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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cavalry to the Rescue: cautiously optimistic (but conditioned to accept the worst), February 20, 2008
I wanted something to use with Apple's Time Machine, a program designed to continuously back up your entire hard drive. The only familiar name in this price range was Seagate, but after reading some Amazon customer reviews for their 250 GB model, you'd have to be a masochist to spend money on it. For that matter, even the pricier "darlings" in this size--Western Digital, Omega, Maxtor, LaCie, SimpleDrive--rarely could muster up a 4-star let alone 5-star rating. (No wonder our government and its agencies have so much trouble with intelligence.) So I did the only sensible thing--ordered a lesser known model that had no customer ratings.
In doing so, I passed up several other Cavalry models with identical capacity and priced within one-nine dollars of this one. This model, from the CAUI series, appears to be heavier than the others, probably because it does employ a fan, one moreover that you can hear (if you listen for it). But my iMac saw it instantly, which is more than I can say for some drives I've tried (two Western Digitals made striking first impressions, then went AWOL), and the drive and computer hit it off right away. Amazon has a 30-day return period, so it's still in its audition stage. At this point, I can attest that it's responsive and is built like a bri--well, let's say it's plenty solid. And since I don't plan to move it around, I'm counting on it to behave. (Should it suddenly fail after the trial period, I don't do enough fishing to require a boat anchor but it could probably be fashioned into one of those gravity-principle dash mounts for my GPS unit.)
Recommendations: This size is adequate to back up my entire hard-drive and then some, provided I delegate another place for the space-hungry audio files. For this purpose your best bet is an iPod Classic 160 GB or Toshiba's sturdy and dependable "plug 'n play" hard drive with its "background" back-up program--"Shadow"--that targets certain folders and is almost as brainless to set up as Time Machine. If you have more money to spend and want to dump everything into one place, pick up either a 1TB hard drive or the new Airport wi-fi that comes with 1TB storage space (enough to back up your own computer and any others on the network). But before getting carried away, best to consider that 80% of computer users don't back up their work and that it's doubtful any of the remaining 20% have "The Great American Novel" stored as a manuscript on their machines. (As for all those family and pet photos, when's the last time you viewed them?)
[Update: I've had it operating continuously for a month now. No problems, no heat, no sliding across my desk even though I've got it in vertical position. Solid device and, considering I haven't found anything of equal capacity at a lower price, a solid value.]
[Update: We're in the 3rd month now, and it's a solid and dependable, "invisible" back-up artist. No compatibility issues with Mac running OSX5(Leopard). I'm not surprised that the national distributor appears to offer minimal support, but it's reassuring to know they're liberal about refunds and exchanges.]
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