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I am looking for an external harddisk for backup my MacBook Pro (with Time Machine) and I saw there are already "packed" configurations (combos) like theses:

They all seems to be in Thunderbolt Version 1, and I found nothing that was Thunderbolt Version 2.

Because with these combos I cannot really choose the hard drive inside (I tend to prefer the 7200 rpm) and all the above seems to be in 5400 (or unspecified) I am also interested for a hard drive case which has the same features (SATA 3Gb) and Thunderbolt V2.

Where I live (Switzerland) I found only this reference Delock 42490 but it seems to be in Thunderbolt V1 only.

The question I am asking : is there any hard drive case (or combos) with Thunderbolt V2 interface?

Optionally can you recommends some alternatives by answering these questions:

  • Is USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt V1 performance enough for backing up 500GB with Time Machine?
  • Is a 5400 rpm hard drive fast enough (if I do not want to let my computer making the backup for the whole night)
Rubydesic
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рüффп
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  • Even 500 GB for a 7200 rpm hard drive is a lot to handle... – Zizouz212 Nov 22 '15 at 04:59
  • Ok, the harddisk is not full, and Time Machine as fas as I know uses differentials to make the backup. But 7'200 is my usual standard (for a decent budget). I just need some feedback from people using Apple TimeMachine as well. – рüффп Nov 22 '15 at 09:32
  • A while back, I used to use Time Machine to store a couple backups (I don't have the need now). I can't think of something off the top of met head, but using USB 3, or Thunderbolt are both good actions, as they allow for fast speeds. – Zizouz212 Nov 22 '15 at 15:04
  • Whats your budget? – Peter Zhu Nov 22 '15 at 23:25
  • more or less like the four products mentionned ... but no more than 250$. If such devices exists but at higher price, I will probably use usb3 or thunderbolt v1 instead. The passport Pro is a bit over my specification as I only need one harddisk as this is mainly for backuping the OS itself (I have already a NAS RAID 1 for the file backups) – рüффп Nov 23 '15 at 00:01
  • Thunderbolt V1 has a theoretical throughput of 10gbps (1.25GB/s), more than enough to handle backups to a 7200RPM Drive. Unless you were backing up to a PCIe SSD or something, I wouldn't be worried about your interface (USB 3.0, USB 3.1, Thunderbolt 1, Thunderbolt 2) bottlenecking your transfer speeds. – Rubydesic Nov 23 '15 at 22:16

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I finally went for a WD MyPassport Ultra 3Tb for a reasonable price (~160$) and I can say it works very nicely and fast enough for the OSX Time Machine.

I would definitely recommend that external hard disk for doing backups of your machine (OSX TimeMachine but surely will be good for Windows machines as well).

рüффп
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