Dang, Time Machine Is Costly!

Even with over 300 new features touted in Mac OS X 10.5, aka Leopard, I bought it for one reason and one reason only, Time Machine. The automated backup feature of Leopard makes backing up your data unbelievably easy. Connect an external drive, turn on Time Machine, and that’s it.

But this peace of mind comes with a steep price that I continue to pay. For Time Machine to work, you need an external drive of at least the same size as your internal. So if you have a 250 GB internal drive, you need an external drive 250 GB or more. Got a 500 GB internal then you need 500+ GB free on an external drive.

While external drive costs have come down, the big drives are still costly. And so while I rely on Time Machine for worry free backups, I’ve also spent a bundle on external drives. My home iMac has a Western Digital My Book. My work MacBook Pro uses an older but big enough Maxtor drive, but what about when I’m out of the office? I need to ensure my valuable work is retained so of course, I need a portable external drive when I’m away from the office.

So for those three drives for Time Machine backups, the Leopard upgrade must have totaled an additional $400. Dang, Time Machine is costly!

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