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Filed under: Accessories, Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Peripherals, Mac 101

Mac 101: External HDs

by Robert Palmer (RSS feed) on May 7th, 2008

More Mac 101, our series of basic tips for new and returning Mac users. Since most Mac models don't offer extra drive bays, external hard disks are the way to go for adding vast storage capacity to your computer. External HDs are great for storing large projects, moving huge amounts of data from place to place, or backing up via Time Machine.

Hard disks are a commodity product nowadays: the market is flooded with a cornucopia of options, most of them cheap and easy to install. So which is right for you?

The trick is this: find out who makes the actual hard drive inside the external enclosure (that is, inside the nicely-designed plastic or metal box that sits on or under your desk).

It's what's inside that counts, and we'll explore after the jump.

Continue reading “Mac 101: External HDs”

Tags: hard-disk, hard-drive, maxtor, seagate, western digital, WesternDigital

Filed under: Leopard

24 hours of Leopard: Time Machine

by Lisa Hoover (RSS feed) on Oct 25th, 2007

Leopard TIme Machine

Feature: Time Machine

How it works: Plug an external hard drive into your Mac and Leopard will automatically detect it and ask if you want to enable the Time Machine back up option. Select yes, and you're done. Time Machine will automatically back up your entire hard drive but if you want to skip certain files or folders, simply tell it what to do in the preference pane.

Time Machine is also handy for that dreaded "Why did I hit delete?" moment. If you accidentally trash that presentation you've been working on the night before you need it, just flip back through the files on the back up drive until you find what you need. Apple assumes that this will happen to everyone at some point, so they'll thoughtfully provided access to Time Machine right in Finder.

Got more than one Mac? No problem. Multiple machines can be backed up onto one drive via your wireless network.

Who will use it: Anyone who hates losing files, folders, documents, or media unexpectedly. So, pretty much everyone.

More Q&A on Time Machine at our earlier post here.

Tags: 24-hrs-of-leopard, back-up, backup, hard-drive, save-my-file, time-machine, wireless

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Rumors, Mac mini

Rumor: Mac mini turns Nano in late October

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Oct 4th, 2007

I've had this plan ever since the mini almost died earlier this year, and I'm sticking to it: as soon as I can buy a Mac mini with Leopard on it, I'll do so. And no one's going to stop me-- except maybe Jobs himself. Mac OS Rumors reports that they've heard that as of October's end, the mini is dead-- long live something new called the Mac Nano. Supposedly, the new low-end Mac will be even smaller than a mini (just tall enough to fit a hard drive in), and the enclosure will have a completely new design.

Intriguing idea indeed, even if it isn't quite new-- the Nano name has been floating around for a while. There are four other products sliding out of the rumor mill as well-- AppleTV is rumored to get an update (and a hard drive), and supposedly we'll see a MacBook Nano as well, the long-rumored ultraportable that Apple is supposedly working on-- a.k.a. Rumor #3.

The future of Mac, or wishful thinking? At this point, we have no indication-- Mac OS Rumors is no 9-to-5 Mac (ouch, but they deserve it, don't they?), but they are called "Rumors" for a reason. Either way, I want to buy an extremely small, compact, headless Mac with Leopard on it this fall. Whether it's called mini or Nano doesn't matter to me at all.

Tags: announcements, apple, apple-tv, hard-drive, mac-mini, mac-nano, rumors, ultraportable

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