2 external drives for samples/recording/backup - advice needed

Hi, all!
Recently, I experienced a system drive crash which had taken to nowhere land all my system software, as well as a lot of music applications including Logic Studio, Kontakt 3, plug-ins, etc. However, all my samples and recording projects were residing on a separate external drive and survived.
Now, to prevent such occurrence in the future, I am planning a backup system which includes the following:
G5 Dual 2.5 with 8 GB RAM running OS X 10.5.6
Echo Audio Layla 3G with an interface card installed in one PCI slots
PCI-X SeriTek/1VE2+2 interface card residing in 133 bus slot and connected via eSata ports to:
internally:
drive 1 - VelociRaptor 300GB - system (Logic, Kontakt, etc.)
drive 2 - VelociRaptor 300GB - backup of drive 1 (smart backup with SuperDuper)
externally:
drive 3 - OWC Mercury Elite 750GB (samples and recordings)
drive 4 - OWC mercury Elite 750 GB (backup? RAID 1 with drive 3?)
Drive 4 has just arrived and I would like to get the advice of the most efficient way of using two external OWC drives: RAID 1 configuration, or simply backing up the contents of drive 3 to drive 4 via SuperDuper? Forgive me my ignorant question as it is my first time dealing with various RAID configurations: will my drive 3 be erased if I try to arrange two Mercury drives as RAID 1 through disk utility?
Many thanks in advance for your help.
sercher

I use both methods, for different reasons.
I do use SuperDuper to clone my system drive, but I also use other strategies. The benefit of SuperDuper is that it makes a bootable backup. The drawback is that you have to manually run it, and it is advisable to not use your system while it is running.
For this exact reason, Raid 1 has huge benefits over a manual backup scheme, especially for drives writing new data often, or in great amounts. Whatever you write to disk 1 is simultaneously written to disk 2. No manual intervention necessary. If you use an external drive enclosure with a raid chipset in it, the setup is dead easy. Software raid is a different story although it achieves the same level of security. You would have to erase drive 3 to set up software raid with D.U., and it would be less efficient as it uses your system cpu.
Although I keep a bootable clone on hand as I said above, I use this mainly for testing new software (ie. 10.5.7). I use my laptop for many other purposes as well, so new data is added to the internal drive regularly, so I want constant backups: my strategy looks like this:
System backed up constantly using Time Machine (incremental, constant and transparent).
Bootable clones made weekly with SuperDuper.
All media data written to a hardware raid enclosure (I use a G-Raid mini 2, but there are much less costly alternatives). All photos in my Aperture library are referenced and reside on the raid drive, and all audio captured is also written to this drive.
Don't mean to step on any toes, hope this is useful info.
Jake

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Use external drive for Time Capsule backups AND file storage?

I have an external drive formatted by my MBP. I'm using it to store my iTunes music library and iPhoto pics. Can I use the drive for Time Capsule backups as well?

Yes, but that is not recommended. Storage and backup should be kept separate to reduce the chances of a disk failure. This is especially important because you cannot even partition a Time Capsule drive. Go get a separate drive for your storage needs. Get another drive for a second backup and use a different method of backup than Time Machine

Auto mount/eject external drive for time machine backup/restore

I have an Iomega ultramax drive connected via firewire 800 for my Time machine backups.
This drive will automatically spin down after a period of non-use. I like this as it means lower power usage and lower risk of data loss (head crashes etc..).
My problem is, when the drive spins down like this, some file open operations pause until the drive spins up again. I cannot remember exactly which applications I have had the problem with, but I assumed that this was part of the OS. This delay can be up to 5 seconds or so and is really annoying.
Assuming this is not just a specific third party application thing. My suggestion to Apple is to do one or both of the following:
1) Multi thread the file open dialog (process?) so that is comes up instantly, and then adds the drive when it has spun up.
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Does anybody else suffer from this problem?

Yes that is correct, the drive spins down and remains mounted.
To be perhaps clearer. The problem is not essentially a time machine problem, it is to do with whatever implements the file open capability that other apps use. In the above sitation, there is always a delay for the drive to spin up when I go to open a file (perhaps five seconds) in other applications. I assume this delay is caused by the file open process waiting until some data is retrieved from the external drive before giving me the option of choosing a file. This delay is annoying, as I do not ever want to open a file from my external drive (this is dedicated to time machine backups) when I am using pages, or any other application other than a time machine restore.
This particular issue is similar (but I suspect nowhere near as bad) as one of my pet hates about windows XP. In windows it appears that the explorer will wait for a response on all its connected drives (hard disks, mounted cds, network drives), so any sort of network connectivity or hardware delay will cause explorer to freeze. As explorer seems to be embedded in most things you do with the OS, this can cause anything or everything to freeze (web browsing, you name it).
In my setup, as I have the external drive totally dedicated to time machine backups, another thing that would fix the problem for me is the suggestion number 2 I suggested where time machine auto mounts for the backup and then ejects after the backup. With the feature, then the external drrive will only ever be mounted for short periods of time (the above problem does not ocurr if the external drive is not mounted), and when it is mounted it will be spinning, so I will never have my file open delay. I would however have a short delay when doing a time machine restore for the mount of the drive, but this is a much rarer event the using file open in all my other apps.
Thanks for the info on the feedback link, I will post this to that.

Using a Second External Drive For Time Machine Backup

I have been using Time Machine for almost a year and the external drive I'm using is almost full. Can I switch to a second external drive? If I decide to keep using the same drive is there a way to keep my original backup? Is there information that I need from that first backup that I did?
Thank you!!!

bvasel900 wrote:
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
I have been using Time Machine for almost a year and the external drive I'm using is almost full. Can I switch to a second external drive?
Yes, if that's what you want to do (see below). If you start "fresh" on a new drive, your first backup will be a full one; everything on your system. Or, you can copy your current backups to it via the procedure in item #18 of the Frequently Asked Questions *User Tip* at the top of this forum. TM will then continue making it's usual "incremental" backups, and you can erase the old disk and use it for other things.
If I decide to keep using the same drive is there a way to keep my original backup? Is there information that I need from that first backup that I did?
Probably not. As Mr. Peck noted, TM will automatically delete your oldest backups when it needs room for new ones (unless you have the +*Warn when old backups are deleted+* box checked in TM Preferences > Options).
But unless you've been deleting things from your internal HD, counting on TM to keep it's backup copies indefinitely, you won't lose anything you need.
That's because of the "magic" of Time Machine. Each backup is an "incremental" backup, copying only the items that have been added or changed since the last backup. But by using "multi-links" to the backups of items that did not change, each backup is, in effect, a full, complete copy of your entire system!
So when TM deletes your oldest backup, all it will be deleting are it's copies of things you changed or deleted long ago.

Use of an external drive for itunes library - backup options?

Hi,
I have a dell laptop with 60GB of memory and I just purchased an 80GB ipod classic. I cannot upgrade the storage in this laptop. Originally I was thinking I would just buy a new laptop. But given that all laptops now come with Windows Vista and reading about all the issues that users have had with Vista and Itunes I do not think that would be a good idea. Do you agree that I should just stick with my Windows XP Machine?
So I was thinking I would change my music library so it resides on an external drive. My only concern with this - is how do I keep a backup of this external drive? From reading all the forum posts if this external drive failed it can be done moving the information from an ipod back to another drive using third party software but it sounds risky.
Any thoughts on how others are handling this would be appreciated.
Thank you!
Karen

Karen, most 3rd party software is pretty easy to use. The one thing I need to point out that relying on the iPod can be pretty risky, too. What if iPod is lost or stolen? What if you have an iPod problem that requires a restore? I would suggest that as a secondary backup for the EHD, you either burn data discs or possibly consider a 2nd EHD, since you can buy them pretty cheap these days. Right now, I backup to 2 different EHD's, then burn data discs as needed of my iTunes library, just in case I would be unlucky enough to lose everything.

MBA (Gen 1) USB External Drive for Boot and Backup? Recomendations?

I just ordered a 1st generation MBA with the SSD. I want to order an external USB drive that I can use to back up and boot the MBA. I have read that the USB port on the MBA does not provide enough power to support some external drives(?).
I like the G-Technology drives, looking at the G-Drive Mini. Will the USB port on the MBA provide enough power to run that drive?
Any recommendations?

http://store.apple.com/us/product/TQ571ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA0Nw&mco=MTgzNTAwMg
http://store.apple.com/us/product/TR043ZM/A?fnode=MTY1NDA0Nw&mco=MTg5NDg1NA
I've used both of those drives on a MacBook Air for storage and a Time Machine backup without fail. The LaCie rugged is a personal favorite with the triple interface (as I use on a MacBook Pro with FW 800).
My experience with the G-Drive Mini that I had was a bit "unique." Whenever I'd plug the drive in, the backlight would not come on unless the unit was connected to power. I later found out it was my drive, drawing excessive bus power and G-Technology replaced it under warranty. But I did notice, when hooking the drive up to various port testers that it was drawing significantly more power across the USB port than my LaCie.
Ironically, a co-worker has been using his G-Drive Mini with his MacBook Air since March with nothing but praise.

Adding a Dedicated External Drive for Time Machine

Hello,
I want to use a dedicated external drive for Time Machine backup and another drive for a SuperDuper backup. Before even adding another drive, I'm already pulling and replacing usb connections from the back of my computer.
Can anyone tell me if a splitter is a workable solution? Something like this:
7-Port USB High-speed Hub with Splitter Cable -- http://www.shop4tech.com/user.htm?go=view_item&id=8997&r=183 -- or perhaps other recommendations ..
Thanks.

...I recall reading that USB 2 was faster ... but I think they said faster than FW 400, but the drive I have is FW 800.
USB2 is 480mbps and Firewire400 is 400mbps. On paper, this would appear that USB2 is faster than Firewire400. But USB2 cannot handle large data transfers very effectively. I can't explain the technicals, but suffice to say that the figures I gave of 40min-versus-2-hours-for-25GB is typical of Firewire400 versus USB2.
Firewire800 is 800mbps, so would potentially be even faster. However the physical hard drive that's installed in the Firewire enclosure would be the bottleneck as a normal "platter" hard drive is much slower than Firewire400 or 800. If it were an SSD drive, then you'd likely see a very significant difference.
But regardless, USB2 cannot keep up with a large data stream like Firewire can. Potentially USB3, which is up to 5Gbps, would be faster than either Firewire 400 or 800, although I suspect would be on par with Firewire3200 in the real world. However since there are no adapters for either USB3 or Firewire3200 for the Mac, it's a moot point for now. (Your drive is not USB3, there are only a few USB3 drives available, and you'd need a Mac Pro to add the adapter in anyway, if they existed.)
So are you saying that FW 800 is faster than USB 2.0 -- and that I should be using the FW connection to get better throughput? And that I can resume daisy-chaining multiple external drives through the one port?
Definitely Firewire would be faster than USB. And I have 5 external hard drives daisy-chained through a single Firewire800 port on my Mac. So daisy-chained Firewire is the way to go.
Like I said, for the small, incremental, hourly Time Machine backups, the speed difference is insignificant. But when the day comes that you have to restore your hard drive, (i.e.: hard drive dead so you buy new blank hard drive. Or you just want to replace with a larger drive,) if say your Time Machine backup is 80GB, that restore would probably take several hours over USB2. On my Firewire400 drive, my 100GB Time Machine restore of my Macbook Pro took about an hour and a half. (The data transfer was about an hour, but OSX took awhile after that to finish up the restore.) YMMV, of course, but IMHO, use Firewire over USB2 as much as possible. If you're lucky enough to have a Mac Pro or iMac and can use multiple internal hard drives or eSATA, then that would be even faster than Firewire800. Only owners of a Macbook Air or non-Firewire Macbook should resign themselves to USB2.

HT201250 Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller ext

Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller external drive?

50maz wrote:
Hi, I hope this question won't seem too basic but if I want to use a new larger external drive for my time machine backups, will it do a new full backup the first time I plug it in
Yes, it will do a full backup.
and if so, do I really need all the old backups on my smaller external drive?
Only if you want to be able to go back in time to those previous Time Machine backups. When you plug in the new larger external drive, you will only be able to go back as far as the first day you plugged it in and ran the first Time Machine backup on it.

HT3275 I am using an external drive for backup. I am now getting a message that the drive needs a disk repair, but when I run disk repair it just seems to freeze.

I am using an external drive for back up. Yesterday the backup failed and I received a message that the external drive( a passport drive) needed a 'disk repair", when I ran disk repair nothing happened it seemed to freeze. Suggestions? should i simply erase the external drive and start over-my computer is fine.

Get a different drive for backup.
In the meantime, once you are backed up some drive safe, then you can attempt to repair the backup drive using the repair the directory link.

I have the G Drive 1 TB (GEN4 1TB) external drive purchased in 2010. I need to connect to my new MacBook Pro. I'm using the external drive for media storage of my video editing projects. Will a 800fw to thunderbolt adapter cable work?

I have the G Drive 1 TB (GEN4 1TB) external drive purchased in 2010. I need to connect to my new MacBook Pro. I'm using the external drive for media storage of my video editing projects. Will a 800fw to thunderbolt adapter cable work? I understand that using a USB port connection is not fast enough for video editing. I read somewhere the G Drives don't connect well to MacBook Pro.
thanks
larry

I doubt this can be relocated or moved so you might want to just repost in the macbook pro area.
MacBook Pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions
Can you afford a new Thunderbolt case and cable? any case with FW800 is going to be slow 72MB/sec and less, and any new 1TB drive is capable of 75MB/s minimum up to 125MB/sec.
Thunderbolt storage can of course when setup properly reach 100's of MB higher using multiple drives.
Use what you have for a system backup or for secondary backup storage.
you might be able to take the drive - most cases allow you to open and swap drives - and use this:
G-Technology 1TB G-DRIVE mini High-Speed Portable Hard Drive
or this:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/HB137VC/A/g-technology-4tb-g-raid-professional -high-performance-dual-drive-hard-drive?fnode=5f

My 320GB external drive for Time Machine now only has enough capacity to keep a backup of one day. All my other backups are gone. What can I do to fix this situation?

I've been using a 320GB external drive for time machine for the last several years. The backups always worked fine and when necessary I was able to look at & restore older data from the time capsule. Recently, I keep getting the message that a backup cannot be completed and an older backup will be deleted. Usually this wasn't an issue because I still had several months of information on disk. Now a one-time backup takes up 315GB and therefore I only have a backup of the previous day. I don't understand this because I thought that the backup only saves information that has changed and doesn't copy everything everytime. What do I need to do to get my backups to a reasonable size so that I can keep at least 1 month data stored on it.? Please don't tell me I need a larger drive ... that would be too easy.

Get a larger drive for your TM backups.
The recommended size is 3 times what you are backup. So if 315 GB is a backup then you need a 1 TB drive.
Allan

Which external drive for backups?

My brand new 21.5" iMac is on its way here today, and I've been told to buy an external drive for backups. Which I think is a great idea. However, my head's starting to hurt from all the info I'm reading here on the forum about WHICH one, Firewire cables, etc etc. The Rocstor 500GB has been recommended to me personally, but I've read about Lacie and a few other brands. I'm thinking it'd be best to get a 1T size. But WHICH HARD DRIVE SHOULD I GET? I don't wanna spend a lot of bucks!!!
Plus I have a Firewire cable but how do I know if it's a 2 or a 4? I bought it when I migrated data from my Silver edition iMac to my G4 iMac back in 2004 or 2005.
Thanks!

Congratulations Sheryl on the new iMac.
I recently replaced a G-4 tower with an iMac. The G-4 had a port for Firewire 400. The iMac came equipped with one Firewire 800 port a firewire cable and 4USB ports. I suspect that also applies to your new machine. In order to transfer files from one machine to the other using Firewire 400/800 I had to buy an adapter from the Apple store. Your help menu will explain how to set up the iMac as a target for the transfer.
As to backup: I use Super Duper and over 8 years had backed up religiously to a Lacie external HD. About the time I needed to use it as a file transfer source to the iMac it quit.
After much study and considering how Time Machine can eat up space I settled on the external hard drives described below - all were partitioned. The Drobo uses firewire 800 and 4 multiple internal hard drives. It is the place where time machine is backed up. The setup was about $600.
The two lacie hard drives are USB 2.0 driven.
I have learned the hard way that it pays to backup the backups.
If I could only have one external hard drive and with all things considered I would opt for the 1TB Lacie Stark (about $125) that is USB driven.
Sure hope this helps a bit. To help further we need to know more specifics about your need.
Mcthomas

Formatting external drive for storage/backup/video files

Hi,
I just purchased a 500mb My Book Pro external drive for use with my imac duo which runs Windows XP via bootcamp. This computer is shared by three family with very different skills and needs. My dilemma. I want to format the drive so that the imac can be backed up easily three users. It is formated Fat32 and is supplied with Restrospect Express 7.5 backup software. It would be nice to backup the modestly used windows sector, but that's a secondary consideration. My problem is that one user has a lot of larger than 4 gb video files which are too large the Fat 32 format. My notion is to segment the backup drive so that I leave 300 mb in fat 32 to facilitate backup with supplied software, and segment a second 200 gb drive using mac os extended so that the user can manually move her video files for storage/backup on the backup drive. Is there a simpler solution? For example, if I formatted the entire 500gb as mac os extended, could I still run the retrospect backup software? If not, is there a reasonably priced alternative software? And finally, with either Fat32 or Mac OS extended, can I move files from the Windows platform? Would I be better off just biting the bullet and telling my daughter to make her own arrangements to compress and backup her video files or get her own hard drive, thus leaving the backup drive to the simple factory supplied software solution?
G-4 and iMac core duo Mac OS X (10.4.9) use emacs and imacs at work location

Hi,
I just purchased a 500mb My Book Pro external drive
for use with my imac duo which runs Windows XP via
bootcamp. This computer is shared by three family
with very different skills and needs. My dilemma. I
want to format the drive so that the imac can be
backed up easily three users. It is formated Fat32
and is supplied with Restrospect Express 7.5 backup
software. It would be nice to backup the modestly
used windows sector, but that's a secondary
consideration. My problem is that one user has a lot
of larger than 4 gb video files which are too large
the Fat 32 format. My notion is to segment the backup
drive so that I leave 300 mb in fat 32 to facilitate
backup with supplied software, and segment a second
200 gb drive using mac os extended so that the user
can manually move her video files for storage/backup
on the backup drive. Is there a simpler solution? For
example, if I formatted the entire 500gb as mac os
extended, could I still run the retrospect backup
software? If not, is there a reasonably priced
alternative software? And finally, with either Fat32
or Mac OS extended, can I move files from the Windows
platform? Would I be better off just biting the
bullet and telling my daughter to make her own
arrangements to compress and backup her video files
or get her own hard drive, thus leaving the backup
drive to the simple factory supplied software
solution?
G-4 and iMac
core duo Mac OS X (10.4.9) use emacs
and imacs at work location
Hello,
You're indeed in a pickle. If you use Bootcamp and want the HD accessible via the Mac and WinXP, then you don't want to format it as Mac HFS because WInXP wouldn't be able to access it. If you go FAT32 then both WInXP and Mac OS can access it, but you face the dilemma of the 4GB threshold.
If you format as NTFS, then you eliminate the 4GB threshold but then Mac OS cannot access it.
I have a similar dilemma, which is why i use Parallels more than Bootcamp. I have 2 external FW HD's (160GB/250GB), both formatted to Mac HFS. The 160GB i have partitioned as 50GB and 100GB. I have a bootable backup of Mac OS residing on the 100GB partition (yay to SuperDuper!) and some other stuff on the remaining 50GB. The 250GB is exclusive for movies (cough..cough..bittorrent) and for streaming via Orb 2.0 to my Treo. I have WinXP running in Parallels, and Vista Ultimate via Bootcamp. In Parallels, i can access my external HD's via Parallel's Shared Folders but in Vista (Bootcamp) since the HD's are in a non-Windows recognised formatting, they're not accessible (which is a bummer, as i'm loving Win media center).
What you can do is partition the HD the way you're thinking and format (one part Mac HFS and the other NTFS), but my best recommendation is that with the falling prices of HD's nowadays, why not just get a seperate HD do what you want with it. I spied a WD MyBook 500GB USB HD at CompUSA for $129.99 (no mail-in rebate nonsense) and similar good prices at Bestbuy and Newegg.com.
iMac 17" 2GHZ C2Duo 2GB RAM 160GB HD Mac OS X (10.4.9)

HT201250 new external hard drive for Time Machine backup suggestions?

Ok, I have 3 external hard drives; unfortunately I've used them on my PC and they are read only on my iMac. So, I need to buy a new external hard drive for Time Machine backup. I'm a little confused; can I buy any EHD and them format it so Mac can use it or are there special EHD's I need to purchase?
Anyone have a particular EHD that is working well for you? Thanks, Blue

Bluehowler wrote:
Ok, I have 3 external hard drives; unfortunately I've used them on my PC and they are read only on my iMac. So, I need to buy a new external hard drive for Time Machine backup. I'm a little confused; can I buy any EHD and them format it so Mac can use it or are there special EHD's I need to purchase?
Anyone have a particular EHD that is working well for you? Thanks, Blue
Unless you need all three external drives for your PC, you can reformat in one of them in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for use with Time Machine. However, since Time Machine backs up hourly, you'd need the external drive to be running constantly. That means ventilation of the drive becomes an issue since some, such as Seagate, can get very hot in their sealed enclosures. Some drive manufacturers try to get around this by spinning down the drive when not in use, but I've read complaints that that doesn't play well with a Mac. So whether you reuse one of your current externals or get a new one, it's a good idea to keep the drive's ventilation in mind.

Is it possible to use more than one external hard drive for Time Machine backups?

I want to use two hard drives for Time Machine backups.
Bigger one keep at home and be sure it is safe.
Second one (very small pocket size) keep with me for travels.
I want to backup to both drives to be sure I can restore everywhere and to be sure if something bad happened with my small travel disk I can restore from home backup.
Is there any problem with listed schema? Is it normal for Time Machine to handle backups for different drivers and keep everything consistent and smooth?

I really need some help! I have been using an Iomega NAS 1TB HD for the past year. And I received an error message. I believe I have ran out of memory on this drive.
Then recently in the last couple of months I got a ReadyNAS Duo 2TB with 2TB RAID. Should I switch my back ups to this one and delete the other back up file or keep the old back up image file on the Iomega?
Can I transfer the old image back up to this new ReadyNAS? How do I do this?
I appreciate any help.

2 external drives for samples/recording/backup - advice needed

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