External HD
 

Me again. I need a 1 or 2 Tb external hard drive because my existing EHD's are dedicated to backups for our two machines. I've gone through all the Amazon write ups and there really does not seem to be any consensus, except that the one that comes out best is £250 (the Apple Time Machine). I really would rather pay a little less. The two I have are both LaCie and I've had no trouble with either of them, but your collective advice and recommendations would be most welcome, as always.

I use caddies (Startech) and regular HDs (mostly WD 2tb-3tb)

Never had a problem .... yet

Oh, I did sieze a Hitachi HD 1.6 TB just sitting on a shelf as a backup

Sunnyjohn,

If you want something a little bit different, try a TouchTech Duo.

That, fitted out with top of the range SSD drives a firewire cable sits in my laptop bag as my "on the road" backup device. No power cable needed as can generally be bus powered.

Larger second and third backup devices from alternative manufacturers sit at home and work respectively.

If you are using Lacie (or indeed any other form of backup device), make sure you keep the firmware up to date ! Some lacie models had a habit of going to sleep and preventing TimeMachine from working until someone pressed the power on button on the lacie again.... all fixed by a firmware update though.

Thanks to both of you for your replies. I should have made it clear that I wanted a static EHD because we only use our computers at home. Having read your replies and thought about it a bit, I realised I could buy an Apple Time Machine with a discount via my University account, so I had a look at the reviews. We're talking £250 plus and the reviews were dreadful, the main problem being the internal power supply. So I've gone with my own experience, having had two LaCie drives without a problem for some time, and ordered a LaCie 2TB.

Thanks again.