Recommend a bootable portable USB3.0 drive

[justal]

I've recently bought a 27" iMac running OSX 10.9 Mavericks. I also bought a Western Digital 3 TB drive onto which I've created a Superduper! Clone. However, despite lots of support from shirt-pocket I have been unable to boot from the clone on the WD drive. I've also been having problems with my offsite Carbonite backup as their software requires me to re-upload all of my data to their servers because it is now on a new computer.

Because of these problems I have decided to bite the bullet and spend yet more money on two 1TB portable USB3.0 drives. I will then make Superduper! Clones to both of these and keep one at a relatives house and then swap them over once a week so that I have an offsite backup. I obviously also want to be able to boot from the clones on these portable drives.

Could people therefore recommend some portable USB3.0 drives that don't cost too much from which my iMac will definitely boot.

Many thanks,
Al.

[dnanian]

I've used this Seagate Backup Plus drive (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00829THO6/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00829THO6&linkCode=as2&tag=shirtpocket-20) with a number of USB 3 Macs with success.

But, as was the case with FireWire, some drives may give some Macs trouble. There is, alas, not much we can do about that.

[justal]

Thanks Dave, I shall take a look at them... Don't want to spend yet more money of I can't boot from them though.

Al.

[dnanian]

If you're having trouble booting from a drive in SuperSpeed mode, try connecting a USB 2 cable to it.

[rdlsmith]

I've been using this one:

BUFFALO MiniStation Plus 1 TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive - HD-PNT1.0U3B I bought that from Amazon and now I think they've dropped quite a bit in price. There may be a newer model available.

It's bus powered which is nice. I've been using with a MBP but tested it on my 27" iMac from late 2012. It's not as fast as the seagate thunderbolt I use but it's a worthy drive and so far has worked fine. I bought it in early February 2013 and use it once per week to image the MBPs HD. However, I haven't used it with Mavericks yet.

[justal]

Thanks I'll take a look at that one too.

I haven't managed to boot my new iMac from any external hard drive with a Supeduper! Clone yet though. Not my new USB drive or my older FireWire drives which have always worked in the past with previous iMacs (using a thunderbolt to FW adaptor). Well, actually it will boot from the FW drives but takes 30 mins to do so and then nothing will open once it has booted.

Not having much luck so far :(

Especially seeing as my Carbonite back up no longer works either and my iPos has decided to stop working as well.

Al.