Quick Question: Will TC Use an External Drive Like the Internal?

I use an AEBS with the "unsupported disks" hack to mount a Drobo disk over AFP. I back up regularly over 802.11n (Apple Version), and it has been working very well since December. There's no question that it works. I have done a couple of restores, and regularly browse to ensure backup integrity. I do offsite backups of important/secure stuff, but that's not a Time Machine regimen. It's much more a classic "dump n' burn" type of thing.
If no one is familiar with a Drobo, it's a pretty nice piece of kit. It's a "slobo," so you want to use it over a network, but it is robust as ****. A LOT cheaper than RAID 5 (I set up about 1.7TB of redundant storage for about $700).
What I get tired of are extremely long "Preparing" and "Finishing" sessions in my backups. The backups are not considered done unless all three phases have completed ("Preparing", "Backing Up", "Finishing"). In many cases, the "Preparing" phase is a lot longer than the "Backing Up" phase. I'm pretty sure that this is because Time Machine is sorting out the prior backups on the disk. It probably does this in a fairly primitive manner across the mounted file system.
I am assuming that Time Capsule has a client/server architecture, where the TC unit does a lot of the "sorting out" in the unit itself, as opposed to making the computer do it. What concerns me is that it does this only for the internal disk, and external disks are treated in exactly the same manner as they are currently treated by the AEBS. I have asked several people at Apple (including so-called "geniuses") about this, and have received blank stares, so the prognosis isn't good.
Unless Apple can convince me that the TC will offer a significant improvement over my current system, I see no reason to get one. This isn't aimed at people like me. It is aimed at home users who have never had a backup in the first place. I don't think they lose any sleep over the thought that I won't buy a TC for my setup.

You said "In order for TC to be attractive to home users, they must be offloading a lot of the administrative work to the unit." If this was a question... The answer is that there is no real "server" intelligence built into the Time Capsule. All the "administrative work" for Time Machine is done on the Mac running Time Machine.
As a side note - Apple employees will very, very rarely enter discussions in these forums.

Similar Messages

I would like to use an external drive for the iPad I just purchased for my husband? How can I accomplish this is there an accessory that would allow me to use a USB

I would like to use an external drive for storage on the ipad I just purchased. How can I do this?

You can't attach drives to any iOS device.
Having said that, there are some drives with built-in wifi routers that a device can connect to. These would behave like a cloud device in which some of your apps might be able to connect.
Try googling to find some brands.

Booting from an external drive when the internal has died

Hello, I have an older iMac mid 2007 2.4 GHz Intel model. Around 2009 my internal hard drive failed and for the last few years I had a nice work around using an external drive to boot into OSX. I was curious however if anyone knew of an official or well documented method of using this method because for what ever reason the drive is not being recognized. My method is a combination of trial and error until it booted properly but recently it has just stopped recognizing the disc or when installing the OS it will just fail near the end of the install. Tried to hold Option with the disc installed on boot to see if I could boot from CD but it never seems to show up as an option.
I thought that the drive was damaged but I was able to reformat and use it for a few months with my PC so I have confidence it is not that.
The other problem I was curious about is the format of the drive and how I can even go about reformatting to the mac journal. I cant seem to get into disk utility all I get is a white screen.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Original Information
OS: 10.4.x
Ram: 2g ddr2
I have been able to many time before reinstall using my leopard and snow leopard disks.

Okay just clarifying my INTERNAL hard drive is most likely dead, I am looking to install and boot from my external hard drive. According to this AHT article
Before you begin
Important: If your Mac was released after June 2013, you will use Apple Diagnostics rather than Apple Hardware Test (AHT). See Using Apple Diagnostics for instructions.
Consider doing some preliminary troubleshooting to determine if your issue is related to hardware. You can try to determine if the cause of your issue is related to hardware or software by following Isolating issues in Mac OS X. AHT can help determine which hardware component may be causing the issue.
Before starting AHT, be sure to disconnect all external devices except the keyboard, mouse, display, and Ethernet adapter. Also disconnect any external optical drives.
My goal is to find a way to boot from my external drive.
"Won't matter, as long as you have the Disc.
To make it botable, you will need to set the Partition Map Scheme (GUID Partition Table) and Format it (Mac OS Extended Journaled) before installing OS X."
The disc or the drive? I assume you mean the drive but according to the document that should be removed.

I recently bought a new iMac as well as a wireless time capsule and have it connected how can I use this external drive as the location to store all my files for iTunes, or is this even possible?

New iMac user here, I recently bought a new iMac and Time capsule and have the whole network up and running now. I have connected another external HD to the time capsule as well and have a total of 3 TB of storage connected wireless to my new iMac. My question is can I use this location as the default location for iTunes? I doubt I am gonna run out of room considering the iMac has 1 TB of storage already, but I'd prefer to keep my movies and music off the Mac to keep it running smoothly. If this is possibly, I'd like to do this with iPhoto as well.

I would advise against placing your iTunes library on a Time Capsule.
The Time Capsule is designed as a backup device and not for wireless streaming of video.
Before you do anything more, can I suggest you put into place a reliable, redundant backup strategy.
Unless you are prepared to risk loss of your iTunes library due to a hard drive failure, I would not put iTunes on the Time Capsule.
Leave your iTunes library on your iMac until such time as your internal drive is full. Backup to Time Capsule using Time Machine and create a clone of your internal iMac HD to your external drive.
That's my 2 cents worth. Others may have a different opinion.

How does one use an external microphone with the internal camera?

I want to use the internal camera because I don't have anything better but I want to use an external mic to record video and sound simultaneously, for a video blog. How does one accomplish this? I'm getting no help from the manual.

Try this. Connect your external mic, either through the audio line in port or, into a USB port if it is a USB mic and then go to System Preferences under the Apple and select the Sound icon under Hardware. Click on your mic shown in the list of input devices.
Hope that works for you.
Forest

Using an external synth like the KORG SD50 with GB3

(for the veterans of synth sequencing etc )
been researching getting a keyboard ( not just a midi controller which is what i have now ) but one that has modern sounds and i can play (also ) without having the computer on. If i have GB recording since there is no midi out there is no syncing and so if i wish to record some of the sounds of the external synth it will need to be on a real track ( audio in ) as if it were a voice a guitar etc..
The KORG S50 which has wonderfully expressive programs/combos that arpegiate some with drum beats bass. In other words when the key is struck the drum beat starts or a bass might play and a musical phrase is played with a back up beat/rhythmic sound. So if i run the count down of GB3 i assume that i can play the external device in time with GB's sequencer or can I? If its not midi then will it sync to the proper time if i record it onto a real track? In other words will GB3 allow a recording of an external instrument that has its own timing? I hope im clear here.

im afraid HT is right again
midi yes will work but GB has no midi out
you cant have two time clocks in GB
and you cant have midi sync
and you cant have midi out
i have found that audio loops thrown in to GB pieces if not too long seem to work fine
IM bummed here because i want to use a korg X50 which has arpeggiated wonderful voices/programs/combis that have their own groove tempo. This cannot work with GB unless you audio in the sequence but it wont sync up in GB.
im waiting to here if LExpress will do this & if so im gonna have to hit the learning curve my wallet and change my attitude!

How do I have itunes use/detect my external hard drive and place music on the external drive from the itunes store? There are no music files on my pc yet. I will like to do this after installing itunes 11 on my pc for the first time. I am using windows 7

How do I have itunes use/detect my external hard drive and place music on the external drive from the itunes store? There are no music files on my pc yet. I will like to do this after installing itunes 11 on my pc for the first time. I am using windows 7. HP computer intel Dual Core. Thanks for any help!

Hey idw3,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities, and thanks for the question. Follow the instructions on this article to move your iTunes Media folder to an external hard drive:
iTunes for Windows: Moving your iTunes Media folder
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364
Regards,
David

Scratch Disc Questions using Firewire External Drive & Imac

Hello. I've read through the existing questions regarding scratch disc and Photoshop, yet can't seem to find an answer to my questions. I would greatly appreciate any tips/advice. Here is my setup and situation:
I am running an iMac with a 2.16 intel core 2 duo processor, 3 GB memory, and running OS X version 10.6.4. I am currently using versions cs3 and cs4 of Photoshop, but plan to upgrade to cs5 soon.
The problem I am having is when running Photoshop, my computer becomes very slow. After reading about possible reasons, I came across a couple of sources (including Adobe themeselves) mentioning that the scratch disc should be a designated drive seperate from the drive containing the operating system. Since I am using an iMac that only allows for one internal drive, my only apparent option seems to be an external drive.
Many people say don't use an external drive, but if you are going to; use an eSATA or firewire. The imac does have firewire 800 capabilities. Should I consider this?
Now I'm wondering if it's a bad idea to purchase a macbook for my next computer (what I wanted to do) because it will also only have one drive, not allowing for a seperate drive for the scratch disc. Any thoughts? I've read around the net but haven't found any definitive answers.

Designer,
Photoshop benefits greatly from having a scratch disk on a separate physical drive, not on the boot disk or on another partition of the boot disk. It's almost not worth connecting via Firewire 400 because the transfer limitations don't allow much performance improvement. But using a Firewire 800 connection gives excellent performance.
Running Photoshop on a one-drive machine is a little frustrating due to the performance hit without the separate scratch drive.
Rich

Is it possible to use an external drive to play movies on my iPhone 5? I am going on a long flight and only have a 16gb iPhone. I will not have access to wifi, so it would have to connect manually.

Is it possible to use an external drive to play movies on my iPhone 5? I am going on a long flight and only have a 16gb iPhone 5. I will not have access to wifi, so it would have to connect manually. I've heard of apps that connect to an external for this very purpose, but its via wifi.

http://www.seagate.com/external-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/wireless/seagat e-satellite/
Use Google and you can find similar drives from other companies.

Questions regarding setup of new external drive in disk util?

Hello I just got a new HD and external enclosure i will be using for storage. The Drive is a 500gb seagate sata in an Thermaltake max 4 enclosure that is hooked up via usb to my macbook.
Now I have a few questions about how to best to format the drive for use. As this is my data drive I plan to be able to use it on my linux box by mounting it as HFS+ if needed for some rare occasion(ex: macbook breaks and goes in for repair) since this is my only mac.
So the main question is what should I chose as a partition scheme for this new drive?
Is the default Apple Partion Map ok? will linux be able to read it as HFS+(MAC OS Extened(Journaled)) using that scheme. I wont be booting of this new drive so thats not an issue. Also my linux pc's(older boxes) don't have the EFI bios that GUID uses supposedly if that makes a difference.
The last question is do i need to have the Mac OS 9 disk drivers checked when creating the partition? I don't think I need as I don't have OS 9.
I guess the best thing would be if anyone here has any experience using an external drive on both mac and linux using HFS+. How did you guys setup your drives?
Thanks

Hello I just got a new HD and external enclosure i will be using for storage. The Drive is a 500gb seagate sata in an Thermaltake max 4 enclosure that is hooked up via usb to my macbook.
Now I have a few questions about how to best to format the drive for use. As this is my data drive I plan to be able to use it on my linux box by mounting it as HFS+ if needed for some rare occasion(ex: macbook breaks and goes in for repair) since this is my only mac.
So the main question is what should I chose as a partition scheme for this new drive?
Is the default Apple Partion Map ok? will linux be able to read it as HFS+(MAC OS Extened(Journaled)) using that scheme. I wont be booting of this new drive so thats not an issue. Also my linux pc's(older boxes) don't have the EFI bios that GUID uses supposedly if that makes a difference.
The last question is do i need to have the Mac OS 9 disk drivers checked when creating the partition? I don't think I need as I don't have OS 9.
I guess the best thing would be if anyone here has any experience using an external drive on both mac and linux using HFS+. How did you guys setup your drives?
Thanks

Can I use an external drive as my main drive?

My hard drive just died and I can't purchase a new one for about a month (I'm living in a mac-unfriendly place at the moment). Here are my questions:
1. Can I install an OS on my external Maxtor drive and use it as my main hard drive? Even with a dead internal drive?
2. If so, how do I properly install the OS onto the Maxtor?
3. (extra credit) I've been using my powerbook (AC 100-240V 50/60Hz) for the last 8 months in a country that uses 50hz 200V power. Though the apple adaptor specs clearly state that it is okay to use here, I'm wondering if it could be the reason for my drive's failure (This is the second powerbook that I've had here that has died -- seems suspicious).
Powerbook G4 15" 1.5Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.2)

You can use an external drive as your main drive,
although it's really not so hard to replace a drive
and you could get a new one for a hundred or so
dollars + mail order depending on what you go with.
Bear in mind the actual drive will not be unique to
Apple so that will be your best bet. Most drives are
Hitachi or Seagate I think - you might even be able
to upgrade to a faster 7200 drive - they start at
$150 I think.
As for the external drive, you can install the OS on
to it - I've seen that work - Apple store will
typically boot from an external firwire drive. I
think you might be able to plug in the drive, start
the machine with the install CD and then select the
external drive as the target to load the operating
system on - it should load on to it, assuming the
drive is in mac os format first. Others will pipe in
if I'm wrong. When you start the machine it should
search for your operating system.
You'll have no problems installing onto whatever drive you like, provided that it is powered-on during the boot process so Installer recognizes it. Once OS X is installed, holding down Option during power-on will allow you to manually select your external drive, since I think it will default to the internal until you tell it otherwise. Go into System Preferences --> Startup Disk and select your external as the new default.

G'day. I am using iMovie 11 and need to clear disk space. How can I do that using an external drive, leaving me the option to go back and make changes or access old events or projects from that external drive?

G'day. I am using iMovie 11 and need to clear disk space. How can I do that using an external drive, leaving me the option to go back and make changes or access old events or projects from that external drive?

The slightly bigger question is whether you want to move all movie content to the external drive (essentially meaning that drive will always need to be attached when you're working with your videos), or whether you just want to archive older videos off to the external drive.
If you want to move all videos, then just move the 'Movies' folder in your home directory to the external drive, then create an alias of the external 'Movies' back in to your home directory. Now the 'Movies' icon in your home directory will point to the external drive and everything will just work (as long as the external drive is attached when you launch iMovie)
If you want to archive older movies then each Movie should have its own subdirectory within your Movies folder. These can easily be moved off to the external drive, and moved back should you ever need to work on those movies again.

My Macbook won't start, and I must reinstall the disk. I haven't used time machine to back up, and I want to use an external drive to back up now. How can i do this from the utilities page?

I am currently in Zambia on missions work and my computer is constantly exposed to heat. I have just been trying to avoid using it during the hottest part of the day. Today though, I started it up and it was stuck on the grey page with the rotating circle for over an hour, then once the circle left, it remained frozen on the gray page. I used command + r at startup to go to the utilities page to analyze the disk. It found that there were problems with the disk, but then it could not fix those problems and told me to backup as much information as I could and reinstall or redo it all. I haven't ever used time machine to back up any of my information, but i have an external drive that I can use right now to backup my files. I can't get into my computer though to backup the files. How can I use this external drive to backup my files while the computer is currently messed up? Please help.

Emergency Backups (Data Recovery)
A)          Format an external disk:
          (This will erase all data on the external disk.)
          Boot in recovery mode (power then Command-R).
                    Alternative: Network recovery boot (power then Command-Option-R keys)
          To format (and erase) the destination recovery disk:
          Plug in the drive you are about to erase.
          Select the volume that is NOT your system disk.
          Click on Partition.
          Pull down under Partition Layout to 1 Partition.
          Click on Options…
          Select GUID Partition Table.
          Name: Emergency Backup (or whatever you prefer)
          Format: Select Mac OS Extended (journaled)
          Click Apply.
          Click Partition.
B)          Try to boot in Safe Mode (power then Shift key).
          (This will be a slow boot. Be patient.)
          If it won’t boot in Safe Mode, jump to C.
          If it boots in Safe Mode, try to boot in normal mode.
                    If that fixed your problem then start a Time Machine backup.
                    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
                    https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4055
          If not, boot in Safe Mode again.
          Go > Computer.
          Double click on the system disk.
          Drag the Users folder to the recovery disk.
C)          To clone the disk:
          Boot in recovery mode.
          Select Disk Utility.
          Try to repair the system disk twice.
          Whether or not the repair succeeds:
          Drag and drop the system disk to Source:
          Drag an drop Emergency Backup to Destination:
          (Take care not to reverse this order.)
          Click Restore (the lower Restore button).
Once your system is healthy, maintain two reasonably current backups. (Time machine restores can fail.)
Create either two Time Machine backups (good) or one or more Time Machine backup(s) and one or more bootable-clone backup(s) (better).
          Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to create bootable-clone recovery disks.
          See https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3045
          and https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031

Using an External Drive with 2 machines

I presently use my external drive to store the images, and work off LR on Laptop 1, ie the LR folders are all on Laptop1. The external defaults to Drive F on Laptop 1.
I want to use a desktop (2) with the same external drive. In this case, the external Drive defaults to Drive G when connected to my desktop.
What files/folders do I need to transfer from Laptop to Desktop, and should I be concerned about the drive letter defaults?
Thank you.

The complexity with this idea is the software has to run from a Mac computer on your network.. so you need a Mac turned on, probably most of the day.
It isn't possible to partition the TC although you can create a image area.
The software would have to copy the material, that means all files to be copied, go from USB drive, back to the Mac, then back to the TC, and written to the drive. In other words you have just added Network congestion, although a proper incremental backup type software will not actually use a lot of capacity.
Finally it will be slow.. network drives are slower than internal drives. Well USB connected drive is much slower than the same drive connected directly to the computer.. and if the drive is connected directly to a computer it can be shared with the network.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
Read carefully the speed of the USB drive plugged into the TC.

Using an external drive with shared files (iPhoto, iTunes), attached to a Time Capsule, can the contents of the external drive be backed-up to the internal Time Capsule drive? Perhaps a RAID1 mirror to a partition?

Using an external drive with shared files (iPhoto, iTunes), attached to a Time Capsule, can the contents of the external drive be backed-up to the internal Time Capsule drive? Perhaps a RAID1 mirror to a partitioned Time Capsule? I understand that the Time Machine (software) cannot backup a networked drive (the external) and that Time Capsule (the router/wireless hard drive) does not have its own backup software... so it won't backup the connected drive. What I would like is an alternate solution for having an automated backup of a networked drive. A 2TB Time Capsule has more than enough space for Time Machine backups of my family of Macbooks, so I had hoped to mirror a 500GB external drive (with shared media files) to a portion of the Time Capsule internal hard drive. I assume this would require a partition of the Time Capsule drive. If not, would the sparse file from the various computers being backed up need to be copied to the external drive as part of the RAID1 setup? This seems like overkill for the Time Machine backup, but it would cover the media files.

The complexity with this idea is the software has to run from a Mac computer on your network.. so you need a Mac turned on, probably most of the day.
It isn't possible to partition the TC although you can create a image area.
The software would have to copy the material, that means all files to be copied, go from USB drive, back to the Mac, then back to the TC, and written to the drive. In other words you have just added Network congestion, although a proper incremental backup type software will not actually use a lot of capacity.
Finally it will be slow.. network drives are slower than internal drives. Well USB connected drive is much slower than the same drive connected directly to the computer.. and if the drive is connected directly to a computer it can be shared with the network.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
Read carefully the speed of the USB drive plugged into the TC.

Quick Question: Will TC Use an External Drive Like the Internal?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for