They're getting ready to give us new Macbooks at work, so I'll be trading my old one in (probably should have paid them $300 to keep it, but whatev).

I will need to back everything up before trading the old one in. I have a lot of stuff backed up on the work account's Google Drive and some more stuff backed up on a personal Google Drive, but I want to also backup on an external HD.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a drive that won't break the bank? There's like 150 gigs of stuff total on the computer, so I don't need oodles of storage.

I have a cheap Samsung 1tb SSD that I use.

I've had an Iomega external drive that has been very reliable. It is an actual disk drive, and I'd buy solid state now. I think any of them from the usual suspects will be fine.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
I have a cheap Samsung 1tb SSD that I use.

+1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The Western Digital Passport models (both spinners and SSDs) have served me well as Time Machine drives for many years, and are not too costly. They take their power from the USB port itself so you don't have to fuss with a wall wart.

Define "Break the bank."

Ideally, get something that you can use down the road. Your new Mac will be USB-C, I presume. If you don't buy an adapter, you'll need that interface on your external enclosure. Probably cheaper to get an adapter.

If you don't need it portable, I like the WD easystore drives from Best Buy. $200 will get you an 8TB USB 3.0 drive. Here's the thing about these external, full size (I know, technically half size) drives. In the past, WD used consumer grade drives, but due to excessive warranty claims, they have been using NAS drives, like a relabeled WD Red Plus. You get a very reliable drive in an external enclosure for less than the drive alone. Those "in the know" actually buy these and "shuck" them to expand their NAS drive pools.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/w...5302.p?skuId=6425302

You really don't need speed for a backup drive. SSDs are wasted in a backup use. Get a good, rugged, spinning platter, and use it with your new system, saving versions back to the beginning of time. In this age of ransomware, that's the best defense. Hopefully the scumbags aren't targeting Mac OS, but you never know.

 
Pick out an SSD. It sounds like 256GB or 500GB would do you well; personally I would go with the 500GB, for future needs. Then get this $30 enclosure from Oyen Digital (bare enclosure only, with no drive included). It is all aluminum and uses the latest USB-C standard (or Thunderbolt 3). I've been using their cases for many years now, and they put out a quality product. Available on Amazon.
 
Oyen Digital SATA to USB-C hard drive or SSD enclosure.

I would avoid ^^^^^ that enclosure and any other that requires external power.



Time Machine isn't really that picky.

Seagate or WD external 2.5 HD should be fine and they are the only two brands of "mechanical" drive I would trust.

1TB Seagate can be had for under $50 on Amazon. Don't be to worried if it is a USB-C or USB-3 cable, adapters readily available and should have one anyway.

SSD is faster and smaller, but they do cost more.

This is way simpler than most recommendations above:
just buy a 256 GB flash drive with USB 3.0 like this one:

SanDisk 256 GB flash drive

It's $25.

You can set it as a Time Machine backup or use cloning software like Carbon Copy Cloner.

Another drive in the 1TB range is at Costco:

https://www.costco.com/sandisk...oduct.100527741.html

I've had one for a couple of years now - it has both USB-C and a USB-A adapter plug.

I picked up a 2TB Samsung SSD from Best Buy when on sale for about $115.

The 1TB was $89

Flash drives are convenient and cheap and have sufficient capacity for me. But I couldn’t figure out how long data could be retained on them. My impression is that data lasts longer on an ssd than on a flash drive.

Anybody know the real scoop?

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:
I would avoid ^^^^^ that enclosure and any other that requires external power.

The Oyen MiniPro only requires external power if running a 2.5" platter drive in it, and even then some platter drives will run from bus power. SSDs all run from bus power. That's why the power brick is an optional extra. Most buyers will be using an SSD and won't need external power.
 
Another use case that may require external power is folks still using USB 2.0, which does not provide enough bus power for a platter drive.

I have THREE Lecie BU drives - they have been very goo to us. I am a photographer and graphics guy. Lots of client's work on them.Be award, any drive has a life span. https://www.lacie.com

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Flash drives are convenient and cheap and have sufficient capacity for me. But I couldn’t figure out how long data could be retained on them. My impression is that data lasts longer on an ssd than on a flash drive.

Anybody know the real scoop?

Flash drives are for transport. Not reliable backup. I would never rely on a single flash drive as my only copy of anything.

I back up to a 4TB Seagate external drive, and a Sandisk 256GB flash drive.

The problem I've had with the flash drive is it declares itself full and I have to reformat it to make it useful again, losing my data on it, in the process. It just serves as my "suspenders" in my mind, so that is OK.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
The Western Digital Passport models (both spinners and SSDs) have served me well as Time Machine drives for many years, and are not too costly. They take their power from the USB port itself so you don't have to fuss with a wall wart.

I agree! Get a WD external hard drive and do a Time Machine backup of your computer. You can set up the new computer using the Time Machine backup.

I use an inexpensive SSD placed into a $10 enclosure with a USB connection.

If you are risk averse, I would avoid La Cie hardware. I have lost three such hard drives, with minimal use.

quote:

Flash drives are for transport. Not reliable backup. I would never rely on a single flash drive as my only copy of anything.

I would never rely on ANY single device or media of any type as my only copy of anything.
There is nothing inherently unreliable about flash drives as a temporary storage media. Writing to them continuously does degrade them so I certainly wouldn't suggest that, but have a couple with copies of some data to transfer to a new machine is at least to me a reasonable strategy.

Great! Getting the M1 architecture?

I too have a cheap-ish 1Tb SSD, a Crucial M4., with a usb-c adapter for connectivity.
I use the M4 with MacOS Time Machine.

A separate PNY 256Gb USB for separate storage copy of music.
Another PNY 512Gb USB for a copy of documents and images.

</chris>