[zzzth]

yesterday i bought a Western Digital USB 2.0 "Mybook Essential" external "1Terabyte" hard drive to use in setting up TimeMachine on my Mac OSX 10.5.8. I got it going without a hitch

Clicking the apple at the top left of the screen and then "about this mac" and then "more info" I found the Western Digital entry which said, among other things,

WDC WD3200AAJS-40RYA0:
Capacity: 298.09 GB
Model: WDC WD3200AAJS-40RYA0
Revision: 12.01B03
Serial Number: WD-WCAPZ2783972
Native Command Queuing: Yes ......

QUESTION 1. Does the above mean that this drive only has 298 GB? On the box it says: "1TB/To" which the salesman said meant "1 terabyte." And, the Time Machine window where it is now backing up my hard drive says, "899 MB of 930 MB, which I guess would imply a terabyte. Is Thailand playing games with me? How big is my drive really?"

SECOND QUESTION: I started doing the Time Machine backup yesterday afternoon. It backed up all night and presently it's afternoon again, and only 28 GB of 46 GB have been backed up according to the window--and the progress bar agrees. It's still working.
Perhaps the error is mine. I used one of the USB ports on the side of the keyboard. Are these (abominably) slower than the USB's on the back of the machine?
Thanks! tom

[ZeroZero7]

I have 3 My Book Essentials and 3 My Book Studios.

Even though your Mac will recognise a My Book Essentials it comes formatted for PC & Mac.

Use Disk Utlity to reformat it, just for Mac. Sorry, but that means wiping what youv'e already done and starting again.

WD have great support.

Go to this address for details on how to reformat your drive:
http://support.wdc.com

Search for: Answer ID 3323
It explains how to reformat the drive. After, you'll see that your drive actually is 1TB.

Then go to:

http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...id=108&lang=en

Read careflly, and download new drivers, WD Macintosh +TURBO Drivers.
It will go like a rocket.

Then set up your Time Machine. (Which I don't use, but that's beside the point.)
That will do it.

[zzzth]

thanks zz7, that sounds well worth doing even though, as you point out, i will be starting over. the first time it took 24 or so hours to back up the hard drive. do you have an estimate for the comparable time with a reformatted drive.
also, the drive apparently initially was formatte for pc and it made me go through operations to format it for mac (or mac and pc??) is this different from the procedure you have outlined? i guess it must be if the 1-tb issue will be resolved.
final question: i kind of cringed to see my internal mac hard drive run steadilyfor 24 hours--is there danger of causing the very event that adding the external hard is supposed to insure against, wearing out the internal drive and causing a crash?
thanks for your expertise! you've helped me a great deal, tom h

[ZeroZero7]

A-Q2:
It may be the same procedure, using Apple's Disk Utility, but follow WDs instructions carefully. it is not difficult or complicated, just make sure you follow the steps they give.
It won't take long for that part.

Yes, the 1TB issue will be resolved. Mine show 931.19 GB capacity, formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

1024 bytes = 1k, 1024k = 1 Megabyte (NOT 1000k as some assume) and so on... until you get to 999,857,648,640 bytes, which the drive manufacturers call a Terabyte - check Wikipedia if you are really interested in the math.

A -Q1:
I copied 923 GB from a iMac 2.93GHz Core2 Duo across from the internal SATA drive and from 2 MyBook Studio Firewire drives in about 4 hrs (using USB 2, which is all the MBE supports.) The other drives can send the data faster than the MBE can swallow it up, but it still didn't take long.

A - Q3:
I don't think your drive will need to run for 24 hrs.

If it does, I still wouldn't worry.

Usually, the drive is spinning the whole time that the Mac is on, unless you use Energy Saver, to sleep the drive when the Mac is idle.

My Macs are on 16 hrs a day. My partner leaves her's on 24/7.

We've used Macs ( about 30 of them) since the first 128k Mac in 1984. We have not had a drive failure yet! The drives have come from assorted companies over the years.

But, we back-up anything important regularly, anyway.

By anyway, I mean back-up to: floppy disk and each other's hard drives (1980s), external drives & Zip drives (1980s-90s), CDs then DVDs (1990s-00s), Web Hosting Servers (from 1997) and multiple external HDs, CDs, DVDs and DV Tape up until the present.

If it is important to keep, or you don't want to re-create whatever work you have done, personal stuff or for clients... back-up.

Having said that, there is a great deal of stuff you don't need to back-up.
You have the OSX System and Applictions DVDs, and you have DVDs for any other software you purchased a licence to use.

So, if your drive/s fail, you can re-build everything again - as long as you have at least, backed-up the content you created yourself (digital images, calendars, tax records, etc) or that you bought (iTunes, games, etc).

This is probably too long an answer, and reads back to me like a lecture,

so I better quit now.

Well, I'm new to this forum and community idea, so please excuse the long winded response.

I hope this helps you... and maybe somebody else.

[zzzth]

hi, thanks again. that was the most thorough help i've ever received: every detail was useful. i'm preparing to act on it.

Q: When i bought the external wd drive it came with some software on it called 'wd smartware.' when i reformatted originally to the mac format according to instructions somehow the wd smartware was spared. do you know if that will happen on this next formatting, or do i need to copy the wd smartware onto my internal hard drive? thanks much, tom h

[ZeroZero7]

Hello Tom.

Don't worry about the WD Smartware.

WD instructions will tell what to download.

Sorry for the slow reply. I was out most of yesterday.

Guess you may have re-initialized already.

[zzzth]

hi zero zero 7, i haven't reinitialized yet. i'm looking forward to doing it but have to wait a couple of weeks. thanks much, i'll let you know what happens. tom

[zoombini]

If you want to remove the smartware:

http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/update...twareutilities