External HD - Time machine?

Guys,

I'm after a bit of advice for those with experience of external hard drives. My girlfriend is getting on for her MacBook Air as the thing only comes with 80GB on there. And I will also use it for me PC. She is looking to get the Time Machine from Apple, either 1 or 2TB, we're undecided.

What I want to know is whether it's worth it for the price, or if we should just go for something cheaper, off the shelf from a PC specialist, and would this work okay with her Mac?

Looking to spend about £300/$500 on one.

Thanks Guys.

While the Time Machine would go better with your girlfriend's MacBook, a normal external harddrive would work just as well. If I remember correctly, the MacBook Air only has one USB port though. A bluetooth compatible external harddrive might be worth considering, even though it will be significantly slower and probably more expensive.

The Time Machine works over WiFi and updates the state of the Air to the very second, so should her laptop fail she can restore from the TimeMachine to the second from when it failed. Doesn't do that for my PC though, but that's not too important for me...

I'm guessing it's going to turn out that I get the Time Machine unless there is a good argument against?

If the price for the Time Machine is not much more than any other external harddrive, I don't see why you shouldn't go for it.

http://rdiff-backup.nongnu.org/