That's subjective. I like it because I use it as a testing device, also I need to have an immediate bootable backup for my work, can't afford to take all day rebuilding if I need to get out a few invoices or access email or something.

Also I can take it with me to boot a machine that isn't booting that doesn't have a backup so I can recover their files. My needs are different, I have separate drives that are bootable. 10.3, 10.4, 10.5.

It's more of a convenience, depending on what you do with the computer. With a Time Machine backup all of your data is there, it just doesn't boot. If you can afford for it to be down for a few hours no bootable is needed. Of course we're talking the almost unheard of circumstance that a Mac won't boot.

Booting from an external drive is faster than booting from a CD/DVD, though and redundancy is nice to have handy.*

*See: Microsoft/Danger/Sidekick

Yeah, it's easier/quicker running DiskWarrior off of a bootable partition. That's why for me externals come in handy.

Thanks Reboot!

Hope all is well with you, get any snow today?

Time Machine up and running, thanks for all the tips!!!

All's well, thanks a bunch.

Not quite cold enough for snow yet, close though. I can wait, till like March.

Ok I'm reviving this thread, cause my Seagate Drive seems to be bad.... Time Machine will not make a "backup" to it. Drive is sounding odd for lack of a better word. The strange thing is I seem to be able to "open" TM and go back in time, but I can't seem to make a new backup. The Seagate was 500GB and when I do a get info says only 45gb available.

Anyways, not sure if I can do anything about it, so I got this

http://www.staples.com/Western-Digital-Elements-2TB-External-Hard-Drive/product_884865

Was planning on formating, partitioning, using half for TM and then I was going to make my own "back up" of pics, videos, files on the other half.

Nice price.

I got one of these and I need to get another:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153066

Never had a problem keeping a HD in there. And if the HD goes bad, just swap it out for another.

Ha! I got one of those, but branded by Newer Tech.

http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagers3.php

Actually, that's the one one that sports USB 3.0 only..

I got this one with a bunch of connections...

http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php

Don't get a WD drive of any kind.

How old is the Seagate? It may still be under warranty. You can go to the Seagate support site and see if you can generate an RMA for it, it will ask for the serial number.

Have you tried creating the Partition over in Disk Utility to see if it just may be directory damage which an erase or partitioning would fix. Make sure you partition it HFS+, not MBR.