Highly Reliable Systems endeavors to support as many systems as possible within our resources. Mac is considered a crucial platform by HR and we are attempting to grow our support for it.

The High-Rely line of products are USB and eSATA based, with some utilizing both technologies. At this time we would like to annouce that certain High-Rely products are now compatible (USB Products ONLY) with Mac OS X 10.4.9, 10.4.10(Tiger), and 10.5.1, 10.5.2(Leopard). For questions regarding eSATA solutions please refer to the bottom of this page, or contact your High-Rely sales representative.

Formatting HR Drives for OS X

Currently all testing of High-Rely equipment is done on Windows-based machines, and with that all HR drives are formatted with the NTFS file system. OS X will read NTFS, but is not capable of writing to an NTFS formatted volume. In order to re-format the drives please follow the instructions below.

Click on “Applications” and find the folder called “Utilities”. In the “Utilities” folder find the “Disk Utility.app”. Double Click that application to start the utility. The volume type should be “Mac OS Extended”. You can select the partition from the drop down menu on the right hand side. When formatting please do not adjust the size of the disk, simply have it re-format the entire volume with a single partition.

Luckily OS X will not let you format an active drive, but do be careful that you are formatting the correct volume in order to protect against possible data loss especially if there are multiple storage devices attached.

Time Machine

Users using 10.5.1 or 10.5.2(Leopard) may wish to utilize “Time Machine”. This is a very simple and easy to use program which is built into the latest installment of OS X. All of High-Rely’s USB units are compatable with this software. All that is needed for them to work is for Time Machine to be turned “On”.

In order to activate Time Machine please enter the “System Preferences”. The Time Machine icon is located in the system section. Double click the Time Machine icon to attivate the window. Once the window has opened you will be able to select which hard drive (if you have multiple drives) you would like to use as the Time Machine backup drive. Once you have selected the drive click the switch to “On”. Once active, Time Machine will let you know when the backup will take place (typically one hour after being activated), and it will do an incrimental backups of any data that has changed every hour after that.

To search through the backup files you will need to enter the “Applications” folder and double-click “Time Machine.app”. Once the applicaiton is active the desktop will slide out of view and the Time Machine console will be active. The control visible on the right hand side will allow the user to view the backups going back through time. The controls along the botton will allow the user to either restore the needed file or to cancel the seach all together.

Click Here for more information regarding Mac OS X Time Machine

High-Rely eSATA solutions and OS X

At this time Highly Reliable Systems does not offer support for our eSATA product line. We are currently working on this and hope to have support available soon. Please check back to this page for updates or contact your High-Rely sales representative for new information.