I’m not sure what I’ll do for my MacBook backups when my Time Capsule dies, but I’m thinking I’ll put in an NAS network device and use that.

Certainly a little more fiddling than Time Capsule to get set up, but once done it works well. I’ve set up the same system using an ASUS wireless router at a friend’s place and it works fine. My wife’s MacBook is also connected this way. In that way I can take my MacBook anywhere in the house and Time Machine will keep on working to back up my machine. I still have an Apple Time Capsule that I point Time Machine at. You will have to reformat either of these disks to set it up for the Mac files, but that is easily done in the Mac Disk Utility.įor my laptop I take a different approach. Hard Drive With Time Machine How to Access an External Hard Drive on.

You don’t need the externally powered version, just the portable version that gets its power via the USB connection. Its best to start from the computer and USB port side, and then work your way. In the Seagate world you should get their Seagate EXPANSION DISK version of their HDD. APFS or APFS Encrypted disks are the preferred format for a Time Machine backup disk. Besides, it wastes a little bit of storage space that you’ve paid for. I avoid the PASSPORT version because it is set up with its own backup software and that seems to confuse some people. I’ve alway bought either a Western Digital ELEMENTS drive (usually 2 TB). If you don’t have a backup, you can’t recover files that you deleted. If you have an iMac (desktop) then a directly connected HDD is a good thing. Time Machine, the built-in backup feature of your Mac, will automatically back up your data, including apps, music, photos, email, and documents.

Best hd for time machine