Existing external drive: how to RAID it?

I've got a LaCie 1 TB external USB 2 drive. Nearly full. Very important files live there and ONLY there. Enter a 2nd LaCie 1 TB which I purchased last week. A USB 3 portable drive, although I don't think my MacBook Pro 2007 is USB 3.
Anyone could advise how to set the new portable 1 TB drive so that it always mirrors the contents of the older 1 TB which sits on my desk? So that if one drive fails, my data stays safe? I looked into the Disk Utility options but I'm just not sure I've understood the whole thing and I am a little queasy about it, in case I lose data while setting the RAID up.
Thanks in advance people, as always.

<http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/ss/raidmirror_2.htm>
... Be aware that the process of creating RAID 1 mirrored sets will erase all of the data on the hard drives..."
And from Disk Utility -> Help -> RAID
...You still need to back up your data regularly, even though you have a mirrored RAID set. Mirroring protects you from some types of hardware failure, but not from user errors or software corruption. If you delete a file, it’s deleted from the mirror as well. If software corrupts a file, it’s also corrupted on the mirror...
Besides that little bit of bad news, the above web page explains creating a mirrored RAID set.
So if you really want a RAID, you will need to get a 3rd drive to backup your stuff before using the original LaCie as part of a RAID set, and you should have a backup drive anyway.
OR...
You could just setup a periodic backup from the original LaCie to the new LaCie as a backup. Something like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner have scheduling support and can make an exact copy of your original LaCie every day, by only copying over files which have changed.
Or get an even bigger backup drive, and include the original LaCie (or mirrored LaCie's) in your Time Machine backups.

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My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

My MacBook Pro hard drive is almost full and I wish to store my Aperture Library on an external drive, how do I do this and is the use of USB2 suitable or do I need to use a Firewire external hard drive?

You'll get better performance if you use a Firewire hard drive (especially if you buy a 7200 RPM drive). Firewire's IO speed is significantly faster than USB 2. USB 2 has a theoretical max speed of 480 Mbps except that it has extremely high over-head. The fastest speeds you can typically get are about 300 Mbps. Firewire, on the other hand, has very little overhead. The fastest speeds you can get are very nearly 800 Mbps. You will typically be constrained by the maximum read/write speed of the drive, not the speed of the I/O on the Firewire bus. Now if you had one of those nice shiny new Macs with the Thunderbolt I/O and a Thunderbolt drive (Light Peak) ... I think they alter space and time so that your data arrives before you know you want it.
Also... unless you want to buy a solid state drive (very expensive), try to keep your hard drives from becoming much more than about 60% full if you want great performance. A nearly "full" hard drive is, on average, only about half as fast as the same hard drive when nearly empty.
USB 2 will work perfectly fine... just not as fast.
Also... it's much safer to move the entire Aperture library than to "relocate masters". Your images must be managed. You can Aperture manage them, or you can manage them. But someone has to manage them. If you "relocate" them so that they are no longer stored inside the Aperture library then you'll need to work out a system of how you decide to organize things and it's critically important that you don't start moving files around or deleting things without Aperture's knowledge. If you do, you'll break the links to your masters and start having problems with missing masters. If you have Aperture manage the library then you don't need to worry about any of that stuff.... it's safer.
Do make backups (use the Aperture Vault or use some other backup program, but make sure you back up your work if you care about it.) There are only two kinds of hard drives in the world: (1) those that have failed and (2) those that are going to fail. There are no exceptions to this rule. Hard drives are cheap. Backup software is built into Aperture and into your Mac.

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I am a new convert to iMac from PC this weekend. Have searched support questions but not finding a match.
What I have is two portable external drives - a 160 gig for all my photos (all sorted into annual folders then monthly folders, close to its limit around 140gig), and a 300 gig drive for "everything else" ie movies, music, documents etc etc.
I have always kept everything on these drives - never been a fan of keeping anything on actual computers.
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Then I plugged in the 160 gig drive and in a separate Finder screen I have tried to create a Feb sub folder in my 2012 folder. So I can drag or copy todays photos into it from the mac.
But a) its not letting me create a new folder - actually I cant see any options to do so.
b) its not letting me drag or copy paste the photos into any folder on the external 160 drive.
Any tips - please in really plain english as after 20 years of Window use I feel like I am learning Apple english today. Its all a bit foreign !
A few people on facebook suggested "reformatting" the external drives but to be honest that scare the heck out of me as to me reformatting basically means risking losing everything on those drives.
Another problem to do with the photos I downloaded off the camera today:
What is known as "properties" in Windows usually shows me exactly what date and time the photo was take, when it was uploaded, and when it was edited.
Half the photos I downloaded today off the camera do show their Info as that - but half show their info as "today" and I know they are several weeks old.
As I rely on the integrity of the photos "properties for all my sorting - I am not sure how or why it is removing the correct information and replacing it with "today".
Any help for a real newbie is appreciated.
Thanks

NTFS (New Technology File System) is the standard file system of Windows NT, including Windows 2000,Windows XP, and all their successors to date.
NTFS supersedes the FAT file system as the preferred file system for Microsoft’s Windows operating systems.
SW = software. Do NOT use software to convert your data.
The Mac operating system uses HFS Extended (Journaled), and until you reformat your external hard drive to that (using Disk Utlity) you will not achieve full functionality.
Obviously that should have been done before you installed anything so you now need to clear all data off the external hard drive (by copying to another hard drive already formatted correctly) and then copying back. Easier still, format a new hard drive correctly, copy existing data to that, reformat the older hard drive and keep for further backups.
Kinda wished they had mentioned all that before I spent so much cash!
A little bit of reserarch and preparation before purchasing would not have gone amiss!

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Hey everybody!
I'm about to buy an external drive for my mac. I am reasonably capable on a computer, but I've never done formatting or partitioning so I have two questions:
1) I just want to check that I do not need to buy a mac-formatted drive. A little big of googling told me I could do the formatting myself with Disk Utility, just wanted to double check that that was true.
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(if that helps, I have a MacBook Pro with a 512GB hardrive, and I want to buy a 1TB external drive)

Hi,
Here is a link that will help you set up your external drive. http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-set-up-an-external-hard-drive-for-use-with-os- x/
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Regards.

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mdockrell wrote:
will make sure both machine are running the same version and try again
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what happens ?

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No disc image is required. Prepare the drive as follows:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Connect the drive to a Firewire port. Open Time Machine preferences and select the drive as the TM backup drive and turn on TM.
If you use the external drive for backups you should not use it for installing applications or storing other files. It should be used as a dedicated backup drive. If you need additional storage space get another external drive.
See Disk Image for discussion of what a disc image is.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Backup and Restore.
Hopefully the next vacation you go on you will prepare for more thoroughly in advance. And, don't swear at the computer - it's a machine and only does what you tell it to do. If you need to swear at something look in the mirror!

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I'm 20+ minutes into erasing this disc and see no way to monitor any progress.
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TA

Formatting should be instant. It sounds like you aren't just formatting, but also writing zeros or something. If you are using Zero Out Data, I just did that to several new 1TB internal and external drives, and I think it took about 2.5 hours each. Using a Mac Pro and eSATA. It might take longer on a laptop, not sure.
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Existing external drive: how to RAID it?

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