LaCie Hard Disks & Apple’s Time Machine Compatibility

A LaCie direct-attached hard disk that is formatted HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) is compatible with Time Machine. A hard disk must be HFS+ formatted in order to work with Time Machine. FAT32 formatted hard disks need to be reformatted to HFS+.

Preformatted HFS+:
LaCie d2 Quadra, LaCie d2 eSATA II 3Gbits, LaCie Big Disk with Triple Interface, LaCie Bigger Disk with Triple Interface, LaCie Rugged Hard Disk with Triple Interface, LaCie mini Hard Drive & HUB, and LaCie Biggest Quadra.

All other LaCie hard disks are FAT32 or NTFS formatted.

Time Machine will only allow you to configure a single destination drive. Time Machine might recognize a FAT32 hard disk and prompt you to reformat it, but for best results, follow LaCie’s instructions rather than allowing Time Machine to reformat your LaCie hard disk for you.

LaCie’s Network storage solutions are not compatible because Time Machine requires a direct-attached hard disk that is HFS+ formatted.

To determine if your LaCie hard disk is formatted HFS+ for use with Time Machine, simply select Applications, then Utilities, then Disk Utility and click on the disk’s icon on the left side of the window; you will see an icon for the top level of the disk as well as the name for each partition/volume on that disk drive. At the bottom of the window, the Format should say Mac OS Extended. Its Partition Scheme should say Apple Partition Map for PowerPC-based Macs or GUID Partition Table for Intel-based Macs.

Compatibility might depend on your Mac computer generation (Mac Intel processor or PowerPC). For more information, go to http://www.apple.com/support/leopard/timemachine/.

In many cases, setting up Time Machine is as simple as connecting your LaCie hard disk to your computer. As soon as it’s connected, Time Machine will ask you if you want to use it as a backup disk. Once you say yes, Time Machine will automatically configure regular backups for you.

Time Machine will only ask to use your hard disk the first time it is connected. However, you can manually configure it to work with your LaCie hard disk at any time:

1. You can select Time Machine from the dock, or you can select System Preferences... from the Apple Menu.
2. Select Time Machine.
3. Enable Time Machine by clicking ON.
4. Click Choose Backup Disk...
5. Choose your LaCie hard disk from the list of available drives, then click Use for Backup.
6. Time Machine will automatically begin backing up your computer to your LaCie hard disk. After the first backup, Time Machine will back up your files hourly.

1. Make sure to copy any files on your hard disk to another location because reformatting will erase them.
2. Click on your computer hard disk’s icon. Select Applications → Utilities → Disk Utility.
3. In the left hand column, click on the drive icon for the LaCie Disk (or the name of your external drive). Make sure you click on the first icon, not the second level volume icon.
4. Select the Partition tab.
5. Select the format type from the Format drop-down menu.
   • Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) (recommended) or Mac OS Extended.
6. Click on the Options button.
7. Select the type of partition you want to use:
   • GUID Partition Table - for bootability on Intel-based Macs
   • Apple Partition Map - for bootability on PowerPC-based Macs
8. Click OK.
9. Click the Partition button.