Multiple external drive question

i use my mini primarily for media, and rip all my dvds to it.
i have a 1.5Tb external hdd, onto which i rip the dvds and each rip is between 4 and 9Gb.
i am soon going to run out of space, as i have only done about 200 of my dvds, so i want to add another hard drive, but the mini only has one firewire.
so how do i connect two external hard drives? if i use a hub like the belkin one, can i still see/access each drive individually?

Hi thermal-
The absolute best way is to use a FireWire hub. Doing it this way you will be able to see both drives at the same time.
You can also "daisy-chain" the drives. Generally a FireWire drive has two FW ports on the back. You can connect one port of the first drive to the Mac and he second port of the same drive to the second drive. Things will generally work well this way.
Daisy-chaining is considered a less reliable method, as a problem with one drive can affect the other drive(s) on the chain as well.
Luck-
-DP

Similar Messages

  • Windows 8.1 user with multiple external drives. Lightroom CC 2015 freezes on import. Need to have Lightroom recognize only a single drive.

    I see that Adobe still hasn't fixed this issue where Lightroom freezes up during import when a system has multiple external drives attached. Disappointing.
    A friend suggested that I configure Lightroom to only recognize the single external drive where I save my RAW files. I haven't been able to find out where in Lightroom's settings to do this.
    Currently the only folders I have in Lightroom are my local C disk and my external drive with the RAW files, (K), where I do all my editing.
    Can anyone offer advice on how I can either do what my friend suggested or find another way of dealing with/solving this issue? Currently Lightroom is almost unusable for me since I cannot add new files on my K drive to develop.
    Thanks.

    I save edited images from Photoshop into a new folder on the same hard drive my catalog is on, then attempt to import, or to right-click on the edited image and choose Open in Lightroom. Lightroom hangs in either situation.

  • Best way to change Iphoto library referenced across multiple external drives

    Hello,
    I am relatively new to mac and I think I've gotten myself into trouble with my large collection of photos. I have a single iphoto library which references photos on multiple external drives. However, iphoto is now very slow to launch and I believe this is due to the number of photos (~160k+, I think) in the library. How should I reconfigure my iphoto library for better performance? I would still prefer to have a single library if possible, am willing to have multiple if necessary.
    Is the best approach to destroy my iphoto library and recreate multiple libraries, one for each drive with the libraries being located on the external drives with the photos? Any negatives to this? I am really worried about losing photos.
    From searching the forums I believe I have an approach but I am uncertain if it is the best way. Is the best approach to destroy my iphoto library and recreate multiple libraries, one for each drive with the libraries being located on the external drives with the photos? Any negatives to this? I am really worried about losing photos.
    The library itself is on the main hard drive while the photos are spread across 3 external drives, with some on the main drive as well. I have been manually importing the photos through finder, then adding them to iphoto. I am using Iphoto 11.
    Any tips, pointers, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

    1 - a referenced library is extremely problematic and is strongly not recommended - especially one spread accross several volumes
    2 -  iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ -  can convert to a managed library - check the option to copy imported items to the iPhoto library and rebuil using IPLM
    3 - this is likely to cure the slowness too
    4 - multiple libraries are not necessary or desireable
    5 - the only protection against losing photos is a great backup scheme - I run Time Machine giving  me hourly backups and do a daily bootable clone giving a second backup - plus do an occasional off site backup
    LN

  • Time Machine Backup across multiple external drives

    Hello all-
    I have about 1.5 TB of data in my computer (video editing- fills things up fast)... I was wondering if it were possible to tell Time Machine to recognize multiple external drives as the backup volume? I'm not talking about creating cloned backups of my data on different drives, I'm talking about plugging in three 1TB external drives and having Time Machine use them as targets for the backup image.
    Thanks

    Yes, you can use Disk Utility to create a +Concatenated Raid Set,+ also known as a JBOD (Just a bunch of disks). See the Help for Disk Utility (in your Applications/Utilities folder).
    This is kind of the opposite of partitioning: it combines 2 or more disks into a single volume. The three disks won't appear on your desktop or Finder sidebar individually, just the one volume.
    I'm not sure that's necessarily the best solution, though. Is all that data on a single internal HD, or do you have, say, OSX, applications, and most of your data on one drive, and media on a second? If so, it might be better to use TM on your main OSX drive, and something else, like CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper! on the media.
    That would greatly reduce the time needed for a restore, as you'd only have to restore the drive that failed.
    It could also reduce the amount of storage needed, as you might not need (or want) TM's hourly backups of the media files, and keeping all the previous versions. Using another app would allow you to back that data up somewhat less frequently, such as once or twice a day.
    But, of course, it all depends on your situation and preferences. As usual, there are many options.

  • Another external drive question

    As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've partitioned my WD 500 GB firewire 800 external drive into three partitions. My intention was to obtain a bootable backup in the first partition (100 GB) and have the other two as supplemental strorage for future use (200 GB and the remaining approx. 165 GB). After performing an immediate backup of the Macintosh HD into the first partition, I read that a "duplicate", not "backup" was required for boot purposes.
    I'd really appreciate some suggestions here from those with more experience in these matters. My internal 500 GB HD has approximately 28 GB of used capacity currently (this will grow, of course, over time). Should I have created a partition for a bootable start up and "duplicated" the internal HD? Then, should I use a second partition for normal backups? What size should these partitions be configured to allow for maximum future storage, without pushing the limits on the backup/startup partitions? And finally, what are the steps to re-configure the external to achieve my desired intentions?
    This is a lot of question, but I certainly appreciate the guidance provided me thus far in my early days of Mac enjoyment. Thanks.
    iMac 24 2.33/3G Ram/500G HD/7600GT/BT K/M /WD 500GB FWHD   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  

    Hello! Sounds like you have thought it out well. All you need now is to clone your main drive so it will be bootable. You can do that using CarbonCopyCloner, SuperDuper, or you can use the Apple Disk Utility you already have. A lot of people use SuperDuper and others swear by some of the others. Below are listed Kappy's steps to do it using the disk utility. I use several bootable backups just for peace of mind. I generally clone to one and then the other so if something happens during the cloning (such as a power outage) I'll still have a drive that works. I usually make a clone about once a month and then backup any important documents every day to a flash drive, cd/dvd, or another hard drive volume. Once you make a clone you should always boot from it to make sure it's booting ok. Sometimes a clone will fail to boot. I also HIGHLY recommend obtaining and using DISKWARRIOR. Diskwarrior is the "gold standard" for disk drive directory maintenance which is the leading cause of hard drive problems. Using DW about once a month or after any force shutdown, forced re-start, or power outage will head off most disk problems. Tom
    Kappy's Steps to Produce a bootable clone
    Prep external FW drive:
    1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
    2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
    3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
    4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
    5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
    6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
    7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
    8. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Verify the settings for Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only. If they are not correct then reset them.
    For added precaution you can boot into safe mode before doing the clone.

  • Backup to external drive question

    Alright, so I have been trying to partition my Macbook HD for a little while now (to install Bootcamp), but it is now telling me to backup all data and format my HD.
    So, after looking around for a little while, I found a backup program on the Apple download site called "SmartBackup". It says that I should be able to backup my information to any external HD. I have a 250GB external HD that is in NTFS format (so I can use it on my Windows Desktop, too).
    My question is, will I have to partition the external drive to be in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format to do a proper backup? I've been a Mac user for a while, and this is my first time doing a full backup to an external HD. Also, if I partition my external drive, do you know if it will erase the data currently on the external drive?
    Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

    Hi,
    may I suggest a setup for the external HD with two partitions, one for OSX and one for NTFS:
    Open Disk Utility (found in Applications / System Applications) - choose your external drive from the left pane - go to the Partition Tab - from Volume Scheme choose two partitions - set the size of the partitions - click on Options to verify that GUID is set - click on the first partition and choose HFS+ as file format - click on the second partition and choose MS-DOS (is FAT32) as file system
    Start the process by clicking on Partition.
    To get NTFS (if wanted) for the second partition you have to reformat it while in Windows since Disk Utility can not do this.
    Use SuperDuper http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html to make a full bootable backup of your internal OSX system to the external HD (makes it easier to do what you need).
    Caution: Using the a.m. procedure will delete all files that curently are on your external harddisk !
    Regards
    Stefan

  • Simple external drive question please

    Hi all, quick and probably rather basic question here....
    I have a mac mini which we use as a family internet channel, email and the occasional synching of an Iphone and iPod Touch. I am getting memory almost full messages from my mac mini. It is. However rather than going through files and deleting I would like just to be able to expand the mini with one of the stackable external drive options.
    The apple 500Mb Time Machine looks expensive compared to the IOMEGA Tb, does anyone have any advice/ recommendations...I have no other back up source so upgrading the internal drive is going to get messy.
    Hope you can help, I would like to purchase and get this issue resolved asap.

    First off, you'd be wise to address this issue ASAP: OSX gets very unhappy when it runs out of space on the hard drive.
    I'd recommend that you get an external hard drive that connects via Firewire. (Most of these will also have the option of connecting via USB, but you should use the firewire connection for best speed and reliability.)
    You can simply connect the drive and then use DiskUtility to erase and reformat it as Mac OSX Extended (Journaled). If you have a PPC Mini (2 USB ports on the back) be sure to use the Apple Partition Map. If you have an Intel Mini (4 usb ports) be sure to use the GUID partition scheme.
    Once properly formatted, you can clone your internal drive to the external using the free feature of SuperDuper! . I would then use System Preferences > Startup Disk to set the external as your startup drive.
    Be sure to verify the health of your internal with DiskUtility before you clone it.
    I'd also be sure to get as much free space as possible on your internal before starting any of this procedure, as OSX doesn't treat you well if you run out of space in the middle of an important process.
    BTW I run my Mini exactly as I describe above, booting from a 250 Gig firewire external drive.
    SuperDuper! is available for download here:
    http://www.shirt-pocket.com/
    the cloning feature is free.
    There is a decent selection of firewire externals at OWC:
    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/
    Another option would be to let OWC handle the whole cloning process. For a $99 fee (plus parts cost) they will install a larger internal drive (and other options) and clone your old drive onto it:
    http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/mac-mini/install/
    You can get up to a 500 Gig internal for the Intel Mini this way. (Smaller if your Mini is a G4 model.)

  • Multiple external drive problems, both USB and Esata

    Everything worked well in Tiger on my first gen MBP. Since i switched to Leopard and now Snow, and a new UNI MBP in december 08 I have so many external drive issues.
    USB drives just disappear and power off (from the system not electrical) for no reason, mostly when connected to USB hubs. I've tried various hubs including the powered ones. But as soon as i go over two USB devices in the provided ports my problems start.. It feels like not enough juice is getting through those ports on my MBP. I never have a problem if i just connect 2 devices into the MBP, but it's not enough (i have 5x1tb external drives).
    Also the same with the express34 slot.. Everything was fine under Tiger and my old MBP, But now i get the grey wall of death so many times when connecting 2x esata 1TB drives. The system is so unstable with multiple drives both USB and. I'm currently working as a pro Photographer on assignment in Asia and these stability are starting to become a big problem.
    God forbid i'm even considering a switch back to windows for reliability, (yes, i did use the words windows and reliability in the same sentence)
    Does anybody else experience problems with multiple drives through leopard/snow leopard via Apple notebooks? I would love to hear some users experiences and hopefully find a solution to my problem.. In every other way the system works like a charm.
    I will post in 2 forums because i'm not sure if software or hardware related.
    Thanks, any help is appreciated.

    @ Gregory
    All my drives are 3.5" HD's all with external power cables along with a mains powered USB hub. Sorry, i didn't state that clearly in the original post (i thought the hint of all drives being 1TB was a dead giveaway:)).. However, this still doesn't explain the same behaviour of the 2x1TB esata drives which actually work well if no external USB drives are connected. Sorry i'm not technical but does the expresscard slot share any bridge,bus or power connectivity with the USB slots??
    I'll try this SMC reset that S.U mentioned...
    Thanks for everyones help and ideas so far.

  • Simple Maxtor External Drive Question

    Thanks in advance for any advice anyone can share.
    I just bought and setup a Maxtor One Touch 4 Plus External Drive. I have it all set up to work with TM and everything seems to be fine.
    My question is -- should I leave the drive on 24/7 or shut it off? My Mac is normally off all day while I'm at work. I don't want to burn the drive out, but I don't really see an on/off switch on it...
    Any ideas?

    I have one left over from my PC days and was wondering if I could use it with Time Machine.
    Yes, you can, as long as you partition it with GUID or APM partition type. Instructions for them are in several places, for example
    http://www.macobserver.com/tip/2006/08/16.1.shtml - either USB or firewire drive will work for Time Machine (when partitioning, give it a short simple name with no spaces, special characters etc).

  • Solve Drive self-ejects and System Hangs when using MULTIPLE external drives!

    I've discovered what I think is the underlying reason for many folks reporting similar problems.  I bet that I can predict the GUIDs of the drives/docks/cases you're having trouble with!  I bet that if you look in Disk Utility, if you click on the drives, you'll find "Connection ID 13757101839304263"! 
    Oh and if you look in System Profiler and click on 'FireWire' or 'USB' you'll find the GUID 0x30E002E0454647 ! 
    What are the odds?  I shouldn't be able to predict them; theyr'e supposed to be unique, after all, but google that number and you'll see that a great many devices all use that GUID.   (13757101839304263 in decimal is the same thing as 30E002E0454647 in hex.)
    Mac OS seems to rely on them to be unique, and has fits when they aren't.  I haven't found a total solution yet, but in the meantime, running this in Terminal can help:
    sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleFWOHCI.k ext/
    Sometimes it helps to run this first to unload before loading the kext (kernel extension):
    sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/IOFireWireFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleFWOHCI.k ext/
    Enter your password if/when prompted, of course.
    In most cases, if you contact your hard drive manufacturer, they'll provide a utility that will fix the drive so that it actually has a truly unique GUID.
    I'm mad at Cavalry for hiding the problem and refusing to fix it, W.R.T. the two 1TB HDs I bought from them for around $500, when that was the going price.
    I figured it'd be helpful to create a user tip off the discussion in this thread: Disk Drive ejecting itself - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2151621?start=615&tstart=0     This is my first attempt to create a tip.  I'm not sure I'm doing it right, but here goes.

    Sorry but this is just a really bad idea.
    1. The airport is ancient.. your speed will be terrible.
    2. Hubs filled with USB drives are never reliable.. disks refuse to spin up.. become unavailable.
    No.. don't do it.
    Plug USB3 hub into the mini and use multiple decent hard drives .. that is fine.. use thunderbolt hub.. use thunderbolt drives if you can afford it.. but never use USB drives on the network.
    3. Time Machine is not reliable to external drive on Airport Extreme.. Apple do not support it in any Extreme except the latest one.
    If you want the material available to the network buy a NAS. You can buy a cheap NAS of 8TB or so and another 8TB of USB drives which you plug into the NAS for backup.. however.. iphoto is not supposed to ever be put on network drives..
    Apple explicitly states you will corrupt it.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5168 Although mostly about FAT32           it adds network drives.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1198
    And I quote
    It's recommended that you store your iPhoto library on a locally mounted hard drive. Storing your iPhoto library on a network share can lead to poor performance, data corruption, or data loss. If you use both iPhoto and Aperture with the same library, using a Mac OS X Extended formatted volume is recommended. For more information, see Aperture: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library.
    For backup of the drives.. use Carbon Copy Cloner.. it is much better than TM as you can setup different job.. TM is really a single function.. !!

  • Multiple hard drives question

    Hi:
    I have multiple hard drives on my Mac Pro and I also have an iMac.  I currently have Photoshop CS5 loaded on both Macs using the Snow Leopard operating system.  Does anyone know if I try to load Photoshop CS5 on another hard drive on my Mac Pro swith Lion as the operating system, will that be considered like another "computer" and go beyond the two computers normally allowed?
    Herman R

    Does anyone know if I try to load Photoshop CS5 on another hard drive on my Mac Pro swith Lion as the operating system, will that be considered like another "computer" and go beyond the two computers normally allowed?
    To my knowledge the restriction for PS activation is per computer and not per drive or operating system. At least I was able to have an old and a new system on separate HD in my MacPro  with both CS5 able to run while also installed a version on my MacBook. All using Snow Leopard but I have no reason to believe this has changed for Lion.
    But you are always able to install PS on more then two computers, the only downside is that you first have to deactivate one of them and activate the version on another computer. And activating and deactivating is not much work, just select it in the  Help menu

  • Running audio from an external drive question

    HI there,
    i am waiting the delivery of a high quality firewiredrive to run my audio tracks for my g5 imac.
    I am a beginner at logic and i have logic express7.0 with logic pro 8 on its way.
    In fact am a beginner at computer music. For the last 5 years i have been recording on an akai dps16 so this is a big learning curve right now, thought i have already made my 1st c.d. on logic express. Logic is awesome.
    so
    i am trying to get my head around running audio from an external drive as everyone recommends and instead of waiting for the new firewire drive to arrive i thought i'll learn this using my 500gig maxtor usb2.0 drive.
    i have sussed out the record path business and all seems well. I have created 24 tracks of audio and i can see them in the audio folder in my logic project in my maxtor drive. So (i think) i have learned how to run audio from the maxtor, but what seems a bit odd to me is that when i run the exact same song from the internal drive ( I copied it from the maxtor drive) there doesnt seem to be any increase in the load of the system memory or the cpu as seen on activity monitor or logics audio performance meter.
    I would have expected the identical song running from the internal drive to be more taxing on the computer.
    Maybe i am doing something wrong but i dont think so.
    Any help would be greatfully appreciated
    Tom

    The problem with internal drive is that is accessed by the OS and by Logic.
    With a powerful Mac 24 tracks recorded at 16 bits and a sampling rate of 44100Khz are not n issue but increasing these values or the number of tracks the problem will appear and you will see the disk I/O meter going up very fast.
    At that point you will begin to experiment audio hiccups before and a song stop later.
    The same problem appears with drivers that have a reduced band (like USB 2.0) while firewire ones are faster, more stable and don't load the CPU.
    cheers
    rob

  • How to manage multiple external drives

    I have 6 external hard drives containing NEF / JPG and DNG files
    plus i have some more recent photos on my laptop hard drive
    some of the files are the same on several of the drives (backup copies)
    what would be the best way to merge all this into a single LR 4 catalog ?
    or would it make sense to have a separate catalog for each external drive ?
    I only have one drive connected to the computer at one time
    help!

    what would be the best way to merge all this into a single LR 4 catalog ?
    Import everything into one catalog ... probably you can do this in batches
    or would it make sense to have a separate catalog for each external drive ?
    Horrible idea. Makes no sense. Don't go there.
    I only have one drive connected to the computer at one time
    This shouldn't be a problem. LR knows how to handle drives that are offline (not connected).

  • Loading 10.5 to External Drive Question

    Hi All.
    I've got a clean Lacie 200 gig Extended (journaled) formatted external drive I would like to install 10.5 on and use as an alternate boot to my 10.4 internal Macbook drive.
    I've read a couple of threads and it seems a little scary - maybe that's just me.
    When I hold down "C" and restart with 10.5 in the drive - Leopard comes up, but I'm not sure how to identify the external drive and make the installation. I'm hesitant to go further, because I really don't want to upgrade 10.4 on the internal drive.
    Once it is installed, how do I select which bootable drive to start from?
    Thank you in advance.

    What is the source of the Leopard installer? If it is a copy that came with another computer it will only install on that model computer. It may not even boot another model. The black colored retail installer is what you need.
    Apparently [Macbooks are USB bootable|http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/faq/macbook-pro-boot -from-external-firewire-or-usb-drive.html] though it is advised to use Firewire.

  • Library/external drive question

    Hi all. I think my cds are loading to both my C drive and the external. I set it to load to the E. My C drive reads nearly full. I tested by deleting an album, and it looks like it came off both drives. How do I load only to the E drive? I'm assuming that I set up something wrong. I need to delete everything off the C. Thanks!

    Are you sure it's not just a link to the song on your C drive? A way to test this is to turn off your external drive. Try to play a song. If your computer can still play the song, the file is on both drives. If it can't and it wants you to search for the file, then you know the information on the C drive is just the file path to the song on your external drive.
    If it turns out that the song files have been duplicated (are you adding file paths to the iTunes library OR paths and song files?), I would turn off my external drive and then delete all of the songs on your C drive. (That way you'll be sure not to delete anything on the external drive by mistake.) When you turn the external drive back on, iTunes may not know how to find your song files--if it was using the C drive. You'll have to browse to the external location for the songs to let iTunes know the new file path.

Maybe you are looking for