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I need to replace my currently ailing OWC external drive. I notice that portable solid state drives seem to be far cheaper then the sort I've got at the moment which I think has a spinning disk.
Would a portable drive be OK? I just use the drive for hourly backups using Time Machine. My current iMac is a 2021 24 inch M1. I think it has a 1TB SSD.
iMac (M1, 2021)
Would a portable drive be OK?
My issue with bus-powered "portable" drives is that they seen far more troublesome and less reliable that those with and independent power supply. Also, I've never had a 3.5-inch desktop-class drive in a backup capacity fail, but have lost several of the cheap little 2.5-inch HDDs used in "entry-level" external drives.
Also, a desktop computer does not need a "portable" drive unless the drive must be shared with a mobile computer or device. And given that cloud storage like iCloud Drive and DropBox have largely limited that concern for me, I get real desktop-class external drives that bring they own power to the party
To me, the place an external SSD shines is on an older Mac with a slow mechanical internal hard drive that is struggling with modern macOS versions. There, an external USB3 or ThunderBolt 3/4 SSD can be set as the boot volume. That is NOT and issue with an M1 iMac because the internal integrated storage is already as fast or faster than most external SSD's.
Beyond that, all I can say is that our five active backup drives are all OWC and have given impressive service and reliability. For our iMacs, I buy the bare OWC Mercury Elite USB3 enclosures and install WD 3.5-inch SATA 6GB 7200rpm "Black" series drives inside.
As an aside, in our box of spare tech stuff is a geriatric OWC "Neptune" external drive we bough easily 15 years ago. It still works perfectly but is just not fast, as it is a FireWire 400 model.
I have a Mercury Elite Pro. As an update to my problem, I repositioned the connector into one of the thunderbolt slots on the back of the iMac rather than the USB C ? sockets next to it. At the same time I disconnected and reconnected the adaptor cable (USB to USB C/Thunderbolt) which I had to buy to connect the OWC drive to my new iMac. These combined measures seem to have, at least temporarily solved my backup problem. I am reminded of the old trick of turning off, and then turning back on a misbehaving computer in order to kickstart it back into normal behaviour.
I appreciate your comment about replacing the OWC hard drive. I didn't know this was possible and might look into it for future reference.
For TM backups I recommend drives from OWC (MacSales.com) as they have proven reliability, excellent customer support and warranties. Consider one of these depending on the size required (approximately 2-3 times the size of the data being backed up):
OWC is considered my many here to be the premier 3rd party hardware supplier for Macs.
A 2TB portable SSD would be fine. I use Crucial and SanDisk portable drives on my Macs for Time Machine. Be careful not to purchase large capacity SSD drives claiming to be under $50. Stick to name brands.
You do not need a super fast SSD for Time Machine backups.
In fact it is kind of a waste when an external spinning hard drive is really all that is needed.
Which one of the OWC external drive do you have?
I would consider replacing the hard drive inside of the OWC enclosure and keep using it for Time Machine.
Then go ahead and get a faster external SSD for redundant clone backups and/or extra storage.
Personally I use CarbonCopyCloner, but SuperDuper is just as capable.
Good work, having a sound connection is a must.
If you needed to replace or want a larger hard drive in that enclosure,
have a look at > https://www.owc.com/solutions/mercury-elite-pro-usb-5gb
If you are really interested in backup redundancy, I suggest getting a second external HDD or SSD and using the aforementioned cloning software.
Which is best external drive for iMac?
