Backup drive recommendations

TidBITS Talk
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Tomorrow is Amazon Prime day and i need a new back up drive for my new MacAir, 512 gigs.

I was thinking 2T would be enough to back up the hard drive and partition for Time Machine. Is that enough capacity?

I was looking at Western Digital Pasport. But really don’t know what to buy. It’s been 14 years since I bought one! Recommendations or comments?

Jane

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I’ve had good experiences with Wirecutter’s tech recommendations in the past (keep in mind there’s a slight conflict of interest because the site uses affiliate links for revenue generation):

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I have 2 backup drives, one’s slower, HD, the other’s a much faster SSD. Each has a clone of my Mac. The difference: The clone on the HD is not bootable, but can be used to restore the data using Migration Assistant. The SSD, more expensive, can make bootable clones (much faster if you’re in a pinch). and you can partition both for a Time Machine, too.

As far as how big a drive you need: I have an additional partition on the SSD named Archives, for stuff I use rarely, if at all, but don’t want to throw away. This stuff doesn’t need to be on my Mac any more, which saves space there.

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Personally…I stay away from WD. Samsung T7 is a bit more but well worth it IMO. And while 2TB is enough for a clone partition and a TM one…4TB may not be much more $$ and more is better.

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For 512 GB of storage, I think so. 4x capacity should let you keep a long history, unless you work with and are backing up very large files (e.g. video projects or VM virtual disks), in which case you might want something larger.

The Passport series of drives are small portable USB drives. They are low performance devices and are not rated for 24x7 operation. It might work for Time Machine, but I wouldn’t want to use it.

For my Time Machine backups, I’ve always built my own drives by buying an internal drive and a USB enclosure. It’s really easy. It may not cost less, but you’ll end up with a much higher quality device.

For my Time Machine, I am currently using:

  • Enclosure: Vantec NexStar HX.
    • This is a USB 3.0 enclosure that can hold any 3.5" SATA storage device.
    • It has a built-in fan, which I think is necessary if you use a high performance HDD, because they will overheat (leading to slow behavior and failures) when operated in a 24x7 scenario, like Time Machine, which will be accessing it for a non-trivial amount of time every hour.
    • It supports drives up to 16 TB, so you can put in any drive you like.
    • MSRP (from Vantec’s eBay store) is $40.
  • Drive: Toshiba N300
    • These drives are designed for use in NAS devices, so they are rated for 24x7 operation. They’re also pretty high performance devices (for an HDD): 7200 RPM, 256 MB cache, CMR recording technology.
    • They’re not very expensive. I bought mine from Micro Center. They are currently selling the 4TB model for $96.

So, putting the two together, that’s about $140 for a good quality 4TB drive/enclosure package. Assembly is very easy and only takes a few minutes with a Phillips screwdriver. And not a lot more expensive than WD’s Passport devices.

These are not the only choices, of course. I just wanted to point out that there are often better options than picking a good price from Amazon.

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It is unclear if you’re intending to partition the drive and use it both for a clone and Time Machine. For this discussion, I’ll assume the answer is yes. That’s what I do.

In that case, the clone partition only needs to be as large as the source drive. My rule for Time Machine is it should be around 2 times the amount of data being backed up. So by that measure, a 2 TB drive is plenty.

If you want a bootable clone, then you need a SSD. Or even if you want your backups to run faster. I got a 2TB Samsung T7 SSD on sale for only $100. I’m happy with it.

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Now that we’ve branched off into how to backup: I maintain backups using Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner, each on its own drive. The Time Machine drive is always connected. The CCC drive is disconnected most of the time. I do a CCC backup about once a week or before installing an OS update.

I do this for redundancy and to increase the chances of having a clean version of my entire setup in the event of a catastrophic failure or a security breach.

For backups, especially since macOS stopped supporting booting from clones some time ago, I use spinning platter HDs because I am not that concerned about I/O speeds, repeated reads and writes affect HDs less than SSDs, and the cost-per-megabyte is lower with HDs.

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My present 1T back up drive (don’t remember its name, but it is heavy!) was used for my 256 g MacBook Pro. I divided the external drive into 3 sections; hard drive, Time Machine and blank. I use Super Duper! to back up and it is bootable. The drive has worked for 14 years, but too small for the new Mac.

So far what I am reading is yes/no on the WD Passport drive, a yes on Samsung SSD or create my own (out of my league!)….

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I have a couple of the 1 TB Samsung T5 SSD’s and one T7 for various purposes like backups and boot drives for my older Mac Mini and one I use in a car for USB music playback and all work fine so those are a good choice.

Regarding Western Digital, I have various models of those as well but they are spinning drives, not SSD’s. The ones you can get at Best Buy like the EasyStore ones are also good choices for backups but not as fast as an SSD but they come in larger sizes if you have the need for more storage. Never had a Passport model as I tended to use the Toshiba ones years ago that had a small footprint and nicer cases.

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Putting both backups on a single drive is very dangerous. If the drive suffers a malfunction you lose both backups. Better to have 2 separate drives and for only one to be connected all the time.

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Mike Bombich, developer of Carbon Copy Cloner, has some recommendations:

I like the Samsung T5 and T7, myself.

–Brian

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macOS still supports booting from clones.

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Ok. From reading the comments (thank you all!), it looks like I should buy an SSD and Samsung in particular. I don’t mean to sound stupid, but I haven’t kept up with external stuff. So I looked on Amazon since it’s Prime day. There are many Samsung T5’s and T7’s. Do they come in cases? Plug and Play? I think I should get at least a 2T for the MacBook Air and a different one for Time Machine. How large should the one be for Time Machine? Any recommendations for which Samsung to buy? I will admit I am clueless and just depend on the info I get on Tidbits!

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The Crucial X6 SSD is an older, slower model but has come WAY down in price. A good brand perfect for Time Machine backups in my experience. It’s the about the size of a credit card! Plus it is USB-C so no adapter is needed. 2X capacity is recommended for TM. A dedicated TM drive is best. Avoid SanDIsk at any price.

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It’s not out of your league. You simply haven’t done it before. The steps (slightly different for different model cases are):

  • Open the case (you might have to remove a few screws)
  • If it didn’t come out as a part of opening the case, remove the circuit board. It is usually attached to a metal “sled” used for mounting the drive.
  • Attach the drive to the circuit board. It will just snap on to the SATA connector and should only fit one way.
  • Secure the drive to the sled with a few screws (which usually come with the case)
  • Insert the drive/board/sled assembly back into the case. There may or may not be a wire (for the case’s in-use light) to connect to the board as you’re doing this.
  • Close the case, usually using a few screws.

That’s it. Takes 5-10 minutes.

Now just connect the USB and power cords and turn it on.

SSDs are much faster than HDDs. This is critical if you are going to make a bootable clone, because booting modern versions of macOS from an HDD is so slow that the result is unusable.

But if you’re not going to boot your backup, it’s really just a matter of how much the extra performance matters to you. A good HDD will be plenty fast for Time Machine, for restoring files/directories and for occasionally restoring a whole system. An SSD will be significantly faster, but only you can decide if the speed is worth the extra cost. Especially for large sizes (> 2TB).

Samsung is one of the best SSD manufacturers. Their products may cost a bit more than others, but they are generally reliable devices.

The T-series (T5/T7) are external devices. They come mounted in enclosures.

Crucial is another great brand. They’re the retail division of Micron Technologies - a major manufacturer of RAM and flash chips.

SanDisk used to be great, but then they got bought by Western Digital and are no longer (IMO) a high reliability brand.

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I’d say Apple’s use of a sealed system volume combined with the unreliable workarounds backup software developers must now use to make bootable clones has made macOS effectively non-bootable from backups, especially for non-technical users.

For example, here’s the view of Carbon Copy Cloner’s developer:

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I’m not an engineer nor particularly handy with tools…but as @Shamino says, it isn’t hard to buy a hard drive and insert it into an enclosure. I’ve done it a couple of times, using drives, enclosures, and instructions from Other World Computing (they have better guidance, support, and customer service for Mac owners than most online retailers IMHO) for my PlayStations.

Another good resource for figuring out if you’re up for doing an upgrade or repair is iFixit. They produce extremely clear guides for all sorts of upgrades and repairs.

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In addition, the sealed system volume, which runs off an untouchable disk image, has rendered obsolete the old school troubleshooting function of an external bootable drive. And in any case requires that the internal drive is functional. The worst case scenario on Apple silicon now is corrupt firmware which requires remediation via connecting to another Mac and running Apple Configurator. Which restores the firmware but may wipe the internal drive.

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Just looked at this one on Amazon for my Time Machine back up. What do you think?

Crucial X9 2TB Portable SSD - Up to 1050MB/s Read - PC and Mac, Lightweight and small with 3-month Mylio Photos+ Offer - USB 3.2 External Solid State Drive - CT2000X9SSD902

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Good choice. The X9 is much faster than my X6. Add very good price on Prime Day!

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