/?tag=cliospnet01-21

 

[Munson]

Anything usually above 500GB needs to be plugged in as they draw a lot of power.

That isn't the case these days. I have a 2TB bus powered drive, just for an example.

Boosh, you can use any drive you like so long the Time Machine partition is formatted for Mac.