[herc]

I would like to purchase an external hard drive to back up my iMac using the included software called "Time Machine". It has a 320 gb hard drive and Leopard OS version 10.5. I would appreciate any recommendations for which brand and/or type I should consider. I have seen some negative reviews on a number of external hard drives such as WD My Book, LaCie USB FA Porsche, and AcomData to name a few. I don't know if there will be a conflict between Time Machine and the software that may be included with the external drive or if I can just ignore it. If anyone has had success with any particular brand I would like to hear from you.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Herc

[Headrush]

If the drive needs custom software, avoid it.

Compliant USB drives should work out of the box. I use a generic USB/Firewire enclosure and put my own IDE 3.5" drive in.

I would recommend getting a Firewire drive over USB if you have that option.

[herc]

Hi Headrush,

Thanks for your reply.

What do you mean by a "compliant" USB drive, and why is a Firewire drive preferable over a USB drive?

Herc

[dannyn]

fire wire is faster.. and i have had better luck with fire wire. you can also daisy chain them.. so yo9u use one fire wire port but can get multiple hard drives.
but pretty much any external hdd will work with mac.

[Headrush]

Originally Posted by herc

What do you mean by a "compliant" USB drive, and why is a Firewire drive preferable over a USB drive?

Originally Posted by dannyn

fire wire is faster.. and i have had better luck with fire wire. you can also daisy chain them.. so yo9u use one fire wire port but can get multiple hard drives.
but pretty much any external hdd will work with mac.

Most USB drives follow the USB Storage standard, but a few don't. If you check the manufacturer web site and see there are drivers you can download (for new OSes, ignore Win98) it could be a non-standard one.

Technically USB2 is faster than Firewire, but in practice Firewire doesn't have the same overhead of USB2 and is more effective and has better actual performance.

[ferrija1]

http://westerndigital.com/en/product...=5&language=en