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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22630 07/23/12 07:16 PM
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Originally Posted By: plantsower
Thank you. I don't know how much I would need, ...

The rule is: Twice your hard drive's size. In my case 2 x 500GB = 1 TB. That's why among other reasons I chose the WD HD for backup.
Given the flooding in SE Asia and other issues, gone are the days of the reliable $60 HD; I paid $109 for mine. You might be able to find it for about the same via Amazon, Best Buy, etc.

Re: My New MacBook Pro
grelber #22631 07/23/12 07:18 PM
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Twice? Yikes! I think I will just not do this. smile

Rita


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22632 07/23/12 07:20 PM
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Read my edit ... which I did while you were 'freaking out'. wink

Re: My New MacBook Pro
grelber #22633 07/23/12 07:26 PM
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Thank you. Around $100.00 plus or minus is doable. Just any old external hard drive brand as long as it's compatible with Macbook Pro? Amazon is where I would prefer to buy it since it's more reasonable than the Other World place. Whew! I feel better.

Rita



Originally Posted By: grelber
Originally Posted By: plantsower
Thank you. I don't know how much I would need, ...

The rule is: Twice your hard drive's size. In my case 2 x 500GB = 1 TB. That's why among other reasons I chose the WD HD for backup.
Given the flooding in SE Asia and other issues, gone are the days of the reliable $60 HD; I paid $109 for mine. You might be able to find it for about the same via Amazon, Best Buy, etc.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22634 07/23/12 07:26 PM
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Originally Posted By: plantsower
$300 is a big deal to me. It kind of makes me angry when I now know that I can't have an install disk, but have to purchase an expensive (a relative term) external drive to be able to protect my stuff. frown

Rita



You have ALWAYS had to purchase an external hard drive to protect your stuff. If you don't have a backup, it's only a matter of time until you lose your stuff.

If you are seeing price quotes of $300 for an external USB hard drive, run! You can get a 1 TB hard drive on Amazon for about $80, and 500 GB hard drives can be had for about $65.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
tacit #22635 07/23/12 07:46 PM
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Now we're talkin'. smile



Originally Posted By: tacit
Originally Posted By: plantsower
$300 is a big deal to me. It kind of makes me angry when I now know that I can't have an install disk, but have to purchase an expensive (a relative term) external drive to be able to protect my stuff. frown

Rita



You have ALWAYS had to purchase an external hard drive to protect your stuff. If you don't have a backup, it's only a matter of time until you lose your stuff.

If you are seeing price quotes of $300 for an external USB hard drive, run! You can get a 1 TB hard drive on Amazon for about $80, and 500 GB hard drives can be had for about $65.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
tacit #22636 07/23/12 08:03 PM
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Originally Posted By: tacit
You have ALWAYS had to purchase an external hard drive to protect your stuff. If you don't have a backup, it's only a matter of time until you lose your stuff.


Or get a networked offsite arrangement, don't overlook that option.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22637 07/23/12 08:04 PM
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What about one of these?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_p_72_0?rh=k%3Aexternal+hard+drive%2Cn%3A172282%2Cp_n_condition-type%3A2224371011%2Cp_72%3A1248879011&bbn=172282&sort=price&keywords=external+hard+drive&ie=UTF8&qid=1343076666&rnid=1248877011

or one of these?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_2?rh=k%3Aexternal+hard+drive%2Cn%3A172282%2Cp_n_condition-type%3A2224371011%2Cp_72%3A1248879011&page=2&bbn=172282&sort=price&keywords=external+hard+drive&ie=UTF8&qid=1343076679

Sorry, I don't know how to shorten url's.

Is there any advantage to a regular external hard drive as opposed to a portable one? I like the little ones (portable), but if they have to remain connected to the usb port, I guess a regular one with a cable would be better unless they are wireless.

Gosh this is so foreign to me. Can't wait until I know what I'm doing with this drive stuff. Does the cable usually come with the external drive?

Rita





Originally Posted By: plantsower
Now we're talkin'. smile



Originally Posted By: tacit
Originally Posted By: plantsower
$300 is a big deal to me. It kind of makes me angry when I now know that I can't have an install disk, but have to purchase an expensive (a relative term) external drive to be able to protect my stuff. frown

Rita



You have ALWAYS had to purchase an external hard drive to protect your stuff. If you don't have a backup, it's only a matter of time until you lose your stuff.

If you are seeing price quotes of $300 for an external USB hard drive, run! You can get a 1 TB hard drive on Amazon for about $80, and 500 GB hard drives can be had for about $65.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
Virtual1 #22638 07/23/12 08:12 PM
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Again, I don't know what that means. confused Don't bother to explain. It will take you a lot of work and I still won't get it. smile

Rita



Originally Posted By: Virtual1
Originally Posted By: tacit
You have ALWAYS had to purchase an external hard drive to protect your stuff. If you don't have a backup, it's only a matter of time until you lose your stuff.


Or get a networked offsite arrangement, don't overlook that option.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22640 07/23/12 08:42 PM
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Originally Posted By: plantsower
Gosh this is so foreign to me. Can't wait until I know what I'm doing with this drive stuff. Does the cable usually come with the external drive?

Join the club. I was in the same boat as you and went through the same gnashing of teeth and all the rest of it back in November.
Check out (ie, run through) the thread External hard drives for backup that was generated at that time. Many of your questions and concerns might be answered and allayed.

Re: My New MacBook Pro
grelber #22641 07/23/12 08:47 PM
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Thank you. I'll do that. smile Rita


Originally Posted By: grelber
Originally Posted By: plantsower
Gosh this is so foreign to me. Can't wait until I know what I'm doing with this drive stuff. Does the cable usually come with the external drive?

Join the club. I was in the same boat as you and went through the same gnashing of teeth and all the rest of it back in November.
Check out (ie, run through) the thread External hard drives for backup that was generated at that time. Many of your questions and concerns might be answered and allayed.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
Virtual1 #22643 07/23/12 10:18 PM
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V1, your latest reply was detached from this thread and moved over to FineTunedMac Feedback: 'Watched Topic' problem


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
tacit #22645 07/23/12 10:36 PM
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Look what I found in the Time Machine info on Apple.com:

Note: Every available drive that can be used to store backups is listed. If you’ve partitioned a drive, the available partitions are listed. Time Machine can’t backup to an external drive that's connected to an AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule, or a drive formatted for Microsoft Windows (NTFS or FAT format).

I looked at system profiler, and it looks like I have Airport Extreme. So does that mean I can't use Time Machine? confused

Under Network wifi it says:

Interfaces:
en1:
Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0xF5)

Now what?

Rita


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
Virtual1 #22646 07/24/12 12:09 AM
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Originally Posted By: Virtual1
So when you replace the dead hard drive in your computer with a freshly formatted drive.... you just boot off.... what exactly? to begin the reinstallation process? Unless it can boot off the app store wink


If you have any disk that still has a "Recovery HD" partition on it, you can boot from that by holding down either the option key or ⌘R at startup. Once booted into Recovery HD, you have several options available to you, including:
  • Re-install Lion. (It will be downloaded from the internet.)
  • Restore from a Time Machine backup (no internet required)
  • Use Disk Utility to Verify/Repair any volume (or its permissions), to erase volumes, to repartition disks, and presumably (I haven't tested this) do an Apple Software Recovery (fancy name for sector-level clone) from any volume to any other.
  • Launch Safari, to access whatever web-based help-line you require.
  • Enter Terminal, to do low-level tasks. (But you have only a subset of the normal command-line tools at your disposal.)
Even if you don't have an available "Recovery HD", you can boot into any Time Machine backup produced by 10.7.2 or later, to get the same options. In particular, you can restore from that TM backup, without need to access the internet.

If you have neither a full bootable clone (from SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner, for example), nor a Time Machine backup, nor any Recovery HD partition, you still aren't completely out of options. You won't be able to recover your data, of course (surely no biggie given that you deemed your data too unimportant to bother backing up), but you can still at least re-install OS X, provided that your machine has "Lion Internet Recovery" in its firmware. (Any machine that shipped with Lion pre-installed came with LIR also pre-installed. Machines that shipped in the few months before Lion was released can install LIR as a firmware patch that Software Update will have told you about.)

As mentioned before, holding down ⌘R at startup makes the machine try to boot from a "Recovery HD" partition. Lion Internet Recovery kicks in if such a partition cannot be found: LIR opens an internet connection to Apple, downloads a copy of "Recovery HD", and boots off that. You will need both internet access and an Apple ID, both of which you can configure right there in the startup screen. Re-installing OS X installs the latest version you're entitled to. (You're entitled to whatever shipped on that particular machine, or to whatever version you purchased from the App Store with the given Apple ID. Plus any updates, of course.)

Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22647 07/24/12 12:26 AM
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Originally Posted By: plantsower
I looked at system profiler, and it looks like I have Airport Extreme. So does that mean I can't use Time Machine? confused

No. It only means that the TM backup disk can't be attached to the USB port of that Airport Extreme. You have to connect to it some other way.

You can still use a disk attached to any available USB, Firewire, or Thunderbolt port on your computer, or any disk shared from another Mac on the same local network using File Sharing (the other Mac must be running at least 10.5.6), or an XSAN. (If you don't know what an XSAN is, you don't have one.)

Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22648 07/24/12 12:41 AM
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Rita, if you'd like to learn how to make short links for long URLs, go ahead and start a thread about that in FineTunedMac Feedback...we'll be happy to show you. smile


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
ganbustein #22650 07/24/12 01:31 AM
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Thank you for both of your posts. I understood most of it. smile Anyway, there was something you said I had to hold down to get to recovery disk but it looked like symbols, so I don't know what you were trying to say. Take a look. ......option key or ⌘R at startup.... What is that word between "or" and "at'?

Rita



Originally Posted By: ganbustein
Originally Posted By: plantsower
I looked at system profiler, and it looks like I have Airport Extreme. So does that mean I can't use Time Machine? confused

No. It only means that the TM backup disk can't be attached to the USB port of that Airport Extreme. You have to connect to it some other way.

You can still use a disk attached to any available USB, Firewire, or Thunderbolt port on your computer, or any disk shared from another Mac on the same local network using File Sharing (the other Mac must be running at least 10.5.6), or an XSAN. (If you don't know what an XSAN is, you don't have one.)


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
cyn #22651 07/24/12 01:32 AM
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OK. Thanks.


Originally Posted By: cyn
Rita, if you'd like to learn how to make short links for long URLs, go ahead and start a thread about that in FineTunedMac Feedback...we'll be happy to show you. smile


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22657 07/24/12 01:16 PM
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Quote:
You want a drive at least as large or larger than the drive you are going to be using the Time Machine drive for." In my case, I think that's overkill, right? My Macbook holds 500 GB. I didn't quite understand all that you said, but as long as I get an external drive of at least 150 GB, I think I will be safe from what I've deduced. Also, if I get crazy with it, I can always buy a larger capacity hard drive.

That is the standard advice for Time Machine drives straight from Apple. I have used Time Machine since it was first available and IMO that is good advice. While you have never had a drive failure, hard drives are the single most failure prone part of any computer system. Tacit was right on in his previous post in this thread where he said...

Originally Posted By: tacit
There are two kinds of computer users in the world: those who have experienced a catastrophic loss of their hard drive, and those who will

It is not a matter of IF you will have a hard drive failure — it is a question of WHEN.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
joemikeb #22660 07/24/12 03:11 PM
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Oh, so even though I may never use nearly 500 GB, if my hard drive fails, I will be able to replace the whole 500GB of space if I have at least that much in my external drive? If so, then that makes sense.


Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Quote:
You want a drive at least as large or larger than the drive you are going to be using the Time Machine drive for." In my case, I think that's overkill, right? My Macbook holds 500 GB. I didn't quite understand all that you said, but as long as I get an external drive of at least 150 GB, I think I will be safe from what I've deduced. Also, if I get crazy with it, I can always buy a larger capacity hard drive.

That is the standard advice for Time Machine drives straight from Apple. I have used Time Machine since it was first available and IMO that is good advice. While you have never had a drive failure, hard drives are the single most failure prone part of any computer system. Tacit was right on in his previous post in this thread where he said...

Originally Posted By: tacit
There are two kinds of computer users in the world: those who have experienced a catastrophic loss of their hard drive, and those who will

It is not a matter of IF you will have a hard drive failure — it is a question of WHEN.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22664 07/24/12 03:45 PM
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Originally Posted By: plantsowner
Oh, so even though I may never use nearly 500 GB, if my hard drive fails, I will be able to replace the whole 500GB of space if I have at least that much in my external drive? If so, then that makes sense.

Initially the size of a Time Machine backup will be smaller than the space occupied on the drive you are backing up. However, over time as files are changed and modified the size of the backup set will grow until it eventually completely fills the Time Machine drive at which point Time Machine will start dropping the oldest files or versions of files off of the drive. How long this will take depends on:
  • The size of the changed files (a few very large files that change frequently can fill the Time Machine drive very quickly.
  • how volitile the files on your system are. Every time a file is modified it gets backed up, or at least if the file has changed within the past hour it gets backed up
    • NOTE: frequently changing system files such as swap files, are automatically exempted from a Time Machine backup.
  • In general, Time Machine backups are pretty efficient in the use of disk space.

So if your drive fails you will be able to restore from the last backup before the drive failed (generally one hour or less before the failure) or you can go back in time your system's history, even back to a previous version or update of the operating system. More commonly, if you accidentally delete a file, or somehow a file becomes damaged, you can go back hours, days, months of even years to recover it.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

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Re: My New MacBook Pro
joemikeb #22668 07/24/12 04:28 PM
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One more question: If the drive fails, do you work off of the external drive from then on, or do you have the hard drive replaced?

Rita




Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: plantsowner
Oh, so even though I may never use nearly 500 GB, if my hard drive fails, I will be able to replace the whole 500GB of space if I have at least that much in my external drive? If so, then that makes sense.

Initially the size of a Time Machine backup will be smaller than the space occupied on the drive you are backing up. However, over time as files are changed and modified the size of the backup set will grow until it eventually completely fills the Time Machine drive at which point Time Machine will start dropping the oldest files or versions of files off of the drive. How long this will take depends on:
  • The size of the changed files (a few very large files that change frequently can fill the Time Machine drive very quickly.
  • how volitile the files on your system are. Every time a file is modified it gets backed up, or at least if the file has changed within the past hour it gets backed up
    • NOTE: frequently changing system files such as swap files, are automatically exempted from a Time Machine backup.
  • In general, Time Machine backups are pretty efficient in the use of disk space.

So if your drive fails you will be able to restore from the last backup before the drive failed (generally one hour or less before the failure) or you can go back in time your system's history, even back to a previous version or update of the operating system. More commonly, if you accidentally delete a file, or somehow a file becomes damaged, you can go back hours, days, months of even years to recover it.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
alternaut #22669 07/24/12 04:42 PM
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I'm not sure what you are looking at, but I paid $117.99, with free shipping, for a 500GB On-the-Go.

I got 500GB since this was for my Air which has a 128GB flash drive.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
plantsower #22670 07/24/12 04:45 PM
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Rita--

Just to make sure you get my reply, I will respond to your post also in case you have this monitored, which I just similarly posted elsewhere:

I paid $117.99 with free shipping for 500 GB.


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Re: My New MacBook Pro
Ira L #22671 07/24/12 04:52 PM
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Got both of your messages on this. My question was since I don't take my computer many places, would it be better to get a regular external hard drive rather than an on-the-go type? I'm picturing the on-the-go type as attached to the hip of my Mac without a cord. I picture the regular one with some type of cable.

If the cable is long enough to let my external hard drive sit on the floor, it won't be in my way. Is that possible? Do the cables come with the hard drives?

Where did you get your $117.00 drive?

Oh, this learning curve!!!

Rita

Originally Posted By: Ira L
I'm not sure what you are looking at, but I paid $117.99, with free shipping, for a 500GB On-the-Go.

I got 500GB since this was for my Air which has a 128GB flash drive.


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