A friend of mine has a 2017 Retina screen Macbook. It only has one USB C port. She is trying to back up to an external hard drive, but was told she has to have the power plugged in at the same time. How does she do that with just the one port? She bought a hub, but that doesn’t include a way to plug in the power.
MacBook
You need a powered hub, or something like this: USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter.
I did tell my friend she could back up to iCloud.
A NAS box can be massaged to be Apple friendly and that can be used for a backup as well.
It can be used, but problems with non-Apple NAS devices are common. Those problems often manifest in an inability to completely restore a system when needed.
Those problems are likely to be mitigated with Big Sur. Their recent instructions call for completely erasing the target system followed by installing macOS anew, followed by migrating content from the TM backup. That approaches the iOS way of doing things, and may portend the end of TM as we know it.
Thank you for the help. It seems to me that Apple sometimes overdoes the sleekness and simplicity of its products. I will refer this to my friend. The price on that adaptor is up there, but she can decide whether to get one.
Apple lives in a world where everything is wireless. As far as they're concerned one USB-C port is one too many.
Sort of. iCloud pales in comparison to Time Machine, but one day it may be the only option.
My friend has offered a non-Apple adaptor with a power plug, that costs a lot less than the Apple one.
Can't back up and charge at the same time.
