[Dreaming]

If I had an Intel-based Mac with a Windows partition and I wanted to back up everything onto an external HD . . .

1. Can (or does) Boot Camp partition the external HD in the same way as the Mac's internal HD? (I am assuming that the Windows partition is formatted as FAT32 while the Mac partition is HFS+. Hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong.)
   
2. Are there any external HDs that actually can be partitioned with different file systems on each partition?
   
3. Is it just better to back up each partition on a separate external HD?
   
4. Or, if I just clone the internal drive to the external drive, won't it automatically duplicate what's on the internal anyway? (Although I'm not sure about this. I've had to format my external HDs before using them)

Feel free to make recommendations about the best external HDs. Thanks everyone.

[mduell]

1) Why would you use Boot Camp to partition an external HD?
2) All of them.
3) No, that's pointless.
4) If you use a tool that actually copies the disk instead of just files, the external will be just like the internal. I'd recommend dd.

[forumhound]

Personally, I am doing this and pleased with the results:
1. use timemachine for the mac partitions.
2. use winclone for the XP or Vista partition.
Simple, and works.
Cheers,
FH
On external drives, we just buy the cheapest Seagate Satas we can find, and put them in these high quality enclosures: ::: SNA Technology :::
Supposedly the cases use the lacie chip set for firewire/esata/usb and they work well. The build quality is fantastic. Good luck!

[mduell]

Originally Posted by forumhound 

On external drives, we just buy the cheapest Seagate Satas we can find, and put them in these high quality enclosures: ::: SNA Technology :::
Supposedly the cases use the lacie chip set for firewire/esata/usb and they work well. The build quality is fantastic. Good luck!

LaCie doesn't make any chipsets; they just build enclosures (usually poorly) around chipsets from Oxford, TI, SiI, or Cypress.

[OreoCookie]

I don't know where you got the impression that Lacie's quality is poor. I've bought two Lacie enclosures (a D2 design harddrive and a Mac mini companion with integrated hubs) and four IcyBox enclosures and the Lacie beats el cheapo enclosures hands down. One of the little things is that only my Lacie enclosure allows the drive to spin down. In effect, I don't have to switch the drive on and off which is very neat, because I can tuck it away. Not so with my other IcyBox drive (which is my backup drive).

[mduell]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

I don't know where you got the impression that Lacie's quality is poor. I've bought two Lacie enclosures (a D2 design harddrive and a Mac mini companion with integrated hubs) and four IcyBox enclosures and the Lacie beats el cheapo enclosures hands down. One of the little things is that only my Lacie enclosure allows the drive to spin down. In effect, I don't have to switch the drive on and off which is very neat, because I can tuck it away. Not so with my other IcyBox drive (which is my backup drive).

From personal experience with about a dozen (not that many, admittedly) LaCie products owned by friends/coworkers/employers; the trends that have defined my LaCie experience are poor performance, poor build quality, poor reliability, and prices out of touch with reality (all the 'quality' of a MyBook for twice the enclosure price).

There are certainly bad cheap enclosures out there, but there are plenty of good cheap enclosures out there too. The $25 USB2+eSATA or USB2+FW400 enclosures from AZiO support spin down (and S.M.A.R.T. parameter reporting with the former).

[nonhuman]

I'm with mduell on this one. LaCie is certainly far from the worst out there, but they're quality can definitely be rather hit or miss. After using a very large number of different external hard drives from many different manufacturers (starting with a 2 GB SCSI drive about 15 years ago or so), I've come to the conclusion that the best bet is pretty much always to build your own. That way you know exactly what components are going into it and exactly what the warranty terms are.