I’ve always used a time capsule for backups, and my understanding is that this will no longer be supported. Looking for a recommendation for an external drive to replace my time cap.
MacBook Air (M3, 2024)
Any good quality external drive formatted as APFS will work.
Many people suggest OWC / MacSales options.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-express-1m2-80g
For something less expensive, you can try Samsung, Seagate, Crucial etc...
You don't need an SSD unless you are going to be taking it with you. If it's just going to be sitting somewhere like time Capsule and not taken anywhere a desktop drive is a better option.
Examples:
click here ➜ Crucial 2TB SSD - Amazon.com
click here ➜ Seagate 8TB Desktop Hard Drive - Amazon.com
click here ➜ Samsung T9 Portable SSD 4TB - Amazon.com
click here ➜ PNY 2TB SSD - Amazon.com
Any good quality external drive formatted as APFS will work.
Many people suggest OWC / MacSales options.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-express-1m2-80g
For something less expensive, you can try Samsung, Seagate, Crucial etc...
You don't need an SSD unless you are going to be taking it with you. If it's just going to be sitting somewhere like time Capsule and not taken anywhere a desktop drive is a better option.
Examples:
click here ➜ Crucial 2TB SSD - Amazon.com
click here ➜ Seagate 8TB Desktop Hard Drive - Amazon.com
click here ➜ Samsung T9 Portable SSD 4TB - Amazon.com
click here ➜ PNY 2TB SSD - Amazon.com
Pretty happy with my Crucial X6, which I've had since February.
Other than that, I'll just say avoid Western Digital. That's a lesson I should have learned after the first bad drive, but it took three before it sunk in.
I have had a good experience with LaCie 2TB Mobile SSD Secure USB-C Drive.
The suggestions here are good but if, like me, you don't want to plug in a drive to your Mac and want to do backups wirelessly then you could:
I went the Raspi route. I've never used one before but there's tons of help on the Raspi forums and it took me an hour or so to get it set up.
Zurarczurx wrote:
I went the Raspi route. I've never used one before but there's tons of help on the Raspi forums and it took me an hour or so to get it set up.
Same here. Configured in that manner it is by definition a NAS, and for less than $100, can hardly be considered expensive.
A Raspberry Pi Zero W (which I don't have) would be even less expensive.
It was almost comically trivial to set up. Testing is ongoing but no problems yet.
What is the best external drive to use for Time Machine backups for my MacBook Air M4 running tahoe?
