External Drive/Back-up

I'd like to purchase the LaCie 2big Quadra (2 TB) external drive to use in RAID 1 mode to edit and to use as a back-up for a single project. Here's the link:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10310
Can anybody please advise about your experience and the reliability of this product on a MacBook Pro and FCP 7? Should I be looking at another brand that's considered more reliable?
I was thinking of the G-RAID mini but it's only up to 1 TB, and I don't need the much more expensive G-SPEED. My project is very long but it's all DV archive video going back decades.

As ssls6 mentioned yes TM will backup the external HD's. That being said you are playing with fire using the same physical HD to backup and also to store media. The reason being is if/when that drive fails (and it eventually will) you have lost both your photos (which are your memories!!!!) and your backup which could be a disaster. A general rule of thumb is backup HD's should be dedicated and not used for any other use.

Similar Messages

How do I Retrieve imovie projects from and external drive back into my mac internal drive

How do I Retrieve imovie projects from and external drive back into my mac internal drive?
Thank You

Every working drive, Internal or External, should produce an Icon on your Desktop. If you cannot see those, click on the Desktop (to get Finder) and choose Preferences off the Finder Menu. The general pane has checkboxes for "Show these items on the Desktop:"
Double click the Icon for your External Drive to open it. Open the folders on it until you find the Items you want to copy. Drag them to the Icon of your Internal Drive, or open the folder where you want them to land and drop them in there.
A drive that does not appear on the desktop after you have asked it to may be damaged. But it would be smart to do a Restart to see if it is recognized again at next Startup.

I cannot copy or transfer mp3 files stored on external drive back into itunes so i can listen to book again

Hi,
I mostly use itunes for listening to audiobooks which I have been collecting for years. Have hundreds of them. A few years ago when computer too full and my itunes library too big I carefully copied the books onto an external hard drive as mp3 files and then removed them from itunes. (At that stage I really wanted a non itunes library backup as I had already lost library a couple of times....now I understand the itunes back up a bit more and can use it.)
However I have lots of my favourite books on an external drive and I want to listen to them again. I cannot go to the folder holding a book, select all the the mp3 files that make up the book and drag them into my itunes music file as I can with a mp3 disc. There are 73 files on the first book i want to move!
Itunes has been selected as the default player and will play the files but I cannot transfer them.
Under details on a file it reads NOT PROTECTED
I am the administrator of my computer, indeed am its only user.
Cannot think of anything else that might be useful.
hope you can help
Elizabeth

luckily that is also backed up on the external drive too so I'll try looking there, but do you have any thoughts on why I can't get the backed up files to stay on the PC correctly ? because until they are back on my PC I can't use it or get the rankings back right?

How do I move a project from an external drive back into Imovie

I recently bought an Iomega external hard drive to store documentary movies so that I wouldn't jam up my Imac's free space. However, after I moved an imovie/idvd project to it, and wanted to make changes, I could not move the project back into the Imac's drive. (It also would not burn from the external, giving me a multiplex error) When I tried to move the movie back into Imovie on the Imac it said Quicktime couldn't parse it. I saw various posts about parsing, but not about specifically about moving a project from an external drive. Can anyone offer any suggestions? It seems to me that I should be able to move a project back and forth without that much trouble.

Sounds like you have a DVD format (MPEG-2) and not an iMovie Project file.
The key phrases are "multiplex" and "parse". Both suggest MPEG-2 format when opened in QuickTime. It would also throw an error -2048 message if MPEG-2.
But another issue could be the file format of the external drive. Most ship pre-formatted for the Windows OS's but a Mac user should format using HFS+ (and others). If you didn't format the drive before moving the large iMovie Project onto it it may have become severely fragmented if the external used FAT 16 or FAT 32 (very common) formats. They have a 2 or 4 GB file size limit, respectively and would have made your Project unreadable when moved back and forth.
Use the Disk Utility app to find out the format of your external drive.

Unable to move project from external drive back to FCPX.

The HD was recently replaced in my iMac. Fortunately I had backed up my FCPX events and projects to folders on an external drive. I have down loaded FCPX again to the new HD but I'm unable to move my project back into FCPX. Having opened FCPX, I then open the project library, select the external drive, open the folder containing my project but the "current version fcpproject" is grey (not available). I was however able to drag the "fcpevent" file into the event library.
Any help will be appreciated

Since there is no disclosure triangle on your external showing in your project library, there are two possibilities:
1) There are no projects presently located on the drive.
2) Project files are on the drive but FCP can't see them because they are not at the root level of the drive.
So either way, to straighten this out you will have to move some files in the Finder – even though best practices (as both Tom and Luis have pointed out) are to stay within FCP to do that.
Move the existing CurrentVersion file to a temporary folder to hide it from FCP.
Unless you know that the Ball project is at a specific location on your external, do a spotlight search on Final Cut Projects. If something comes up, with FCP closed, navigate to it in the Finder and move it to the root level of the external drive. Then open FCP and it should now be accessible in your project library. Select it in the library; go to File>Move Project. Things should now work.
But if you don't have another copy on your external, open FCP and hot the plus button at the bottom of project library and create a new project. That will create a Final Cut Projects Folder in your Movies folder (which is where it should be in your home directory). Close FCP. Open the temp file and drag the CurrentVersion file that you hid to the Final Cut Projects folder.
Hopefully, you wil now be able to get back to work.
Russ

External Drive Back Up question

Sorry, this is a long one....
First off, my Mac consists of the following:
iMac with 1 TB HD running OS 10.6.8
500 GB External for Music
2 TB with 1 TB partitions, one for time machine and the other for digital photo use
I recently purchased another 2 TB external hard drive to back up my digital photos, which I was going to do manually. I came across some info that leads me to believe that time machine will do this external drive to external drive photo backup for me automatically. Assuming this is the case, I would like to make this new 2 TB drive my time machine drive.
My question is, will time machine back up both my internal and one of my external hard drives to another external hard drive? And if so, what is the process for swapping time maching drives?
Thanks for any information

As ssls6 mentioned yes TM will backup the external HD's. That being said you are playing with fire using the same physical HD to backup and also to store media. The reason being is if/when that drive fails (and it eventually will) you have lost both your photos (which are your memories!!!!) and your backup which could be a disaster. A general rule of thumb is backup HD's should be dedicated and not used for any other use.

Trying to install all my MP3s from new external drive back into iTunes

Hi,
I'm hoping anyone can help me out here...
I had a major PC upset and have had to rebuild it from scratch (with the help of Dell Tech Support!).
I've now downloaded and installed latest version of iTunes and I'm trying to reload all of my (thankfully) saved MP3s, still in their relevant folders etc, from my external HD back into iTunes.
Despite all attempts, it isn't happening!
Short of having to 'open with' (Tunes) each and every single file, can anyone help with how I can do this?
Thanks in advance for all help offered!
Cheers, Robin
Dell Dimension 8250 Windows XP

I just seen your post here, I'll reply the rest of what I was talking about here

Itunes music on external drive - how to get it back onto mac.

hi - some time ago I transferred my growing itunes library to an external hard drive. The database remained on the mac. My mac was an old powerpc imac. So far no problem. Things moved on and I have just bought a new imac i3 etc. I would now like to transfer my itunes content to the new mac as it has loads of space. Alternatively I would be happy to keep the music on the external drive. I transferred the contents of the old mac to the new mac without any difficulty. The database on itunes arrived seemlessly on the new mac. I plugged in the external hard drive and nothing worked. I had forgotten that the old mac was power pc and the new mac was of course intel.
My question is now, how do I get the library on the external drive back onto my old mac so that I can transfer it to the new mac? Any ideas. I am sure it is simple, but am not the best on computers. I can follow instructions.

mdockrell wrote:
will make sure both machine are running the same version and try again
again, the version shouldn't matter - the worst that could happen is that the newer version would need to update the library (which may take a while).
if you still have access the the PPC, try copying its iTunes folder once more to the intel. you can use a thumb drive or connect the two Macs with a firewire cable, boot the source Mac in _*Target Disk Mode*_, and copy the entire iTunes folder from <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music on the source to <MacintoshHD>/users/<yourname>/music on the target (overwriting the iTunes folder in place there).
connect the external to the intel and wait for it to mount, then launch iTunes.
what happens ?

Time Machine... WILL NOT BACKUP an INCLUDED hard drive but backs up an INCLUDED external drive

I have read Mr Pondini's excellent posts... followed them carefully but still in trouble...
The System preferences for Time Machine.... indicate that a full backup..approx . 760 Gigs is being done ( part from an external drive. and part from the Hard ( approx 450Gigs )drive ( approx 270 gigs )...
The External drive backs up.... With Time machine..... and then Skips the Hard drive although is was NOT EXCLUDED in the TM preferences...
I have deleted the plist several times,.... Formatted the Time machine drive several times.... ( renaming the partition each time.... and am at a loss
Anybody any ideas......PLEASE

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message that corresponds to an abnormal backup. Now
CLEAR THE WORD "Starting" FROM THE TEXT FIELD
so that all messages are showing, and scroll back in the log to the time you noted. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If all you see are messages that contain the word "Starting," you didn't clear the text field.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

Can I use Time Machine to backup ONLY an external drive?

I am having problems with the internal HD on my iMac and Disk Utility is telling me I need to reformat the drive and restore from backup. Only problem is that my 3TB Lacie Thunderbolt drive I was using for Time Machine recently failed (think it may have happened during an electrical storm brownout). Yep, I know, ***** to be me
The issues with the internal HD are preventing the iMac from booting and I would prefer not to have to purchase various repair software to find one that really works such as Disk Warrior or similar ((despite it getting very good reviews). I suspect it make be HFS corruption but no way to really tell that I am aware of.
I have setup an external drive with Yosemite and booted from that so now my old internal drive is seen as an "external drive".
I am using Disk Utility to make an image copy to a new 3TB external drive I purchased. Writing the DMG is going to take some time.
What I would like to do is to set up Time Machine to backup to a separate external 3TB hard drive (the second one I purchased) and have TM create a backup of ONLY the old internal drive - not the new system as well as the old internal unit.
Is this possible and if so can anyone advise how to do this. Does not seem I can exclude the system drive I am now booted from so that it is not backed up. (This makes sense that TM would be designed this way given its primary purpose is to backup a system).
If TM cannot be configured in this way, is there another option I can use?
Thanks
Andrew

Thanks for that advice. I have heard of it but a friend who does IT support at a University nearby suggested using Disk Utility to save an image - hence this is currently underway at present. Once this is finished I will try Carbon Copy Cloner.
I have another friend who has an older version of CCC - do you know if an old version will work ok or if only the latest supports Yosemite?
Also once I have the clone completed from CCC, is the process then to reformat the old internal drive and then clone from the CCC external drive back to the internal and then reboot and trust all is well?
Appreciate your help Csound1.
Regards
Andrew

The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?

I have recently switched from a PC to a MacBook Pro.
I have a large number of documents and photographs on a multiterrabite external drive, backed up on a second multiterrabite external drive.
Both external drives are formatted for MacIntosh. This has been verified by agents at an Apple store and also at Best Buy in two different cities.
This is the problem:
The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?
Also, the MacBook Pro will not allow me to rename multiple documents or photographs. I can click-and-rename a single one, but this is impossibly time consuming. I can batch-rename in iPhoto, but when I transfer the photographs to the external drive, the rename does not transfer.
I’m reduced to using my wife’s Toshiba to cut-and-past, rename, and transfer documents. It works perfectly. Is there any way to do this on the MacBook Pro?
Thanks!
Roderick Guerry
[email protected]

Roderick Guerry wrote:
The MacBook Pro will not allow me to cut-and-paste to and from or to click-and-drag to the external drive. I can copy-and-paste, but then I must send the original to the trash, which doubles the time and effort. Is there any way to cut-and-paste?
No, this is a philosophical difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple believes that it's dangerous to cut a file in case the user never pastes it; in that case the file is lost. Microsoft seems to not have this problem (if I remember Windows correctly) because they don't delete the originating file if it's cut but never pasted.
Even though Macs have a lot of keyboard shortcuts, philosophically Macs have traditionally been mouse-first. This applies to file copy operations. In your case, what a Mac user would do is open the source window, open the destination window (on your second drive), and then Command-drag the selected files from the source to destination window. This is because a normal drag would leave the originals behind, while adding the Command modifier key tells OS X that this is a Move, not a Copy, so don't leave the originals behind.
(In addition there are different rules for drag-copying within the same volume or between different volumes. If you drag between two folders on the same volume, the files are moved. If you drag between different volumes, the files are copied unless you hold down Command to delete the copies on the source volume.)
Roderick Guerry wrote:
Also, the MacBook Pro will not allow me to rename multiple documents or photographs. I can click-and-rename a single one, but this is impossibly time consuming. I can batch-rename in iPhoto, but when I transfer the photographs to the external drive, the rename does not transfer.
Two problems in this case. First, batch file renaming is not built into OS X unless you build something with Automator. However, there are many utilities that can do batch file renaming which you can find at macupdate.com or on the App Store. Since I work with media I often batch rename using one of the media managers I have lying around like Media Pro or Adobe Bridge (comes with Photoshop).
iPhoto is a database front end designed to shield the file system from the consumer and let them concentrate on creativity and sharing. As such it is often a poor choice for managing files directly. When you "transferred the photographs" chances are you moved the originals, not the ones iPhoto edited which are stored in a hidden folder.
Roderick Guerry wrote:
I’m reduced to using my wife’s Toshiba to cut-and-past, rename, and transfer documents. It works perfectly. Is there any way to do this on the MacBook Pro?
There will not be a way to do it exactly like Windows. As described above, there are ways to do it "the Mac way." If it is possible to remove judgment on which way is "better" you might find the Mac way to be acceptable, but of course sometimes we simply prefer what we're used to.

Media folder on external drive is getting lost

I keep my iTunes media folder on an external hard drive. It works beautifully, as long as I remember to always have the external drive plugged in when I launch iTunes. Ocassionally I forget, though. And if I launch iTunes without the drive connected, iTunes resets my preferences and reverts to the default media folder location (inside my user folder).
Interestingly, after this happens I can plug the external drive back in, and I can still play all of the media files that are located on the external drive.
However, if I add NEW files to iTunes, it puts them in the default media location on my internal drive.
I then have to go into iTunes preferences and reset the media folder location to my external drive... at which point it says it has to reorganize all of my files and move them to the external drive (even though they're already there, and already organized!).
This process can take 24 hours (I have a big media library). Very frustrating.
So... if I forgot to plug in my external media drive when I launch iTunes, and if iTunes resets my media folder, is there any way to fix things without having to rebuild/reorganize the whole media library all over again???
Thanks in advance
Drew

This is a timely discussion for me; I am having the same problem, with a little bit of a twist.
My iTunes 10 library resides on an external HD and has for some time. Apparently, at some point, the default library reverted back to a file on my MacBook Pro itself. Consequently, any new media I added after that was added to this MBP-based library.
I finally caught this issue last night, changed the default library back to the HD file (via Advanced Preferences -- and yes I saved the change), consolidated the newly added stuff onto this HD-based library, then junked the MBP-based library.
Now when I open iTunes it acts like its the very first time I have ever opened iTunes, i.e., no media at all identified. I went to Advanced Preferences and once again the default library had reverted to MBP. Again, I changed default library to HD-based library (my media is all still there). I closed iTunes, reopened, and again it acted as if it was the very first time using iTunes, i.e., no media. I looked at Advanced Preferences and it still shows that HD-based library is my default. Its just that none of the items in the library appears in iTunes.
Thoughts?

Moved iPhoto 11 library to external drive and have a iPhoto Library file left on desktop

Hello,
I have a blue file on my desktop labeled iPhoto Library, that appeared during the course of me moving my iPhoto Library ( iPhoto 11) to an external hard drive to make room on the internal disk, my attempts to reopen iPhoto on the internal disk, move selected photos from the iPhoto Library on the external drive over to the newly emptied iPhoto Library on my laptop.
The blue iPhoto Library file contains these items:
AlbumData.xml
AlbumData2.xml
iPhoto.ipspot
Questions: does this blue file belong somewhere or can I trash it?
This is what I did:
1. I opened Pictures, dragged the iPhoto Library from there to the external drive.
2. When I opened iPhoto on my MBP it said it needed a library to open with and the choices already in the box were:
iPhoto Library(default)
iPhoto Library
3. I chose "iPhoto Library" because I thought "(default)" meant restoring the original library.
4. iPhoto opened to the "get started with iPhoto" like a new install.
5.I moved (drag and drop ) some photos from the external drive back into the "empty" iPhoto Library. I tried to move a group of photos but I didn't know how to do it so ...
6. I took the iPhoto Library from the trash and put it back into the "empty" iPhoto Library.
7. I tried to delete all the photos except the ones I wanted to keep in the internal iPhoto Library. I couldn't do it so....
8. I closed iPhoto, went back into Pictures and trashed the internal iPhoto Library again.
9. Reopened iPhoto and it needed a library to open with and I think I clicked
iPhoto Library (default)
10. When I opened iPhoto this time, it was the "get started with iPhoto" but the original photo albums and labels listed but all empty.
That's what I remember so far.
Hope you can help.
Medusa59

It appears you created a new library. Launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and select "Choose Library".
Navigate to the library on the external hard drive and select it. Once you're satisfied that it's the one you want you can delete that folder from your desktop.
OT

How do I boot from an external drive?

I've just Carbon Cloned my 60GB drive to a firewire external drive. I'm about to replace the 60GB with a 160GB drive and the CCC instructions say boot from the external drive I'd just created once the new disk is installed. Then CCC the cloned drive back to the new hard drive.
So, how do I boot from an external drive? Do I have load anything to the new drive? Will the macbook detect the external drive and boot from that? Or what??????
Thanks
Dick

Thanks DWB. Being the rash impetuous guy I am I didn't wait for replies and just switched on the macbook after installing the new disk (which was so easy it was unbelievable - had to go and buy a a little torx bit though) to see what would happen.
Blow me down with a feather if it didn't just boot off the external drive all by itself :-O It did come up with the disk was unverified and I could see it in FINDER and I was prseented with a screen to ERASE/RESTORE etc.
When I went to CCC the external drive back to the new hard drive it didn't give show me the new hard drive so I guessed I'd have to do something to format (?) the hard drive.
I don't know if I did the right thing but I went to disk utilities and chose ERASE in the vague hope it would maybe format the disk in some way.
Seems to work now and the CCC replaced the system perfectly as far as I can see.
Basically very impressive all round. Piece of proverbial to replace the disk and CCC made life so easy.
Thanks again.
Cheers
Dick

Unable to copy iphoto library from external drive to internal drive

iPhoto '09 8.1.2 (424)
I have a very large iPhoto library (282GB, 34k photos) spread between multiple computers, which as been consolidated on a single external drive now (1 TB Western Digital Mac OS Extended (Case-senstive, Journaled). I'm trying to get the big library on the external drive back on my Mac Pro so I can break the merged libraries into smaller libraries in a safe fashion.
There is nothing on the internal drive, but I keep getting an error about 62GB into the copying that reads: "You cannot copy "[Library Name]" to the destination because its name is the same as the name of an item on the destination, except for the case of some characters." ... But there's nothing on the internal drive!!!
I've renamed the library on the external drive, then tried copying it -- no dice. I've created a new folder on the internal drive and tried copying it to the new folder -- same error at exactly the same spot in the transfer. I've even reformatted then zeroed out the internal drive -- same error, same spot. Anyone know a solution or have ideas about what I'm doing wrong?
Many thanks!

I think the error report is bogus and the issue is not on the receiving volume but a locked or damaged file within the library.
Try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Include the option to check and repair Library permissions.
FWIW, I don't see what you gain by a: splitting the library at all and b: copying it back to the MacPro to do it.
Regards
TD

External Drive/Back-up

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