Feed
 

External hard drive for MacBook Air?

Avatar Annie Allan
Good morning all,
I’ve got a six month old MacBook Air, customised to 2TB storage. I want to buy an external hard drive for TM: can anybody recommend a good one ready to run without configuration to a Mac, and what storage size should I get? Will a 2TB be enough or do I need to get a 4TB? There’s quite a difference in price and I’d prefer it if I could get away with a 2TB.
Thanks in anticipation.
Annie
p.s. I should add that the inbuilt storage is already pretty full, prior to me finding time to severely cull my photos!

Re: External hard drive for MacBook Air?

Avatar Mick Burrell
A lot depends on how full your internal storage is at present. It’s likely that very little of the current data will alter on a regular basis meaning that updates to Time Machine would be very small. It may well be worthwhile buying a drive that is larger than 2 TB for a piece of mind.

Re: External hard drive for MacBook Air?

Avatar Annie Allan
Thanks Mick. This is going to be expensive! Any recommendations for brands or models?
Hope all’s well with you.

Re: External hard drive for MacBook Air?

Avatar Mick Burrell
My only recommendation would be to stick to a well-known brand rather than something like Amazon basics.

Depending on funds, as Time Machine works in the background, you could go for one of the old-fashioned spinning disc drives as opposed to the newer, faster, silent SSD drives.

Whatever you choose, do make sure it has the right connection for your Mac which as it’s only six months old, is likely to be USB C

Re: External hard drive for MacBook Air?

Avatar Stuart Affleck
Don't worry about 'ready to run without configuration'. Reformatting in Disk Utility takes seconds. If it's got a regular Type-A connector on the cable, a new cable or a USB-C adaptor are cheap. Though, given the way storage prices (both hard drives and SSDs) are going up at the moment, the drive certainly won't be cheap.

Re: External hard drive for MacBook Air?

Avatar Richard I
Hi,
I bought a SEAGATE Ultra Touch Portable Hard Drive 4TB from Currys for £126, for the same purpose. a spinning disc like this is fine for Time Machine backups. It has a USB C connector and seems to be ok. I agree with stuart that reformatting for Time Machine is pretty easy and quick.
 
Feed