To quote Trevor's excellent answer:

Questions like these are going to be easier to answer when people have Leopard, or those folks who currently have Leopard are released from their NDA and can talk about their experience. Right now, you have just as much ability to check out Apple's webpages describing Leopard as anyone else--maybe searching that will help you figure out the answer.

In two more days, there will be a lot more information about Leopard available. I suspect that there might even be a forum member or three that have been running Leopard for a while now, but are legally obligated to refrain from discussing it.

Network drives will work fine with TimeMachine. Any drive of sufficient size, other than the boot drive can be selected in the Preferences panel.

Hmm
 

I bought the Maxtor 750 HD that Frys had on sale and now I am wondering if it is overkill.
The box says it is useful if you need "massive storage capacity for digital photos, music graphic and videos.

I am just an average user and it ran me $200 when I bought the warranty for 3 yrs.

Any suggestions?
Brenda

No, I think 750 GB is a wise choice. Backup space on hard drives will fill up faster than you expect. (Or at least that's true with traditional backups. I've no experience with Time Machine yet.)

Trevor

As I've been telling my clients for years... Hard drive space is like closet space. No mater how much you have, it will fill up! :)

BTW: $200 for a 750GB! That's a darn good price!

I was looking for a hd in the uk, 320gb firewire 400? anyone know where to find one (NOT LACIE)

Why not Lacie? I thought that they were a decent brand (just an impression from talking with others - I've never owned a Lacie product).

I'm not over keen on Lacie anymore, I had one at home for a cuople of years, and it always been buggy, I can not even see part of it. I had one at work and it bricked( sorry iPhone term) twice just after the warranty run out , the last time it was unrecoverable. Lost a lot of data as well as gain a new paperweight.

The only problem is for Time Machine, I want to get a ethernet capable drive
But have only found the LaCie Ethernet Big Disk.

I want ethernet as I suspect many of the bad disk problems a because of unclean firewire disconnects (for what ever reasons).

Hi folks,

I think AdamB529's thread has turned into a very valuable one regarding what are the best external HD's.

In theory an external HD is as important as ANY computer that supports it as the loss of data can prove catastrophic for freelancers like myself where reliable data (illustrations and support files in my case) storage and access is fundamental to everyday working practice. I currently use one internal HD for Apps and OSX and a second internal HD on my G5 PPC Quad 2.7 for artwork files, backed up to an external 200 GB Lacie drive. Its now some three years old and has been always been fine (touch wood). I'll probably need a new drive very soon as this one is getting full despite continual editing of data.

Within the experience of people contributing to the forum - what are the best / most reliable Mac friendly external HD's available that you have worked with and what are the worst...?....! No swearing now:D

Cheers,

YZ

I would recommend any external FireWire drive that used an Oxford bridge chipset, no matter whose name was glued to the outside*. I would also get a drive with the fastest FireWire interface that my computer supported, so if my computer has FireWire 800, I'd be sure to get a FW800 drive. If my computer only supports FireWire 400, then a FW400 drive is adequate.

Trevor

* Actually, that's with the caveat that I only want external drives that use active cooling, in other words the drives that have a fan so that the hard drive doesn't cook. And I strongly prefer drives with an on/off switch, and with an external power supply, not relying on bus-power.

Is it worth spending $80 more for 250GB in additional hd space (500GB for 150, 750GB for 230)

That's about the same price per gigabyte. The 750 GB drive is 2/3 of a cent higher per gig. When it comes to RAM and hard drive space, the general rule is that more is better.

for use with time machine???? how much space do i really need?

That depends on how much total space is being backed up. I'd say at the very least, twice the total space used of all drives/partitions being used.

i've narrowed my choices down to a Western digital My Book Premium edition (USB/FW400) and the Maxtor One-Touch III (USB/Fw400/FW800). Both drives are about $235. Anyone have any experience with either and could recommend one or the other?

I would stay away from the Maxtor One-Touch myself. First, I've never had particularly good luck with Maxtor drives, but even ignoring that, there have been many reports on this forum saying that if you try to replace the drive internal to a Maxtor case, the size of the new drive will be limited to 128/137 GB (depending on how you count your Gigabytes.) Search the forums here for further details.

Does your computer support FireWire 800? If it does, you might want to look further for a trustworthy external drive that supports it as well.

Trevor

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306833

"Mac OS X 10.5: Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Disks

Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard can be used to back up to many kinds of Mac OS Extended-formatted drives, but it does not support AirPort Extreme's AirPort Disk feature.

Time Machine can back up to another Mac running Leopard with Personal File Sharing, or to a Leopard Server volume, or an Xsan storage device.

Learn more about Time Machine here."

copyright 2007 Apple Inc.

That's what I've also heard from users of Apple Discussions.

Nope, only FW 400 and USB, so the WD Premium Edition is perfect for me. (no, i didn't rhyme than intentionally, but hey, it sounds cool)

just wanted to say that I went ahead and ordered the My Book Premium Edition 500GB. i decided that I really didn't need FW800 nor 750GB of storage. Thanks everybody for their help. Now I'm waiting for my copy of Leopard to arrive from Amazon.

-Adam