[OT] External media drive - Backup with Time Capsule

Hi,

I have a Macbook Pro with 250GB HD and I want to get an external hard drive to store my large video files. I already have a 1TB Time Capsule that I use to backup my laptop. I would like the external drive to be big, either 1TB or 1.5TB, so I don't believe the Time Capsule would be large enough to completely back up the laptop and the external drive. I also would like a drive that would power up/down depending on my laptop's wake/sleep status, so I don't always have to power it manually. I have several options:

1. Buy 750GB firewire external drive and have laptop and drive backup to 1TB Time Capsule. I'm not sure if Time Capsule allows multiple drives to backup to it. My concern though is if my drives get near full, the 1TB still won't be able to fully backup both drives as they cycle large files.

2. Buy 2 external hard drives, connect 1 directly to the laptop and 1 to the USB port on my Time Capsule. I'm wondering whether Time Machine could perform 2 simultaneous backup paths: A. laptop to Time Capsule; B- external drives to each other.

3. Connect a Raid 1 drive setup to USB port on Time Capsule via the Guardian Maximus:
[eshop.macsales.com]
This would be an elegant method that would enable redundancy in one place. Only concern is performance would be bottlenecked by USB 2.0 as I'm used to performance of Firewire 800 or Gigabit ethernet (I do video work)

Also, I've noticed some NAS storage enclosures but I'm hoping the Time Capsule is the best option for my needs.

I think option 3 is my best solution, but was just curious about other peoples' setups. Mac users never cease to amaze me with their creativity and innovation.

Thanks,
Alexander

run from usb if you do video. Time capsule may be your backup but would not have the sustained data rate needed for video data transfer.

get a 2 bay caldigit vr for storage. ( 4bay if you can)

in a 4 bay raid 1 would allow you to store the same exact info on 2 disk. if one fails the other can be used the same as the one that fail. It stores exact information as opposed to a say raid 5 which would need to be kept as a set.

I don't know about time machine storing in 2 locales i don't think it will (guess).

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

And once again, we must rush to the battlements to wage war against bad information. Corbett, please try to rein in your enthusiasm for offering up technical commentary on RAID until you've done some reading.

RAID 1 is disk mirroring. The implementation can vary, but basically what you do is say, "This pair of disks is a mirrored set. Everything done to one will be done to the other." The only benefit of RAID 1 is protection from a disk failure. That said, a RAID 1 mirrored set is a set. You can't just pull one drive out and stick in another one if you need more space. The system will treat that as a failure and go into what's called a "degraded" state.

RAID 5 works differently. The details are technical and nerdy, but basically what it does is spread X disks of data over X+1 disks. So what would normally fit on six disks fits on seven under RAID-5, or whatever. The idea is that if any one of those disks fails, you still have all your data. If two fail, you're screwed, but there are other ways to defend against that.

The intricacies of redundant disk storage are complex, and can't be accurately summed up in terms of "It stores exact information as opposed to a say raid 5 which would need to be kept as a set." In fact, that's just flat-out wrong.

Boy, you guys are passionate about RAID. Thanks for the feedback! Actually I misquoted myself, the drive will be more for media storage and not be used for pro video work. You guys are kinda hardcore when it comes to your hardware so I should watch what I say more carefully. The Caldigit VR looks awesome, I wish they had that before I bought my Lacie and G-tech drives years ago. Anyway, I was looking for an enclosure that I could put my bare hard drives in as I have many that I use with my Wiebetech Traydock.

I think I'm gonna go for the Guardian Maximus, it's only $130 for the enclosure, I think it's a great deal to get a RAID 1.

Thanks!

I just wanted to respond to your initial questions regarding Time Capsule and backup.

The Time Machine app will see the other drives you plug into your Mac, and you have the option of telling it not to back them up. Otherwise it will back them up and group them together in the same image file as your Mac (.sparsebundle). You're right that a 1TB+ drive together with your Mac would exceed the Time Capsules capacity, assuming you fill up the 1TB drive completely. You have the option of only backing up certain folders so you could decide to say, exclude your render files and captured media from the backup. You could also extend the Time Capsule with a USB drive, but I haven't tried this yet so I don't know if it divides the storage up as you indicated. My guess is that it just bundles the additional storage together with it's own and splits up your backup image in some arbitrary way (but don't quote me on that).

So yes, your choices are: buy two drives, one for media and another to increase your backup, or buy a RAID that is striped for redundancy (see Jeff's post). Depending on what you get, the cost could work out to be about the same. I would imagine the RAID would be a faster setup, as it would be writing it's own backup on the fly vs. long Time Machine backups over a network.

HTH, JK

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SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

JEFF, if i say that the word mirror in reference to raid means 2 disk images that are the same am i wrong?

Though i didn't know that they 2 had to be kept as a pair.

It was my understanding that if you had 1 of the 2 you could retrieve the information from one of the pair. Is that incorrect?

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Yes, you're wrong. RAID has nothing to do with disk images. The two are unrelated concepts.

Exactly what happens when a RAID-1 set going into degraded mode depends on the implementation. Sometimes a degraded RAID-1 volume is taken offline automatically until it can be rebuilt; sometimes it's automatically changed to read-only. It just varies. The only thing RAID-1 guarantees is that the failure of one slice (whether that's a single disk or a striped set) will not, by itself, result in a loss of data currently on the volume. Everything else is implementation-dependent.

Quote

J. Corbett says:
get a 2 bay caldigit vr for storage. ( 4bay if you can)

* Caldigit VR is not even on the market yet (will be soon) so how can you recommend something that does not exist?

* There is no such thing as a 4 bay VR.

Get the facts before giving out advice please.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Pardon my wondering, but isn't Time Machine supposed to be used for backing up system files, and not media files? Big difference between the two.



www.strypesinpost.com

It just backs up everything, unless you tell it otherwise.

I have mine set to not back up media files though, or anything else I can re-capture or re-import.

JK

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SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!