Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Choose Backup Hardware
You're almost certainly going to need one or more external hard
drives for your backups. (Even if you use a Time Capsule or other
network storage, you'll need a separate external hard drive to store
a bootable duplicate.) You can find hard drives with every imaginable
combination of capacity, speed, interface, and case design—and the
selection changes constantly.
In this chapter, I focus on the most important things to consider
when choosing a drive (capacity, interface, and price) and help you
to cut through some of the confusion. After you
Decide Whether to Buy
a Time Capsule
,
I help you
Decide How Many Drives to Buy
.
Some users who need extra capacity, speed, or features may need to
go beyond a conventional hard drive, such as a RAID or a hardware-
encrypted drive. I discuss these and other less-common options at the
end of the chapter, in
Consider Other Hardware Options
.
Decide on Capacity
The most important consideration in a backup drive, by far, is its
capacity—how many gigabytes or terabytes of data it will hold. In
general, the bigger, the better. In fact, I could simply say to get the
largest hard drive you can afford, and that would be a reasonable rule
of thumb.
However, if you can't afford an especially large drive, or if the amount
of data you have to back up is exceptionally large, you may want more
guidance. So, figure out the size you'll need for duplicates, then the size
you'll need for versioned backups, and finally the total size to look for.
Duplicate Size
You'll store, on part of your external hard drive, an exact, bootable
copy of your Mac's regular startup volume. (If you use a Time Capsule,
