[mirkules]

I have given up on TM because it chews up my external drives at an alarming rate. I have had three hard drives die in the last 2 years because of TM. My other drives of the same brand that didn't have TM are just fine still. Either I have extremely bad luck with WD drives, or time machine is just not a reliable backup mechanism (I'm inclined to think the latter). Plus, the drives have to be HFS formatted which is also a con for me (that I am willing to live with in exchange for a reliable backup solution).

Is anyone else experiencing these kinds of problems with TM?

[calloc]

I've had the same drive hooked up to time-machine now for the last year and a half if not longer and haven't had any issues what so ever.

It is a custom enclosure with a standard Seagate hard drive. Works wonderfully.

[kissickas]

I've only been using Time Machine for about a year but my hard drive just crashed last week, conveniently three days after my MbP's hard drive. I've found it useful for restoring individual files, but I wish there was a way to customize the frequency of backups- plugging it in once a week is hardly ideal.

[mirkules]

You can change the frequency, but you have to use an external app. There are a number of ones out there, for example: http://timesoftware.free.fr/timemachineeditor/ or http://www.klieme.com/TimeMachineScheduler.html

Note: I can't remember which one I tried so I can't recommend one, these are just quick ones I found off Google. I do remember as I used them that despite scheduling it in the App, time machine would incorrectly display "Next Backup: Tomorrow" or something like that.