Selecting a backup drive
Now that you know what Time Machine is, you’re probably interested in finding the right drive to use with it. I have a general rule of thumb that your Time Machine backup drive should have twice the capacity of the drive or drives that you’re backing up to it. This allows you to back everything you have up, and then gives you plenty of room for Time Machine to do its rolling backups of changes so that you can go back in time (I can generally go back 6 months) to restore a lost file. To make this easy for you, I’ve broken down some recommendations into a good one and a better one for each of Apple’s current Macs.
MacBook & MacBook Pro
The average hard disk drive for the new MacBooks is 250GB, so you should try to get a least a 500GB hard drive as your backup.
The LaCie Rugged Hard Disk is a good option for a MacBook. It’s rugged so it will stand up better to being packed into a bag and lugged around along with your laptop and it is is available in 500GB sizes. It connects to your Mac over Hi-Speed USB 2.0 which is bus-powered so you don’t have to bother plugging in a power cable too. It doesn’t have any other connections which helps keep the cost down and meshes well with the new MacBook (non-Pro) which no longer has a FireWire port.
A better option, however is probably the Apple Time Capsule. It is a disk drive and a Wi-Fi base station built into one tiny box. And it is also offered in a 500GB configuration. Anytime your MacBook is within range of the Time Capsule’s Wi-Fi network, it will seamlessly backup without you having to make any cable connections – or even think about it really.
If you’ve upgraded to the 320GB hard drive on either of the MacBooks, you’re probably good but you might want to consider stepping up to a 1TB (1,000GB) hard drive. LaCie has their Little Big Disk Quadra or the Big Disk Extreme+ (the Little Big Disk Quadra is pricey but it is bus-powered over FireWire so the MacBook Pro users can leave the power adapter at home) in 1TB sizes. And Apple offers the Time Capsule in a 1TB version as well.
MacBook Air
The Air maxes out at 128GB with its solid state drive. And its 120GB hard drive isn’t far away from that. So, you’ll want to get at least a 256GB backup drive.
The LaCie Rugged Hard Disk is also a good option for the MacBook Air. Although, for the Air you can save some money by opting for the 250GB version. But, getting the 500GB capacity version of it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
I still recommend the Time Capsule as the better choice for the MacBook Air, but the lowest capacity Apple offers is 500GB.
Mac Mini
The average size hard disk drive for the Mac Mini is 120GB, so a 250GB hard drive is ideal.
The LaCie Mini would be great in its 250GB capacity, but unfortunately they’ve discontinued it. You may still be able to find these on clearance around the web.
Instead, get the Iomega MiniMax drive that is at the lowest price. They should all be at least 500GB.
A better option is to get the LaCie Big Disk Extreme+ Triple because it offers incredible value. A 1TB drive is only $200 at the time I’m writing this. You’ll have plenty of room left over to store non-critical files that you don’t mind not having a backup of.
iMac
The average iMac probably has a 320GB hard drive in it. So, you’ll want to get a 1TB backup drive for it. Like most things with the iMac, deciding on the right backup drive is easy. Get the 1TB LaCie Big Disk Extreme+ Triple and connect it to your iMac with a FireWire 800 cable. If you’ve opted for a larger internal hard drive, just upsize to the 2TB version of this drive.
Mac Pro
OK, I’ve been suggesting hard drive models and capacities up to now. But, the Mac Pro is highly configurable, so I am going to simply suggest the drives. Size them according to the storage you’ve configured your Mac Pro with – and don’t forget to double it for your backup drive.
A good option, and actually what I use right now, is the LaCie Big Disk Extreme+ Triple. I really like this drive and it hasn’t failed me yet.
A better option is to go with a Drobo from Data Robotics. The two major benefits of the Drobo are that it provides fail-safe storage (one of the drives can fail without losing any data) and it allows you to expand its storage capacity terabyte-by-terabyte all the way up to 16TB on a single volume as disk sizes increase. You can buy it empty and add your own drives or you can buy it pre-installed with 2TB or 4TB worth of drives. The Drobo is a great option, but it is pricey and that’s why I don’t have one yet. So, make sure to price it out with how ever many drives you want before committing to this as your backup solution.
