Harddrives, externals and backups!


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So I will be buying a new MBP in the next few weeks for school and the drives they come with seem a bit small, so I planned on getting an external drive. Not only will this be good for storage, but it will also help me move all my stuff from my PC to my new Mac!

So here's where I am lost. I will eventually buy a new router that supports Wireless N to take advantage of the speeds, so I'm not sure if I should buy an external harddrive, an external enclosure or get a NAS system and hook it up for to the router. I'll basically be using it for A. Time Machine and B. Storage (music, movies, photos, the non-essential stuff so I can keep main harddrive space free). I'm pretty sure I can do a partition an external so I can do Time Machine and a general drive.

I don't want to spend too much, and I've been looking around and found a few things. The Hitachi/G-Tech G-Drive looks nice (literally) and has USB for my PC and Firewire for the Mac (Firewire is faster than USB, right?). The only thing is, the 1TB model is pushing close to $300 =/

The Western Digital MyBooks have some good specs, but they don't please my eye (and I want something that will look nice sitting on my desk!).

LaCie had some good lookin' drives, but they were only USB 2.0

I haven't really found any attractive external enclosures, but I'm thinking that is going to be the cheapest solution.

So if anyone has some suggestions for a frugal layout that is pleasing to the eye and wallet, that'd be great! I'm also open to suggestions for a new router that supports Wireless N too!

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Wireless time machine backups = EPIC FAIL! They are soooo slow and kill my wireless N network. I would strongly advice against it.

For the router I would recommend the Airport Extreme. The price is a little hefty but the features are hands down amazing. I have two of them in my house.

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I use a 500GB Western Digital mybook for timemachine backups the only gripe i have with it is that it spins down when it is inatcive and when it spins back up it is really noisey but overall it is a solid drive.

Time Machine over wireless N is something i can only comment on from other people's views. If you were to get a Official 1TB time machine i think they are supposed to be really good over N.

Lacie drives are renouned to either be Dead On Arrival or to die shortly after use, i wouldnt use on of them things. Maybe as you said get a nice caddy and get a top notch drive to go in it if push comes to it put the caddy on the floor?

Rich

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I had issues using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme over N. Moving to a Time Capsule and pushing all of my G devices onto a separate network while my Macs stayed on the N network made Time Machine work exactly like the demo video.

I'll probably stick with Apple's networking hardware because my home network is complex and I'd prefer a single vendor/single point of management solution.

I wouldn't really recommend a Time Capsule over and above other options and Airdisk isn't really any better than your typical SAN device: No easier to setup apart from being built into the airport utility. If you need a new wireless router and you want wireless disk space/backup then it's a good choice but given the trouble I had getting it to run—which I can deal in a PM if you like—it's not really that compelling.

When I out grow Time Capsule I'll probably go to a Drobo+DroboShare or MacFUSE+S3. Both of those options sound a out of the OP's price range.

EDIT:

My current back-up plan is a Time Capsule that I mirror to a Western Digital Passport drive once a week and drop off at the bank. If you use an Airport Extreme/Time Capsule and plug in a powered USB hub you can connect a small army of external drives. If you're mainly using it for long term storage / backup then appearance won't matter (unless you keep your wifi kit visible too).

Edited by evn.
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So, granted, my situation will be somewhat unique as I frequently take it to the next level with regards to complexity.

I have a 2009 Mac Mini, a 2007 MacBook Pro, an 800 MHZ G4 running Tiger Server and various other Windows and *nix boxes spread throughout the house.

I have some spare 500 GB MyBooks that are hooked up to both the Mini and the MacBook Pro that function as Time Machine backups. I also have an Airport Extreme N router into which I have a USB hub that hosts 4 Acomdata i TB drives. Those four drives (VOL1-VOL4) are accessible to my entire network. I do not bother to backup the Tiger Server G4 as nothing critical runs off it.

My drives are as follows:

VOL0 on PIP (HFS Journaled)

500 GB – Time Machine Test Storage

VOL1 on CARTMAN (HFS Journaled)

1000 GB - Pictures, Apps, Videos, etc.

VOL2 on CARTMAN (HFS Journaled)

1000 GB - Complete MP3 Albums

VOL3 on CARTMAN (HFS Journaled)

1000 GB - Pictures, Apps, Videos, etc.

VOL4 on CARTMAN (HFS Journaled)

1000 GB - Complete MP3 Albums

VOL5 on SLAVE (FAT 32)

1000 GB – Pictures, Apps, Videos, etc.

VOL6 on SLAVE (FAT 32)

1000 GB - Complete MP3 Albums

VOL7 on SLAVE (HFS Extended Journaled Case-Sensitive)

500 GB - SLAVE Time Machine Drive

VOL8 on WENDY (HFS Extended Journaled Case-Sensitive)

500 GB - WENDY Time Machine Drive

VOL9 (HFS Extended Journaled Case-Sensitive)

250 GB – Media Swap Drive

VOL10 (FAT 32)

4 GB – Keychain Thumb Drive

VOL11 (FAT 32)

16 GB – Keychain Thumb Drive

  • PIP is a FreeNAC 0.96.1 Server
  • SLAVE is my Mac Mini
  • WENDY is my MacBook Pro
  • CARTMAN is my Airport Extreme N Router

So, bear in mind, while my config is a bit complex, it suits my needs. The only part that truly bugs me is that I am "wasting" 1 TB of total capacity for Time Machine. I also have two other 500 GB MyBooks just sitting on a shelf somewhere, but it still drives me nuts that I am using two of them in that capacity. I have tried wireless network backups using VOL0, but it is just way to slow and if I don't remember to mount the drive first, it just bombs. Having said that, the day you need Time Machine (2x for me so far), you will sing it's praises and be thankful that Forstall and his people came up with it.

In summary, as much as I hate using up an available USB port, locally connected drives for Time Machine are going to be your ideal scenario.

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So I will be buying a new MBP in the next few weeks for school and the drives they come with seem a bit small, so I planned on getting an external drive. Not only will this be good for storage, but it will also help me move all my stuff from my PC to my new Mac!

So here's where I am lost. I will eventually buy a new router that supports Wireless N to take advantage of the speeds, so I'm not sure if I should buy an external harddrive, an external enclosure or get a NAS system and hook it up for to the router. I'll basically be using it for A. Time Machine and B. Storage (music, movies, photos, the non-essential stuff so I can keep main harddrive space free). I'm pretty sure I can do a partition an external so I can do Time Machine and a general drive.

I don't want to spend too much, and I've been looking around and found a few things. The Hitachi/G-Tech G-Drive looks nice (literally) and has USB for my PC and Firewire for the Mac (Firewire is faster than USB, right?). The only thing is, the 1TB model is pushing close to $300 =/

The Western Digital MyBooks have some good specs, but they don't please my eye (and I want something that will look nice sitting on my desk!).

LaCie had some good lookin' drives, but they were only USB 2.0

I haven't really found any attractive external enclosures, but I'm thinking that is going to be the cheapest solution.

So if anyone has some suggestions for a frugal layout that is pleasing to the eye and wallet, that'd be great! I'm also open to suggestions for a new router that supports Wireless N too!

I'm using a cavalry external harddrive, 500GB at: cavalry drives

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Wireless Time Machine backups are fine if you disable the hourly updates. I scheduled mine to run every day at 3:00 AM. By the time I wake up the backup is always done.

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