Best setup for external drives and backup

I'm using Aperture to organize several thousand photos. I've gotten good advice her before about how to get started on this. I'm not a professional and I'm not an experienced user of Aperture, so don't assume a lot of knowledge when you answer. I'm wondering what the best way to set up the file storage would be. I use a MacBook Pro, so obviously that's out for storage, and financially, purchasing a more powerful desktop is out for the time being. I was thinking of purchasing a mirror drive system, like this: http://www.newertech.com/products/gmax.php
But then, there still remains the problem of backing up the photos in case of a fire or theft, etc. I have many of them on DVD, but not with all the metadata that I've added. Can I back the external drives up to a cloud-based storage system through the wireless on the MacBook?
Or, is the answer none of the above? What recommendations do you folks have for managing this?

more:
Paula-
Mirror drives are very much less than ideal for images backup. Mirroring occurs in real-time, so errors, breaks, etc. simply get copied. With images work (unlike fanancial work, for instance) we do not need real-time backup we just need regular accurate backup. Just have 2-3 external drives and rotate them regularly, always having one drive off-site (could be in your car or whatever). Back up manually rather than automatically so that you can be reasonably certain that the backup is not backing up something that just broke.
I suggest the below workflow. Note that most important is that original images from the camera card are copied to two locations before reformatting the card and before importing into Aperture or any other images management application.
Original images never change, so I prefer to manually copy them to two locations asap after capture: one location is the computer drive and the other is an external backup HD that itself gets backed up off site regularly. That assures me that "the pic is in the can." Until two digital files exist on different media I do not consider the pic in the can.
Then reformat the card in-camera, not before.
The Masters then get imported into Aperture from the Mac internal drive by reference (i.e. "Storing Files: in their current location" on the Mac internal drive). After editing is complete (may take weeks or months), from within Aperture I relocate the referenced Masters to an external hard drive for long-term storage.
I do use Time Machine routinely on the MBP, but for the daily-volatile activities going of the MBP. I prefer not to have TM be my backup-of-originals protocol. Instead TM backs up the Mac internal drive on the TM schedule and I back up original images asap based on my shooting schedule. Also the TM drive is a different drive than the drives used for long-term original image files archiving.
TM does back up my Library because the Library lives on the Mac internal drive but I do not assume that TM works for Library backup. I back the Library up to Vaults (on the same drives I put archives of Masters on) independent of TM. IMO one should back up image files and back up Vaults manually after verifying that what is being backed up is not broken, because automatic backup will just back up a broken Library or whatever.
Note that Masters need only be backed up once (but to multiple backup locations) and that backup should happen immediately after copying to the hard drive from the camera card, before involving Aperture or any other images management app.
Sorry for the redundant verbosity above but some was copied from previous posts. Also, I reinforce what Léonie said about DVDs. DVDs are way too slow, unreliable, etc. Instead rotate multiple hard drives to achieve redundancy.
HTH
-Allen

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Just bought a 3TB Time Capsule for a small office. Will have 4 users with MacBooks. What would ne the best setup for time machine individual backups and internet sharing in a secure way?

Just bought a 3TB Time Capsule for a small office. Will have 4 users with MacBooks. What would ne the best setup for time machine individual backups and internet sharing in a secure way?

Set up each Mac for Time Machine backups in the normal way. Time Machine will keep each backup separate on the Time Capsule, so users will only be able to see the backups of their own Mac.
Yes....there are convoluted workarounds that might allow one user to see the backups of another.....IF...they know the administrator password of the "other" Mac.
As far as Internet sharing, all users will have access to the Internet if they have a wired or wireless connection. If a Mac connects using wireless, it is possible to limit the time that they are allowed to connect to the network.
For example, you might limit the ability to connect to the wireless from say each Weekday from 8 AM to 6 PM.
With a wired Ethernet connection, you cannot limit access times to the Internet.

Best setup for external hard drive and iMac?

Just purchased a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1TB external HD for my Mac OSX 10.5.8. Would like to use it to backup all my pics/writing (I am a writer/photog), videos, and music - about 400 gigs worth at present. As an analog person, I am confused as to how best I should format the drive:
option 1 being to use drive with Time Machine (just now heard of it),
option 2 to use drive for storage and backup (what's the diff) using Memeo software,
option 3 to use for storage by reformatting with Disc Utilities.
This, no doubt, is easy language for most of you, but Japanese to me, a Nuyorican.
Again, I mainly would like to have backups for what's on my iMac, in case that dreaded day comes and it goes kaput. What would be the best option for me to simply transfer everything, unplug it and put it in a safe place? And if and when I do that, could I, two years, months, weeks later, plug it back in and add what pics or whatever I've accrued to it and replace it in that safe place once again? Looking for what is most practical for the safe keeping of my precious files.
Hope my old tactile-inclined *** is making sense.
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I have to agree with JG, I'd strongly recommend using Time Machine as your primary backup. BTW there is a forum specifically for TM that has a FAQ section and if you need it (most never do) a troubleshooting section. You can find that forum at:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1227
Many people like myself believe in redundant backups, in other words 2 is better than one. If you decide to go that route you will need a second external HD and then use software like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. What these applications do is create bootable clones, so if your iMac's internal HD dies you have a bootable clone that you can use to run your machine until the internal HD is replaced. Dual backups are also good if one backup's HD dies.
Below are links to 3 articles I found in MacWorld magazine, what they are is backup strategies of 3 individuals to give you some ideas so you can figure out what is best for your needs.
Operating any computer without a backup plan is a recipe for disaster. Many people put their digital life on their computer (photographs, music, movies etc..) without a backup and then cry and moan when their computer dies. These days there is no reason one shouldn't be backing up their computer.
http://www.macworld.com/article/157414/2011/02/mybackupplanlex.html
http://www.macworld.com/article/156643/2011/01/howi_back_up_frakes.html?lsrc=top1
http://www.macworld.com/article/141363/2009/07/backup.html
Roger

Various network setups for media serving and backups

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This is as I posted a Self help forum the only BT presence are the forum moderators your very likely to get help from other forum users it is just a matter of waiting until some one with gaming knowledge reads your post
If you want to say thanks for a helpful answer,please click on the Ratings star on the left-hand side If the reply answers your question then please mark as ’Mark as Accepted Solution’

Best tool for cloning drive and regular back-ups

A 500gb 7200.4 seagate drive just arrived, and I'm intending on cloning the 500gb 5400rpm stock drive in my 15" 2.8ghz unibody MBP to the 7200.4 (attached in a 2.5 SATA USB enclosure), and then using the 7200.4 as the main drive, once I've found time time to install it internally. Once I've done that, the 5400rpm stock drive will be used for regular back-ups via completely cloning the upgraded internal disk.
I have CCC installed, but I've rarely used it, and I've noticed that the OS X disk services appears to have a 'create image' option. And then there's Time Machine, which I know very little about. The most important thing is that I need a bootable disk which, in theory, could simply be installed in a new machine and I'll be right where I left off. Which is the best back-up tool for this?

Hi Neil,
I have CCC installed, but I've rarely used it, and I've noticed that the OS X disk services appears to have a 'create image' option. And then there's Time Machine, which I know very little about. The most important thing is that I need a bootable disk which, in theory, could simply be installed in a new machine and I'll be right where I left off. Which is the best back-up tool for this?
CCC is a very good tool for what you gave in mind. SuperDuper http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html is another one in the same league.
Time Machine is a good backup tool, since it backups once the complete content of your OSX harddisk and further on only the changed files.
It can also be used the restore the OSX but for this you have to boot from the OSX DVD.
To me using CCC or SuperDuper would be exactly what you are looking for:
Making a bootable clone onto your external HD, from which you can either boot-up your Mac or simply reinstall the external HD in your Mac.
Regards
Stefan

The best option for home NAS and backup solution

Hi,
There are many partial answers here. I’m wondering if anybody faced and resolved my situation and share recommendation and lessons learned. Or if the topic can be Apple only - is Time capsule solution to my needs?
What I have?
I bought my first Apple product recently - the New iPad. I have also desktop PC, 2 laptops and standard 100 Mb WIFI router .
What I plan to buy?
New TV, new Apple TV, Active speakers for TV with reasonable sound and NAS/Time capsule solution whatever it will be
What I want?
Optimally I'd like to:
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- Access to data storage from iPad/Apple TV
- Fully control music (iTunes), Photos & full HD video from iPad
- Share iPad screen on TV screen
- I don’t want to have my PC running all the time
- I'm not the type of geek guy who loves setting up things and playing with many options. Plug & play, one time set up and one remote control for everything is what I seek
- Also price does play role - looking for higher mid-end solution
Any ideas or questions are welcommed.
Thanks.

The Time Capsule is definitely not what you want...my opinion. It was specifically designed for Time Machine backups from a Mac and to function as a wireless router.
Half of the cost of the product is built into the wireless router portion of the product, which it sounds like you would not use.
While it is possible to store other media on the Time Capsule drive, It is not a media server, so any iTunes media...music, video, etc., will require that iTunes, or another DLNA server be running on your PC or another network device.
I don't have any specific recommendations for a true NAS drive....which is what you need....but the link below should provide some ideas:
http://reviews.cnet.com/best-network-attached-storage/

Best practice for external drive?

A really basic set of questions, for which I ought to know the answers:
with four external firewire drives connected, three of them daisy-chained to one FW800 port, the fourth to a second FW800 port, do I:
a) when shutting down the computer, eject them, or can I just shut down the computer then shut down the drives?
b) when ejecting the drives, is there a particular order (eg, the drive that is actually connected to the computer of the three which are tied together being last to eject?)
c) when sleeping the computer, is it all right to leave the drives spinning and let them sleep when they realize the computer is sleeping?
d) when starting up, start the drives before turning on the computer? I've actually forgotten this, and started the drives after the computer was up and running, and it doesn't SEEM to have any ill effect, but am I doing something dangerous?

OS X is pretty tolearant of whatever you do. Just don't turn them off or unplug them unless you either turn off the computer or eject the volume by dragging to the Trash.
So
a) shut down the computer then shut down the drives: yes
b) doesn't matter with my FW drives, but I suppose there could be some that will not pass the FW signals if it is shut off. I believe if they are built correctly they should work like mine and the FW communication will pass through the devices that are powered down.
c) OS X should be in control of drive sleep. Some HD manufacturers have firmware that conflicts with OS X and insist upon sleeping the drives when they ought not to, or vice versa. When sleeping the computer, just ignore the drives. Do not shut them off though or else OS X will scold you for having removed them unexpectedly. They should sleep on their own, but if their firmware insists otherwise, there is nothing you can do about it.
d) This doesn't matter at all, unless (obviously) you need to boot the computer from one of the external volumes.
Read about OS X file system journaling - it should ease your mind about potential corruption: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2355

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

I'm using Time Machine and a LaCie external drive to backup. I also have a 8 GB LaCie flash drive I want to use for small jobs. If I plug the LaCie flash drive in, is my Mac going to think it is the LaCie external drive and start trying to backup?

no.

OS 8.1 - Trying to partition an external scsi drive and backup data.

Have an Apple PowerMac 6000 series minitower at work. It runs a program called 4D, that is a database we use to catalog images. Since I've been with the company, there has been no backup of the database, as an external scsi drive had died and never been replaced.
Since the system is running OS 8.1, I wasn't sure how I could do any sort of network backup, and in the end I managed to get a new 50-pin scsi 50GB LaCie External Hard drive with the 25-pin cable to connect to the PowerMac. Connected it yesterday, and it did appear on the desktop as you'd expect.
But when I went to point 4D to the drive, it didn't seem to recognize the file system. I tried erasing the drive, but it had the same probem. Norton Utilities is on the mac, so I tried replacing the partition. Specifically, I tried creating two partitions. One that's 40GB, that I could do 4D backups to. The other, the remaining space (about 7GB) so I could try to copy the entire drive to that partition and maybe even boot from it if the other drive failed.
However, the drive was still mounted when I tried to repartition and it ended up causing an error. I tried rebooting, and the drive wasn't showing on the desktop, but it still wouldn't repartition. Not knowing was else to do, I low level formatted the drive, told it to write zeros to it, and then create the two partitions. Given I was doing all this on a Saturday and didn't know how long it would take, I left it running in the background to check on Monday.
Anyone have any experience with OS 8.1? Is there a program like Carbon Copy Cloner that works with that OS? And any thoughts on what I'd need to do to get this drive working as indicated above? I started using Apple again with OS X, and it's quite a bit different than 9 and previous. Could sure use some help.

Hi, merkman2001 -
I would use the Apple utility Drive Setup (which comes with a normal OS 8.1 install) to initialize and partition the drive, rather than Norton or any other third-party utility.
As far as the format type goes, select Mac OS Extended when asked.
<hr>
Is there a program like Carbon Copy Cloner that works with that OS?
Generally such is not needed with OS 9 and earlier OS versions. All pre-OSX OS's and software can be copied using a Finder (drag and drop) copy process, and remain usable.
This means that the System Folder on the internal drive can be dragged to the icon of the external drive and dropped into it. Ditto any/all additional folders, those containing the programs and documents.
You should be able to successfully do a test boot using the freshly-copied OS on the external drive; this is the best way to verify the integrity of the copied OS.
Can't recall if aliases were used in OS 8.1. If they were, it may be necessary to 'fix' any of them used, since the pathname contained in an alias is not corrected when it is copied to another drive - it continues to point to the original original.
You can also copy the entire source drive to the external one in one action - drag the iccon of the internal drive to that of the external one and drop it in.
After Finder gets done copying everything (this may take some time, so disable any sleep mode or screensaver), there will be a new folder on the external volume - this folder will be named the same as the internal drive. Inside that folder will be a copy of everything that was on the internal drive, including everything left lying around on the desktop and anything left unemptied in the Trash (these will be placed in new folders named "Desktop" and "Trash" respectively).
In order to make that external volume bootable using the freshly copied OS, move the System Folder out of the folder it was copied into, so that it is at the root level of the drive, meaning visible in the window that appears when you first open the drive's icon.

Can I use Time Machine to backup to partition on external drive and a Time Capsule?

Trying to plan in advance...
I was wondering if I can (with a laptop) use Time Machine for both:
1. Creating Time Machine backups on a partiion of an external drive. My plan was going to create 2 partitions: one to be used for Time Machine backups of another external hard drive (that holds all of my media) and then the other partition was going to be a bootable clone of my internal drive (totally separate from Time Machine)
and
2. Also use Time Machine for my Time Capsule, to create Time Machine backups of my internal drive.
Is this possible? I had heard that you can't use TM to make backups to a partition on an external drive, AND use it for another drive (like Time Capsule) at the same time. But I would think that this should be possible-
Thanks everyone-

Yes you can, and if you are using Mountain Lion it's easy.
If you are using Snow Leopard (as in your profile - this is the Mountain Lion forum), you have to manually select the backup volume each time. Tedious, but possible.
Read Apple Support Communities contributor Pondini's FAQ on that subject: "Rotating" Time Machine backup disks

Can I backup my iTune music library to an external drive and install on a new computer?

Can I backup my iTune library to an external drive and reinstall on a new computer? To use disks I need 29 to do this.

Hi Niel. Can you be move specific for those of us not tech savy? 1 - Can you provide steps to back up the library? 2 - How do you organize the library? 3 - When you move the entire iTunes folder, does it include iTunes paid for music along with downloaded music from CDs? Thanks

HT201250 I've just used an external drive to back up my Mac with Time Machine. I have Lion, but didn't click and check the "Encrypt Backup Disc". What should I do? Can I delete the external drive and start again, or can I encrypt later?

I've just used an external drive to back up my Mac with Time Machine. I have Lion, but didn't click and check the "Encrypt Backup Disc". What should I do? Can I delete the external drive and start again, or can I encrypt later?

I guess if stolen or lost it would protect my "stuff", and if I'm travelling would protect my privacy.
You must understand the purpose and implications of encryption before deciding whether to use it.
Encryption locks your data with a password. If you forget that password, the data is lost beyond any chance of recovery. Neither Apple nor anyone else will be able to help you recover that data if you don't know the password.
By the same token, the password must be strong enough to provide the security you want. For example, if you're the potential target of industrial espionage by a government or large corporation, you need the strongest possible password. To create and manage such a password safely is a task in itself, not to be undertaken lightly.
If you're only concerned about casual snooping by someone with no special skill, a weak, easily-remembered password is appropriate.
But regardless of the strength of the password, if you lose it, the data is gone forever.
Another point to remember is that if you encrypt your data on one storage device, you must also encrypt it on all other storage devices that would be accessible to the same attacker. Otherwise the data isn't protected. For example, if you keep your computer and your backup drive in the same room, and the internal drive of the computer is not encrypted, then there's no point in encrypting the backup drive.

Need advice on best setup for Extreme and Express w/ (n only) network

I'd like to get some advice on the best setup for my situation. I've read a number of posts on WDS, Extending a Network, etc. and, unfortunately, I'm now more confused than ever.
We have an Airport Extreme 802.11n using WPA2 Personal, 2.4Ghz (n only connection) which I've found to give us the best range/connection speeds for the following devices (all computers running 10.5.5, Apple TV's using most current update):
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iMac
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I just bought a new Airport Express with the desire to place it on the other side of the house to both enhance the range of the wireless network and to provide another wired to wireless connection to the network.
I initially merely chose to "Extend a wireless network" but that seems to have a MAJOR adverse impact on the speeds of the wireless network. dropping the streaming to one of the ATV by like 90%. I would like to maintain the security settings I have as well as the 2.4Ghz (n only) since these provide the best speed/connection range on the AEBS.
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The best way to use it is the option you chose "Extend a wireless network".
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Is it OK to use USB 2.0 connection for Glyph external drive and Mac Pro as project drive?

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Best setup for external drives and backup

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