Back Up! Just Do It!
BACK UP! This topic is always a conversation piece when speaking to customers about a new computer purchase, and can be the most crucial purchase you make when you buy a new machine. As far as technology has come, drive failure occurs on a daily basis.
There is no magic wand or crystal ball we can use to estimate when a drive might fail, so the best defense is to purchase a backup drive along with your new computer. With 10.6 Snow Leopard (as well as 10.5 Leopard), Apple has built-in backup software: Time Machine. Time machine takes just minutes to set up and works with any external back up drive. The only requirement of Time Machine is that your backup drive must be at least as large as your computers internal drive.
I purchased this 320GB Buffalo drive as my Time Machine Backup on my MacBook Pro. Out of the box, I was very impressed with the quality of the case and the feel of the drive. I was pleased to see that it does include an extension cable in the event that the 4-inch cable built into the drive isn’t long enough. My Macbook Pro sits on a stand so I needed to use the extension cable to allow it to sit nicely on my desk.
As always, setting up the Time Machine was a breeze. The computer automatically recognized the drive with no need to install any drivers or software—this drive is plug-and-play!