Can i daisy chain external drives and use multiple disks for my iTunes libraries

It's amazing how much content you can acquire. I've filled my 2TB external drive with content. I purchased another drive and daisy chained them. How do I get additional uploads to automatically go to the new drive? Itunes is indicating that the drive is "full".
Please help! I've got 6 downloads effectively "paused"

No, sorry, Time Machine can only back up to a single volume.
Short of getting a larger disk, your best bet is to back up one drive (probably the OSX drive) with Time Machine, and use a different app to back up the other one to a different drive. See the green box in Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #27 for some suggestions.

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Can i daisy chain external drives

I have 3 drives but only 2 800 wire ports. Can I daisy chain, or use a 400 wire?

daisy chaining should work fine. I used to have about 11 drives chained (which was pushing the envelope - but it worked with dv material). If at all possible, avoid firewire 400 as it will reduce your thruput.

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.

I have my iphoto library on an external drive, but it filled up. Can I have another library in another external drive and use them both?

I have old pictures in my external drive that I filled up. I would like to make another iphoto library in a new external drive and have this one for new pictures. Can I do that? And how will I be able to see my old pictures on my older external drive? My iphoto is 9.5.1.

Yes. Another way to switch between libraries is with this menu in iPhoto:

Can't daisy-chain Firewire drives reliably from 1-port Powerbook. Hub??

I have found that I cannot get a daisy-chained Firewire drive to mount more than 50% of the time. This problem doesn't happen with Tiger with the same drives. I have tried 4 different brands of late-model Firewire drives (Iomega, Smartdisk, Maxtor, and Seagate) with different cables and what happens is that a drive that is directly attached to the 12" Powerbook will mount, but the second chained drive fails to mount a majority of the time. Since I only have one Firewire port, this is preventing me from using more than one drive at a time, and I lost two Firewire drives to corruption today. Three out of four partitions lost contained bootable backups of Leopard and Tiger. Ouch!
This issue could prevent from using Leopard with my Powerbook, which is supposed to be Leopard-compatible. I can't remake the clones too easily with only being able to attach one drive at a time. I am thinking I will order a Firewire hub and try that, but I am not sure if that would be a solution, and I am wondering why I can always daisy-chain under Tiger, and not under Leopard. Does anyone have experience with Firewire hubs and Firewire operation details? Will I be able to get reliable Firewire with a hub?

I have exactly the same problem !
I have found this :
Using Multiple FireWire Devices at the Same Time
Power Macintosh computers can transfer perfect digital video (DV) on FireWire when no other devices are using the FireWire bus. If you have problems transferring digital video, make certain that no other FireWire devices are being used at the same time. Turning on a DV camera that is already connected may cause a FireWire hard disk to stop working. If this happens, turn off the camera and verify that the hard disk has recovered. Then unplug the FireWire cable from the camera, turn the camera on, and reconnect the FireWire cable to the camera. Check with the hard disk vendor for a possible firmware update to prevent this problem.
here:
http://www.2ndwave.com/firewire.asp
At the moment I can't upset what I'm doing to test it but I intend to do that as soon as I finish copying transferring...
I have the following device attached to different firewire ports:
a firewire video device connecting my G5 Desktop to the TV screen
a firewire ibot
I thought I would give u a head start

Is it possible to have your music and videos saved on different external drives and use the same iTunes library?

Is it possible to have your music and videos saved on different external drives and use the same iTunes library?
I am running out of space on my external hard drive and would like to split the movies and music between two external drives while using the same iTunes library is this possible.
My library is stored on the external drive all of my music etc is stored.

Yes.

Daisy-Chained External Drive No Longer Mounting

I have two external hard drives daisy-chained (firewire 800) to my iMac. The hard drive directly connected my iMac mounts fine. The daisy-chained hard drive no longer mounts, after mounting perfectly fine for a few months. I've tried restarting, etc with no success. Any help would be appreciated.

moretoexplore wrote:
No, it does not mount directly. I did however try using the other hard drive's power cord and it mounted without problem. But this doesn't fix the problem.. only one drive is mounting. At least it seems I have ruled out a more serious problem with the drive itself. I'm contacting Lacie to get a new power cord. Hopefully, with a new power cord, this will resolve the issue and it isn't some sort of daisy-chain issue.
I think you have solved the problem by elimination.
You can prove that it's the power cord by using the "bad" one on the working drive. If it stops working, it's guaranteed to be the power cord.
I believe that there were some issues with some of the LaCie Power Supplies.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

Can You Daisy Chain Firewire 400 and 800 Mixed?

I would like to purchase an External Drive. I'm looking at a FW800. What I'm wondering is, Can I daisy chain devices mixed in.
I Want to run a FW800 Bilingual cable from my Powerbook to the External Enclosure. From the Ext. Enclosure, I'd like to have take my second FW800 port and take a cable that converts Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 and plug in another item. Is this possible?
Can I mix and match FW devices using separate protocol in a daisy chain configuration?

Russ,
Yes, it is possible. I have a drive that works on FW800, FW400, or USB2. Connected to the second FW800 port on that, I have an adaptor cable, a FW400 cable to a FW400 drive, and another FW400 drive connected to that . All 3 drives are on the desktop of my PowerBook. When I read your post, I had the only first drive connected to the iBook with USB2.
The only problem I've run into was trying to copy a 200G drive on FW800 to a 250G drive on the FW400 port on the PowerBook. Working overnight, it managed to copy ONE Gigabyte! I hooked them up as they are now, and copied the whole shebang in about 45 minutes
I picked up an empty drive case, 800/400/USB2 combo from OWC and a 250G Maxtor drive at CompUSA for about $100 less than I could get a 250 FW800 drive anyplace. http://www.macsales.com

[Guide] Install and run Windows 7/8 from an external drive without using bootcamp (works for late 2012 iMacs with 3TB drive)

This is a copy of a post from my blog, you can also Read it on my blog...
Introduction
After I received my new iMac with a 3 TB Fusion Drive, I was disappointed when I realized that Bootcamp was not running on this model and prevented me from installing Windows on it. I wanted to take advantage of the powerful iMac hardware to play games but I couldn't.
There are a few ways of working around this limitation, but I found most of them quite complex and most of the time they required formatting the internal hard drive or repartitioning it and go for a brand new installation of Mac OS X. I was not comfortable with that.
But there is another way, and that is to install Windows on an external hard drive, using either USB or Thunderbolt. Personally I used a Lacie Rugged 1 TB drive that has both USB3 and Thunderbolt connectors. Both work very well.
This guide may interest you if:
You have an internal hard drive of more than 2TB and you can't run bootcamp at all (like late 2012 iMacs with a 3TB drive)
You have limited space or you don't want to dedicate disk space on your internal hard disk drive to a Windows installation
What this guide will make you do:
It will make you erase all your data from your external USB3/Thunderbolt hard drive
It will make you install Windows on your external USB3/Thunderbolt hard drive
It will make you install bootcamp drivers
What this will not make you do:
It will not make you modify anything on your internal Mac hard drive
It will not make you use or install the bootcamp assistant
It will not activate the Preference Pane for the default boot drive. You have to boot by pressing the ALT key to manually select your boot drive each tome you want to boot Windows.
What you'll need
An external hard drive with a USB3 and/or Thunderbolt connector. This drive will be formatted so ensure you saved your files before going further. You can use either an SSD drive or a classic hard drive.
A Windows 7 or 8 install DVD or ISO (check whether to install 32 or 64 bits versions based on your Bootcamp drivers) and the corresponding Windows serial number.
One of the following:
Mac OS X with a Windows 7 or 8 Virtual Machine (use VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop for example. Note: VMWare Fusion seems to have some issues with Thunderbolt and USB3. Plug your drive to a USB2 enclosure or hub to work around this -it worked for me-, or use another VM software) → Read the important note below
A PC running Windows 7 or 8 → Read the important note below
Windows AIK (free) running on your Virtual Machine or on your PC, or just the imagex.exe file (the rest of the Windows AIK package is not needed)
Download imagex.exe
Download Windows AIK (this download and installation is not required if you have already downloaded imagex.exe)
Bootcamp drivers for your Mac. You can get these either by running bootcamp from your Mac (Applications > Utilities > Bootcamp) or, if like me you have a 3TB drive and can't run bootcamp at all, use the direct download links here.
A USB stick to store your bootcamp drivers
IMPORTANT: If your Mac has a 64 bits processor, your Windows Virtual Machine on OSX, your Windows installation on your PC and your Windows DVD/ISO must also be in 64 bits!
Step by Step guide
Step 1: Get the install.wim file
If you have a Windows ISO file:
Mount the ISO
If you're on OS X: double click on the ISO file
If you're on on Windows 7: Use a software like Virtual Clone Drive (free)
If you're on Windows 8: double click on the ISO file
Open the mounted drive, then go to the "sources" folder and locate the "install.wim" file. Save this file to C:\wim\ on your Windows installation or virtual machine.
If you have a Windows DVD: open the "sources" folder on the DVD and locate the "install.wim" file. Save this file to C:\wim\ on your Windows installation or virtual machine.
IMPORTANT: If instead of a "install.wim" file, you have "install.esd", you can not continue this step by step guide. And an ESD file can not be converted into a WIM file. So you must get a version of the Windows installation DVD/ISO that has an install.wim file.
Step 2: Clean, partition and format your external hard drive
On your Windows installation or virtual machine, plug in your external hard drive (can be plugged using USB2, USB3 or Thunderbolt at this stage)
Open the command prompt in administrator mode (cmd.exe). To run it in administrator mode, right click on cmd.exe > Run as admin.
Type the following and hit enter to open the disk partitioner utility:
diskpartType the following and hit enter to list your drives:
list disk
This will display a list of disks mounted on your computer or virtual machine. Make sure your drive is listed here before you continue.Identify the disk ID of your external hard drive. Replace # by your real external disk ID in the command below:
select disk #Clean all partitions by typing the following (warning: this will erase all data from your external drive!):
clean
Create the boot parition by typing the following followed by the enter key:
create partition primary size=350
This will create a 350MB partition on your external driveFormat the partition in FAT32 by typing the following:
format fs=fat32 quick
Set this partition to active by typing:
active
Assign a letter to mount this partition. We will use letter B in our example. If B is already used on your PC, replace B by any other available letter:
assign letter=b
Windows will detect a new drive and probably display a pop-up. Ignore that.Create the Windows installation partition using all the remaining space available on the external drive by typing the following:
create partition primary
Format the new partition in NTFS:
format fs=ntfs quick
Assign a letter to mount this partition. We will use letter O in our example. If O is already used on your PC, replace O by any other available letter:
assign letter=o
Windows will detect a new drive and probably display a pop-up. Ignore that.Exit the disk partitioner utility by typing:
exit
Step 3: Deploy the Windows installation image
Still using the command prompt in admin mode (you didn't close it, did you? ), locate the imagex.exe file mentioned in the "What you'll need" section and access its folder. In our example, we have put this file in C:\imagex\imagex.exe
Type the following and hit enter (remember to replace o: with the letter you have chosen in the previous step):
imagex.exe /apply C:\wim\install.wim 1 o:
This will take some time. The Windows installation image is being deployed to your external driveOnce done, type the following to create the boot section (remember to replace o: and b: with the letters you've chosen in the previous step):
o:\windows\system32\bcdboot o:\windows /f ALL /s b:
If you get an error message saying that you can't run this program on your PC, then most probably you are running on a 32 bits installation of windows and you're trying to deploy a 64 bits install. This means you did not read the important notes in the beginning of this guide
If you get an error message on the options that can be used with the BCDBOOT command, then it's because you're installing Windows 7, and the /f option is not supported. If that is the case, remove /f ALL from the command and retry.
Step 4: Boot from your external drive and install Windows
Plug in your external drive:
If you've done all the previous steps from a Windows PC, unplug your external drive from your PC and plug it to your Mac, either on a USB3 or a Thunderbolt port.
If you've done all the previous steps from your Mac using a Virtual Machine, ensure the external drive is plugged in to a USB3 or Thunderbolt port. Using USB2 should also work but you'll get very poor performance so I don't recommend doing that.
Reboot your Mac and once the bootup sound is over, immediately press the ALT (option) key and release it only when the boot drives selection screen appears. If you did not get the boot drives selection screen, reboot and try again. The timing to press the ALT (option) key is quite short. It must not be too early or too late.
On the boot selection screen, choose "Windows" using the arrow keys on your keyboard, then press enter.
The Windows installation starts. Follow the on-screen instructions as normal. The installation program will restart your computer one or 2 times. Don't forget to press ALT (option) right after the bootup sound, and boot on Windows again each time to continue the installation.
Step 5: Install bootcamp drivers
Once the Windows installation is complete, plug in the USB stick where you stored the bootcamp drivers (see "what you'll need" section), open it and right click on "setup.exe" and select "Run as admin". Follow the on-screen instructions.If you have an error saying that you can't run this program on this PC, obviously you have installed a 32 bits version of Windows and the bootcamp drivers for your Mac are made for a 64 bits version. You have to restart the whole guide and make sure to get a 64 bits version of Windows this time!
Once the bootcamp drivers are all installed, reboot and press ALT (option) after the bootup sound to boot on Windows again. And Voilà, you have Windows installed on your USB3/Thunderbolt drive running on your Mac.
Now each time you want to boot on Windows, press and hold the ALT (option) key after the startup sound and select "Windows", then press Enter.

Hi i'm trying to follow your guide, I installed windows 8 on bootcamp to do it planning to remove it after the operation is done, but i get stuck at part 3: every command i give to imagex i get a pop-up ftom windws asking how do I want to open this kind of file install.wim and imagex does nothing, what do i have to do to stop those pop-ups?

Moving music to external drive and combining multiple itunes accounts to 1

Some how I have a couple of different itunes accounts. I had itunes before I got an iphone and bought some music that i listened to on my mac. Then i got an ipod and bought music. Then got an iphone and bought more stuff. And then my new iPhone 4. But the music is all on different "accounts" sort of. When I open my itunes I have under "store"
Purchased
Purchased on Susan's iphone
Purchased on Susan's iphone
But I can't combine them all together on my current iphone 4, yet I bought all those audio books and music!
I asked at the Apple store and they said move all the music to an external drive then plug in the phone and when it asks if I want to do something or other (sheesh I can't remember it all) say yes and it will make one account, delete some of the music, then move the music that is on the drive into that account.
So I have an external hard drive. I have itunes open. I don't want to delete anything until i'm sure I'm going to have it all on the external drive. And i have no idea what to do next. I thought i could just make a folder on the external drive and drag the music there but thats not working, it won't drag. And I have audio books that i bought but can only listen to on the computer it seems i can't move them to the iphone! What a mess.
Can someone help!
Susan

I wrote this a bit prematurely. When I got around to syncing my ipod again that contained the games, they reappeared in itunes. Perhaps this will help someone else.

HT201250 Can I partition my external hard drive and use one partion for time machine and the other one for data that i may want to use in different computers?

I have this doubt. I've just bought an external drive, especifically a Seagate GoFlex Desk 3 tb.
I want to know if it is recomendable to make a partion exclusively for time machine and let another one so I can put there music, photos, videos, etc that I should need to use or copy to another computer.
May half and half, 1.5 tb for time machine and 1.5 tb for data.
I have an internal hard drive of 500 GB (499.25 GB) in my macbook pro.
Any recommendation?

As I said, yes. Be sure your Time Machine partition has at least 1 TB for backups.
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to two (2). Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID then click on the OK button. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

Due to a divorce all my music is on my iTunes and iPod. I had to buy a new computer and want to transfer my Library to the new computer. How can I do this without using an external drive and use new computer just like I do the old one? Thanks.

Due to divorce, all my music is on my iTunes and iPod. I have had to buy a new laptop and want to transfer the library to the new computer before deauthorizing the old one. I dont want to have to use an external drive every time I want to listen to my music. How can I do this and have the same basic iTunes setup as before? HELP!

You might consider itunes match for moving CDs you've copied into your itunes library if you dont have a way to use home sharing.
iTunes match is an optional service offered by apple that costs about $25 a year. It scans your music library and if it finds music that is already in apple's itunes catalog it'll automatically "unlock"/"store" these in the cloud for you. Items that it does not find in the catalog it'll upload and store these in the cloud for you and you can download them on your devices. See http://www.apple.com/itunes/itunes-match/

Can't daisy chain Thunderbolt 1 and 2 drives

I have a Mac Mini server (mid 2011) with a Pegasus R4 connected via Thunderbolt that has been running fine. The Mini is running Lion Server.
Just recently I got a Lacie 2big drive with Thunderbolt 2. I assumed that TB2 was backwards compatible so daisy chaining the Lacie to the Pegasus wouldn't be an issue. But when I do so, the Lacie doesn't mount and Disk Utility cannot see it.
However, if I connect the Lacie directly to the Mini it mounts and works fine. So then I tried connecting the Pegasus to the Lacie. But now the Pegasus doesn't mount and can't be seen by Disk Utility or Promise Utility.
So, is the problem trying to daisy chain TB1 and TB2 devices together? Or is it the Mini? Or is it Lion?
Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks for the quick reply. The Pegasus is over 3 years old and I have never updated the firmware. I will do so.
However, I got everything to work. The one I thing I didn't try was rebooting with both drives daisy chained and turned on. This did it. I restarted many times but each time was with only one of the drives connected. Not sure why a reboot is necessary for the daisy chained device to be visible.

Daisy chain external drives

Hi. Let's say I have an internal drive (drive A) in my MacBook Pro, an external drive (drive B) connected via FireWire 800 to my MacBook Pro, and another external drive (drive C) connected via FireWire 800 to the rear of drive B. All drives are formatted as HFS+. Drive B holds my iTunes library.
1. Can I use Time Machine to back up drive A onto drive C?
2. Can I use Time Machine to back up drive B onto drive C?
3. Is there a brand of external drive that works well with this daisy chain approach?
4. Is there a better way / drive configuration to back up drives A and B?
Pls note my MacBook Pro has only one FireWire 800 port. Also pls note that I am not interested in a NAS.
Thanks

All theoretically possible, but I've found even some of the most reliable Firewire drives despite being daisy chained, such as the Newertech from OWC. They may not stay connected indefinitely, and they definitely don't copy directly between each other. Copying from computer to each of them on separate connections is much faster than trying to copy between them. At times, it is almost as slow as USB 1 when I try to copy directly from one to the other simply with the Finder. Don't expect Time Machine to be much faster. My advice, get a disk copier along with the Newertech Voyager. Disk copiers such as
http://www.amazon.com/HDD-Duplicator-Stand-Alone-Sata/dp/B002OTG0PO'
work a lot faster than trying to deal with the intricacies of daisy chaining.
Firewire 800 is great for single hard drives. But forget about daisy chaining. I've tried all the best brands, and they've backfired.

Daisy chain thunderbolt drives and RAID

Hi everyone!
I was wondering, is it possible to buy several thunderbold drives, daisy chain them, and then make them act like a RAID 5 ?
Another question would be: I looked around the lacie drives and they said they can be put as RAID 0 or 1, but when you daisy chain them, so every one of them become a RAID 0 or 1 independent from the other or do they act as one?
Thank you for the precisions!

I believe you may do that provided the iMac is at the end of the chain, so the external drive must be able to pass through the port. But Apple's information on chaining is in relation to their standalone displays which must terminate the chain. So I am assuming that may also apply in your case even though the iMac isn't a standalone display.
It may be much simpler to use an USB external drive.

Can i daisy chain external drives and use multiple disks for my iTunes libraries

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