External Hard Drive Setup for Backup and Final Cut Express?

I have 500GB internal storage on my iMac, using TimeMachine to back up to a 500GB Seagate FreeAgent (about 1.5 yrs. old) via FireWire 400. I currently use the internal storage as my scratch/capture disk (I know -- very bad). I recently bought an HD video cam, and my storage is running out fast.
I've done a good amount of research on external storage, and I am thinking of getting an external Mercury Elite enclosure from OWC (4 bays, connects via eSata, Firewire 400/800) and two 1.5GB Seagate LP hard drives. (I figure I might as well get the enclosure with 4 bays and an eSata connection for the future, even though the iMac has no eSata connection.) I plan to continue to use the FreeAgent to backup my internal storage (via FireWire 400), and with the FireWire 800, use one of the 1.5GB external drives as my scratch/capture disk and the other to back it up. Since TimeMachine allows only one backup volume (I think), I figure I can use ProSoft (which comes in a bundle with the enclosure) for the other backup (or for both backups for that matter). Dealing with RAID seems excessive to me at this point -- I'm mid-tech, I would say.
Any thoughts would be appreciated -- thanks!

Thanks for replying again. I think you've convinced me to scale back. But I still think I should go with an expandable 4 bay enclosure, but just starting with a 1TB drive, to back up my internal 500GB and the 500GB Seagate, which I'll use as scratch. Then, when that fills up, I can add a 2TB drive to the enclosure to back up the others, and use the 1TB drive as the scratch.

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External Hard Drives: One for backup and one for storage

Is it possible to have two external hard drives, one firewire and the other usb, using one as an additional hard drive, and the other as the backup drive, and backup from the external that is the additional hard drive to the the other which is the external back up drive?

Wunjo:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
It is possible, but not necessary. If you have a large enough firewire HDD you can partition it so that one partition is approximately the size (capacity) of your internal HDD. Then you can make a bootable clone of your internal HDD to this partition using a utility like SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. You can then regularly update this partition so that you always have an up-to-date backup of your internal HDD. This will serve as a backup of your internal HDD, as well as an emergency boot drive. You can also boot the computer from it to run diagnostic tests and repairs on the internal HDD.
The rest of your HDD can be used for whatever you wish. You can create additional partitions for different purposes, or just leave one large partition as a storage or work area. If you need directions for partitioning your HDD, do post back and ask.
Of course, if you already have a firewire and a USB drive, you can use them as indicated. In any case, you can partition the drives to serve multiple purposes.
Please do post back with further questions or comments.
Cheers
cornelius

External hard drive speed for backups and archiving

I'm planning to buy a pair of external FireWire hard drives to backup and archive my iBook G4. I've read a couple of product reports that compare read and write speed of hard drives which seems to be a function of each drive's rotational speed.
I then noticed that my iBook's internal hard drive is slower (at 4200 RPM) than either of the external drives I'm now considering (7200 RPM and 5400 RPM). A test report I read showed the 7200 RPM drive duplicating 1GB twice as fast as the 5400 RPM drive when connected via FireWire to a G5.
Will my slower internal hard drive limit the speed of duplication so that there is little or no advantage to the 7200 RPM drive over the 5400 RPM drive for me?
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Probably should have been clearer in my initial question. The 7200 RPM drive I'm looking at is a desktop model, and a bit cheaper than the 5400 RPM drive, which is portable. I like the smaller footprint of the portable drive (and the convenience of it being bus powered) but don't want to pay more for those benefits only to be disappointed with its performance.
So, I'm actually trying to decide between a higher speed/lower cost/desktop vs. lower speed/higher cost/portable. If I could determine that the actual performance difference between these was not very significant when used solely to backup and archive my iBook, I'd gladly pay a bit more for the convenience and small size of the portable.
If there indeed is a big performance difference, I'd find space on my desk for the desktop drive and pocket the savings.

What is the best external hard drive setup for pictures and videos?

I have a FireWire 800 port & I'm looking to back up my pix and vids. I've read reviews of alot of different ones. I don't want a time capsule because all the reviews are negative. These are pix & vids that I do not want to lose so how can I safeguard them?

These three brands and models are all excellent. All have similar features and build quality.
OWC (www.macsales.com) Mercury Elite Pro series
Lacie Quadra D2 series
G-Tech G-Series
Personally I use the Lacie's (I have 4) and have been 100% satisfied for the past several years with them.
Roger

External hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd

Why is my MacBook Pro reading my external hard drive setup for time machine reading as a virtual cd?
Thanks

Hi Christian,
Is this something that has happened from the start? If so, I would reformat the disk and setup TM from scratch again.
Prepare the external HD by connecting to the Mac, open Disk Utility, select the manufacturer’s name of the external HD, select Partition and choose GUID Partition Table, format to Apple OS Extended (Journaled); quit Disk Utility.
Open System Preferences.
Click on Time Machine.
Click on “Select Disk.”
Click just to the left of "On" to turn TM on if it's not already on.
Click on the disk or partition you want to use.
Click on “Use for backup.”
Leave external HD connected, and TM will automatically do its thing.

After install of Lion, secondary internal hard drive used for backup and time machine is not showing on the desktop.

After an install of Lion, my secondary internal hard drive used for backup and time machine is not showing on the desktop. Cannot be located with Disk Utility either. Contains vital files! please help...

I have a TB internal drive, but this is what it shows for memory slots:
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ECC:    Enabled
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Serial Number:    0x00000000
DIMM Riser B/DIMM 2:
Size:    2 GB
Type:    DDR2 FB-DIMM
Speed:    800 MHz
Status:    OK
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Serial Number:    0x00000000
DIMM Riser A/DIMM 1:
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Speed:    800 MHz
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DIMM Riser A/DIMM 2:
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I have a an external hard drive formatted for Windows, and I want to move those files to a new hard drive formatted for both Windows and OS. Is this possible?

I just purchased a MB Air 13", as well as a Seagate Slim Backup Plus. I have an older external hard drive that I was using with a Dell laptop. I would like to get the files off of the older external hard drive, and onto the new Seagate drive. Is this possible? I'd also like to be able to add files going forward to the Seagate from either a PC or a Mac and be able to view/use them on the MB Air 13".
Thanks in advance.

You will have to format the Seagate external HDD to a format common to both Mac and PC such as ExFAT. That should allow you to transfer files from the old HDD and still allow you to use with your MBA.
Ciao.

External hard drive asks for password and does not mount on desktop

Hello all,
I bought a portable FireWire external hard drive to connect to my iMac G4. When connecting via FireWire, a message window appears telling me that the external disk is password protected and prompts me to type a password. Neither typing my administrator password nor activating the checkbox "Temporarily remove protection" and clicking the Unlock button is successfull: the hard drive does not appear on the desktop but it is listed in the System Profiler under Fire Wire Bus. I tried the external drive on an iMac G5 where it works without any problem. So what shall I do? Does anybody know an issue to this? I will be glad for every answer.

Have you written any data to the external drive? If not, perhaps you could add some data.
Are you using filevault?
You could reformat it in disk utilities.
Here is the path...
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility
It may be a problem with accessing the drive from different users, I could not recreate the problem with different users on my machine. I have only one machine with firewire.
Robert
Message was edited by: rccharles

My external hard drive will not save my final cut files

I have a Seagate external hard drive and use final cut pro. Every time I try to save my working final cut file on my hard drive, it will never open up again and says 'unable to open project file'. What is going on? this is very frustrating as sometimes need to move around my working projects to other computers.
Please help.

How is the external drive formatted? How is it connected to your Mac?
-DH

Opinions sought: What is the optimal external hard drive setup for LP8?

I've got a MacBook Pro with only 10GB left on the HD after installation. I'm going to grab a nice big external Lacie 750 GB 7200RPM HD (via FireWire 800) solely for use with the Logic Studio suite. I have a few questions about optimal setup.
Option A: I leave the Logic programs on my MacBook Pro, and use the Lacie to record to.
Option B: I delete the Logic stuff from my MBP, and re-install all programs and content on the Lacie.
Option C: I install Mac OSX on the Lacie (making it bootable, I presume), circumvent my MacBook Pro's internal HD altogether, and run Logic from that.
Anybody? I'm particularly interested in hearing about what the issues are concerning latency and such.
Thanks in advance...
c.

Glad to see you chose "B"!
Just to clarify... I meant to say what Rohan suggested, i.e., apps on system drive, not on the Lacie.
Now, what's "content"? Well, it can be a lot of things...
• projects (including .bak song files)
• audio files
• sampler instruments and their samples (EXS)
• non-EXS sampler instruments and their samples
• apple loops
Three scenarios I'd suggest:
*OPTION 1*
Use your external drive for recording audio only. Store everything else on your system drive (sampler instruments/samples/apple loops, etc.). Also save your projects to your system drive. In this scenario your record path for audio would be your LaCie (create an audio folder specifically for each project). When you do routines saves of a project, leave the audio on the LaCie. Don't "move" them.
Thing is, you want to keep a certain amount of your HD space free and clear (I think the going figure is 20%) and this is for system use. It's important. But as you add more sample libraries as well as projects, you'll start to eat up your system HD space. But at least your audio recordings will be contained on a separate drive and not impinge on your HD space, keeping as much of it as free and clear as possible.
Anyway, if you go with this scenario, when you want to archive a project to another external HD or DVDs, you have a few choices:
a) do a re-save of the project to a new folder so that you've consolidated all of the material into one place, or...
b) do a re-save of the project to a new folder, include all sampler instruments & samples and everything else except audio; keep the audio in its own folder (just as it exists on the LaCie) and copy that to your archiving medium separately.
There are probably other strategies as well, but those are just two suggestions...
*OPTION 2*
Have TWO external drives: one for audio recording only, and another one for all other "content" (apple loops, samples, maybe even EXS sampler instruments, depending on how big your EXS library is). Store your projects on your system HD. With this scenario you keep your system HD very clear for system use.
I guess the main gist of the above two suggestions is that you dedicate your audio drive for audio. The less extraneous stuff on your audio drive, the higher your track count will be.
OPTION3
Same as above, having two external drives, but saving your projects to the second drive (not the audio drive). If your songs typically don't contain a ton of audio tracks, this should work fine.
Finally, a word about LaCie drives... I have three of them and have never had a problem. However, people who have reported problems with them are often quite vociferous in advising others to avoid them (and who could blame them?). So, just some perspective for ya.

External Hard Drives Recommended for media and scrasj disks?

I a working as a pro, but new to Final Cut Pro. I am wondering which external harddrives which would work best for a scratsj disk and a media disk (two separate).
I am concedering La Cie Rugged drives which are Firewire 800 / 7200 Rpm and do not need any external power suply (it gets the electricity from the mac).
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=11135
The Lacie Rugged does not have a fan which makes it silent. I am not sure how it operates under warm conditions though.
I am looking for a mobile solution.
0.) Some other forum suggested that is is important to buy a disk with at least 16MB cache. I am not sure whether the Rugged drive has 16 Mb. Is this important?
1.) I am having concerns whether the La Cie would be rough enough to be "beaten up" as a scratsj drive?
2.) Will the Macbook Pro have enough power to give the two external Rugged drives electricity / power enough?
3.) Will it be less speed efficient to have two Firewire 800 drives on the same machine / same Firewire curcuit?
4.) Are there other mobile solutins for external drives which are better?
5.) Is it better to buy two standard 7200 rpm Firewire 800 disk for this purpose?

Hi Simen
First off, what format are you shooting? DV Pal? or some flavour of HD? and how much do you plan on shooting?
Personally I have used the Lacie rugged drive, FCP and a Powerbook (G4) in a variety of field settings, cold and hot, and it has been fine with DV simple cutting stuff.
I would also say though that given the chance I would use mains powered drives any day, and my preference would be for G-Tech drives not Lacie, they do a "Q" drive which is heat sink cooled (not a fan) which I have found reliable.
I would also suggest getting a FW800 PC card to run your drives from.
Your Macbook will have enough power to run the drives but of course your battery isn't going to last long!
Best
Andrew

Optimal Hard Drive Setup for 3D and CS6 Motion Graphics?

Hello, I'm trying to figure out the best way to separate the following into different hard drives for best performance...
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My External Hard Drive Won't Work With Final Cut Pro

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One of my HD is in a MacAlly 2.5" enclosure that offers both FireWire and USB2. The other one is in some generic enclosure with only USB2. Both are bus-powered and both work fine.

Using IMOVIE '08 to import from DV camera to 'BUSLINK' external hard drive( formatted for MAC ) but no success and kept getting this message: The import was canceled. You may not have permission to write to /Volumes/BUSLINK/iMovie Events.localized. Thanx

Using IMOVIE '08 to import from DV camera to 'BUSLINK' external hard drive( formatted for MAC ) but no success and kept getting this message: The import was canceled. You may not have permission to write to /Volumes/BUSLINK/iMovie Events.localized. Thanx in advance!

I finally got a representative that was able to help me, she had me go to Get Info, by right clicking iMovie from the finder, and I had to click on Sharing & Permissions>Everyone>Read & Write

External hard drive used for Time machine is full and having a hard time backing up. what should I do?

External hard drive used for Time Machine is full and having a hrad time backing up. What is my best option moving forward? NAS?

For All things Time Machine see Pondini's Excellent Infirmation here...
http://pondini.org/OSX/Home.html
Start with FAQs and Troubleshooting.

External Hard Drive Setup for Backup and Final Cut Express?

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