Looking for 1TB External HD [Archive]

Jeff Hall

Feb 25, 2008, 04:56 PM

kagharaht

Feb 25, 2008, 06:10 PM

Rooskibar03

Feb 25, 2008, 07:16 PM

Easy. Go Amazon. My Book. You can get 1TB there for about 250 - 300 dollars.

And it will sound like a vacuum cleaner when its running. I cannot stand even leaving mine plugged in anymore.

andy.barron

Feb 25, 2008, 07:22 PM

Buffalo are a great make & far cheaper than the array Jeff is suggesting. Check their site for products, I have the 1tb fw400, its a quiet as a mouse.

Not sure if the My Book would be like a vacuum LOL!!!

eg2007

Feb 25, 2008, 07:26 PM

I have a Lacie and a WD My Book. If you have a firewire 800 port, go with one that has that capability. Way faster. The Lacie is much quieter than the WD, so I use the WD as my backup of my Lacie.

Just my 2 cents.

MikieMikie

Feb 25, 2008, 07:32 PM

I cannot encourage you enough to purchase multiple 500 GB drives and configure them in a raid array,

How are you planning to back up a 1 TB drive?

kagharaht

Feb 25, 2008, 07:46 PM

And it will sound like a vacuum cleaner when its running. I cannot stand even leaving mine plugged in anymore.

LOL.. my first one was like that, until WD released a firmware update to fix it. The new ones are much quieter. I believe they do not have fans also. I have a 500GB and it runs all day and its quiet as a mouse.

kjr39

Feb 25, 2008, 08:01 PM

And it will sound like a vacuum cleaner when its running. I cannot stand even leaving mine plugged in anymore.

Really? Mine are dead silent when they are running...

harcosparky

Feb 25, 2008, 08:41 PM

Easy. Go Amazon. My Book. You can get 1TB there for about 250 - 300 dollars.

And it will sound like a vacuum cleaner when its running. I cannot stand even leaving mine plugged in anymore.

I have a WD Mybook 1TB ... got it from Best Buy for $239 0n sale.

I think mine is broken :rolleyes: .... I cannot hear it when it is running! :p:D

jbellanca

Feb 26, 2008, 01:53 PM

I also got a 1TB Western Digital MyBook and it works great with my Airport Extreme Base Station streaming to the :apple:TV. Used froogle.com and pricewatch.com and got it for $205 shipped about a month ago.

wanchaiman

Feb 26, 2008, 06:54 PM

Get the Buffalo *COMBO* firewire and USB drives.

They are super quiet (no fan) and the drives spin down when not in use. They also auto-power off when the computer sleeps.

They are made in Japan (whereas most of the others are made in China).

roland.g

Feb 26, 2008, 07:05 PM

I got a triple interface RAID case from CoolDrives.com for $138 and added a 2 750GB 32MB Cache Seagate drives for $195 each. That's 1.5TB for $528.

Cave Man

Feb 26, 2008, 07:08 PM

If you all want to impress me, install those 1 tb drives on your Apple TV. :p

mr_matalino

Feb 27, 2008, 05:20 PM

As bad as it sounds...

Dell (http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=A1319014&cs=19&c=us&l=en&dgc=CJ&cid=24471&lid=566643) has a 1TB WD for $209 :D

JimmyDreams

Feb 27, 2008, 09:18 PM

Well, I don't know if this will blow your budget, but consider the Guardian Maximus from OWC. It is a RAID1 device (mirrored drives) that will protect your media content.

I don't ever want to have to rip my stuff again (I've got dozens of hours involved in that process).

I went with the 1TB version, it was about $860 shipped. The internal drives are good quality (Hitachi 7k1000's). The enclosure has a 2yr warranty and provides 2 FW800, 1 FW400, and a USB port.

If that's too pricey, consider a 500GB version. If you can't afford a RAID1, then I suggest you order a Hitachi 7k1000 or Western Digital 1TB drive from NewEgg and put it into a nice enclosure that has good cooling and a triple interface (FW800/400/USB2).

How quiet is your Guardian Maximus? I need to get something for backups (I like the mirrored RAID1 stack), and since I already have a brand new AEBS, I can spend some $$ one a nice external backup system and not $499 on a new Time Capsule (with no mirroring).

Have you seen other solutions you would have gone with in hindsight?

sWaltuo

Feb 27, 2008, 10:50 PM

I have two WD drives. A 500Gb and 1Tb. Both are the newer, essential edition and I don't have any complaint about them .. I got them both on black friday this year. The 500Gb was $99 at Best Buy (wish I had bought a few more) and the 1Tb was like $239 after rebates at Circuit City.

minik

Feb 28, 2008, 01:20 PM

I just got myself a CalDigit 1.5TB Firewire VR. Sure it's overkill for something within the Apple TV section.

I thought about getting WD My Book Studio, but read many negative feedbacks from users.

Jeff Hall

Feb 28, 2008, 07:46 PM

How quiet is your Guardian Maximus? I need to get something for backups (I like the mirrored RAID1 stack), and since I already have a brand new AEBS, I can spend some $$ one a nice external backup system and not $499 on a new Time Capsule (with no mirroring).

Have you seen other solutions you would have gone with in hindsight?

It is very quiet in my opinion. The Hitachi drives whine a bit like a jet engine when they spin up (5-platter drives), but then everything is fairly quiet. The Fan on the box is not loud at all.

I too am going to purchase a 1TB Time Capsule, but non of my media will be on that (it's not mirrored!). Time Capsule will backup my MacBook Pro and my wife's Mini.

I also use SuperDuper! for creating bootable backups on separate external firewire drives.

Superman07

Mar 1, 2008, 12:04 PM

Don't know if this will, help, but my co-worker was just telling me about this. Sounded very cool (especially the flexibility of the drive combinations).

http://www.drobo.com/

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 1, 2008, 05:18 PM

Don't know if this will, help, but my co-worker was just telling me about this. Sounded very cool (especially the flexibility of the drive combinations).

http://www.drobo.com/

DROBO is cool, but it's VERY SLOW, with only USB2.0 speeds. You can go WAY faster with a FW800 listed above. I have a Guardian Maximus AND an ezRAID. One is for Time Machine, the other for my media, and both run on the FW800 bus.

.mark.

Mar 2, 2008, 05:47 AM

DROBO is cool, but it's VERY SLOW, with only USB2.0 speeds. You can go WAY faster with a FW800 listed above. I have a Guardian Maximus AND an ezRAID. One is for Time Machine, the other for my media, and both run on the FW800 bus.

hopefully drobo will go with firewire soon and then it will be perfect. I love the expandability of it - just add new drives when you need to, or replace your smallest one. There is something very appealing about drobo - i urge anyone who doesn't know what it is to watch the video on drobo.com

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 2, 2008, 07:04 AM

hopefully drobo will go with firewire soon and then it will be perfect. I love the expandability of it - just add new drives when you need to, or replace your smallest one. There is something very appealing about drobo - i urge anyone who doesn't know what it is to watch the video on drobo.com

Agreed! The lack of FW800 support was the reason I didn't go with it. But, if you don't need speed (like if you only do your backups when your computer is idle at night or if you're not modifying lots of files every day), then DROBO is probably the easiest to use and expand. Unfortunately, most people who would need something capable of as much storage space as the DROBO move lots of big files frequently and therefore wish for something that moves them faster than USB2.0. I read on another forum that even if they added a FW800 port it would still be just as slow. The slow-down is in the internal workings, not the media between Mac and DROBO.

.mark.

Mar 2, 2008, 08:04 AM

I read on another forum that even if they added a FW800 port it would still be just as slow. The slow-down is in the internal workings, not the media between Mac and DROBO.

hopefully if that's the case then they'll work on optimising their algorithms/upgrade the hardware so it runs faster. I, like yourself, would buy one if it was faster. I'm sure they're more than aware of this potential market and they would be stupid not to try and reach it.

peeaanuut

Mar 2, 2008, 08:56 PM

i just picked up a Mybook 750gb for 160 at best buy. It has FW400, USB2 and eSATA. I just use the USB2 as it is plenty fast for me. That is where my TV shows and movies are going to sit for now. I also use a 500gb mb for music and a 250gb my book for photos. I also have a 250gb wd drive in an external case for torrents and other misc junk. All have worked fine without issue. All are on USB2 and work just fine.

I also backup as I go, so no need for redundant HDDs or raid arrays. Easy enough to reload what I want if I have a failure. Of course in 22 years of using computers, I have never had a HDD failure on one of my machines. (knock on wood cause Im sure its a matter of time)

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 2, 2008, 08:59 PM

Of course in 22 years of using computers, I have never had a HDD failure on one of my machines. (knock on wood cause Im sure its a matter of time)

As the beach ball starts to spin indefinitely on your desktop....
Seriously though, it's not a question of if, but when your HDD will fail.

DoubleDutyG4

Mar 2, 2008, 09:02 PM

Just bought a 2 TB WD My Book Pro for 530 at NewEgg earlier tonight. Planning to mirror the drives.

peeaanuut

Mar 2, 2008, 09:04 PM

As the beach ball starts to spin indefinitely on your desktop....
Seriously though, it's not a question of if, but when your HDD will fail.

I am sure of it. I think its because I never seem to have a computer or HDD for very long because of upgrades. I just like buying and upgrading alot. Of course now that I have a mac, I dont have to do that as often so maybe I will finally have my first failure. Not hopeing of course. lol

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 2, 2008, 09:07 PM

I am sure of it. I think its because I never seem to have a computer or HDD for very long because of upgrades. I just like buying and upgrading alot. Of course now that I have a mac, I dont have to do that as often so maybe I will finally have my first failure. Not hopeing of course. lol

True, but then even new drives can fail if they are the bad egg.
When I buy several new drives at once, I go to different vendors. Theory being, if I order x number of drives from a single vendor and one of the drives is bad, all of them could be bad if they were part of a bad batch.

harcosparky

Mar 2, 2008, 09:09 PM

As the beach ball starts to spin indefinitely on your desktop....
Seriously though, it's not a question of if, but when your HDD will fail.

Yeah, it's just a matter of when! :eek:

I think I have had maybe 2 HDD failures over many many years, and god knows how many HDD's we have owned. In all honesty I do not know how many HDD's we have in use today. We prepare for HDD failures so when they happen, it's not an issue.

Of course Leopard and Time Machine make it all that much easier to prepare for HDD failures! :D

peeaanuut

Mar 2, 2008, 09:11 PM

Yeah, it's just a matter of when! :eek:

I think I have had maybe 2 HDD failures over many many years, and god knows how many HDD's we have owned. In all honesty I do not know how many HDD's we have in use today. We prepare for HDD failures so when they happen, it's not an issue.

Of course Leopard and Time Machine make it all that much easier to prepare for HDD failures! :D

I hear that. now that I finally upgraded to leopard I am seriously eying the time capsule.

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 2, 2008, 09:17 PM

I hear that. now that I finally upgraded to leopard I am seriously eying the time capsule.

I wouldn't recommend the Time Capsule. Save your money and get an enclosure with no HDD in it. Stock it with your choice of drive(s). I use the NewTech Guardian Maximus FW800 for my MP. It's a RAID1....makes rebuilding a failed drive simple, it rebuilds in the background as soon as you plug in a replacement drive. They sell it at OWC. Anyway, the enclosure and 2 VERY large HDDs will still cost you less than the Time Capsule and besides, you probably already have a gigabit wireless router.

peeaanuut

Mar 2, 2008, 09:33 PM

that is a thought. However I dont have a gigabit router or wireless N. I have a regular old Linksys wireless G router. However if I get the airport extreme and I use an external hdd I would want something in the same formfactor so I would need to get one of the mini sized enclosures.

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 2, 2008, 09:50 PM

minik

Mar 2, 2008, 10:45 PM

I wouldn't recommend the Time Capsule. Save your money and get an enclosure with no HDD in it. Stock it with your choice of drive(s). I use the NewTech Guardian Maximus FW800 for my MP. It's a RAID1....makes rebuilding a failed drive simple, it rebuilds in the background as soon as you plug in a replacement drive. They sell it at OWC. Anyway, the enclosure and 2 VERY large HDDs will still cost you less than the Time Capsule and besides, you probably already have a gigabit wireless router.

For me, I just bought the CalDigit FireWire VR 1.5TB drive. Love it.

Michael CM1

Mar 2, 2008, 11:36 PM

i'm about to start ripping movies in HandBrake
and i was wondering where you guys think
i could find a semi-inexpensive 1TB external
HD that I can store the files on and connect
it via USB to my AirPort Extreme.

Any response is much appreciated.

chase :apple:

I'm a big fan of the My Book series from Western Digital. I think I saw one at either BestBuy.com or Buy.com (some sorta Buy site!) at $230 for 1TB. They take up very little desk surface area and look really neat (although I wish they'd stop changing how the lights look on the outside every 2 months).

Be warned: I can only get one drive to work via an AEBS on the network. When I use a USB hub on the AEBS, neither drive works. It's very annoying, so I have them both hooked up directly to my MacBook. Nice for iPod syncing, bad for getting to files away from the desk.

PTGoldmember

Mar 3, 2008, 10:00 PM

The best solution is the WD 1TB drive is cable of RAID and also offers a 1gig Network port. There is also a 2TB external box now, I found other SAN solution which cost more for the box then you have to the hard drives

crackermac

Mar 3, 2008, 10:50 PM

Anyone running a RAID 5 solution?

TrueShotAura

Mar 4, 2008, 02:48 AM

Stay away from WD.. They suck! I had a 1TB WD Premium II that retailed for $400 and it sounded loud enough to bother my sleeping. Thank god I got it for free..then i got 2 1tbs from costco...They were $250 and fw400 equipped so I thought this is a killer deal but 2 wouldn't mount and 2 wouldn't power on. I went with 4 500gbs and they're silent and work perfect.

Tweeksy

Mar 4, 2008, 07:33 AM

Can you link up an external USB HD to the Apple TV?

If so is this now a standard feature, or a 'hardware hack'?

Or we talking via a NAS share?

Sorry if I have missed something, but this would pretty much mean me getting an AppleTV (was thinking of a Mac mini as it would allow me to add storage to it easily).

peeaanuut

Mar 4, 2008, 08:19 AM

you cannot add storage unless you change the internal drive. However, I think someone was working on a hack to allow the USB port to work, but I am not sure if it was ever completed or successful.

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 4, 2008, 05:07 PM

Anyone running a RAID 5 solution?

Yes, internally on my MP. But, I still back up externally with Time Machine. RAID5 internal solutions only protect me from a single HD failure. For a fried system, fire, flood, theft, file corruption, or brain fart, an external (off-site) backup is still a must. I keep an external Time Machine attached (updated hourly) and a clone detached (off-site) and updated weekly.

kaltsasa

Mar 4, 2008, 05:21 PM

Well, I don't know if this will blow your budget, but consider the Guardian Maximus from OWC. It is a RAID1 device (mirrored drives) that will protect your media content.

I don't ever want to have to rip my stuff again (I've got dozens of hours involved in that process).

I went with the 1TB version, it was about $860 shipped. The internal drives are good quality (Hitachi 7k1000's). The enclosure has a 2yr warranty and provides 2 FW800, 1 FW400, and a USB port.

If that's too pricey, consider a 500GB version. If you can't afford a RAID1, then I suggest you order a Hitachi 7k1000 or Western Digital 1TB drive from NewEgg and put it into a nice enclosure that has good cooling and a triple interface (FW800/400/USB2).

I have the 750, this thing is TITS. Fast and everything is always backed up. With the failure rates of drives these days some sort of redundancy is needed these days. Anyway I think the 500 is the cheapest per GB, but the 750 isn't much more. The 1TB is a bit pricey yet since 1TB drives are a bit pricey, you can buy the case for 150 and a couple TB drives from newegg and save yourself a hundred bones or so too.

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 4, 2008, 05:25 PM

....you can buy the case for 150 and a couple TB drives from newegg and save yourself a hundred bones or so too.

That is the best option. There's always a sale on drives at tiger or newegg. I saved a couple of benjamins by just getting the Maximus enclosure by itself.

Jeff Hall

Mar 4, 2008, 05:36 PM

I have the 750, this thing is TITS. Fast and everything is always backed up. With the failure rates of drives these days some sort of redundancy is needed these days. Anyway I think the 500 is the cheapest per GB, but the 750 isn't much more. The 1TB is a bit pricey yet since 1TB drives are a bit pricey, you can buy the case for 150 and a couple TB drives from newegg and save yourself a hundred bones or so too.

I considered buying just the case and then getting WD drives at employee cost (I used to work for WD, and I still have friends there ;) ). However, I decided to buy everything from OWC for the following reasons:

1. The Hitachi Drives (7k1000) are good drives (see feedback at storagereview.com forums).
2. The drives go through a burn in period at OWC prior to shipping
3. The drives come pre-formatted HFS+
4. The enclosure warranty is 2 years, but if you buy just the box, it is only a 1 year warranty.

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 4, 2008, 05:43 PM

I considered buying just the case and then getting WD drives at employee cost (I used to work for WD, and I still have friends there ;) ). However, I decided to buy everything from OWC for the following reasons:

1. The Hitachi Drives (7k1000) are good drives (see feedback at storagereview.com forums).
2. The drives go through a burn in period at OWC prior to shipping
3. The drives come pre-formatted HFS+
4. The enclosure warranty is 2 years, but if you buy just the box, it is only a 1 year warranty.

I guess that worked for you. But like I said, I saved a couple hundred getting only the box and waiting for a good sale online. The 1-year warranty isn't an issue since the box only costs $150 and is the kind of hardware that when surge-protected will last a LONG time, unlike a hard-drive that I can pop in a year or two from now when the price for the drive is about 50% cheaper!

JimmyDreams

Mar 4, 2008, 07:44 PM

Is there a size limit to the drives you stick in a Guardian Maximus? I like the idea better than DROBO, and it if the drive size is limited only to whatever you can afford, then I think I'm in.

???

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 4, 2008, 07:50 PM

Is there a size limit to the drives you stick in a Guardian Maximus? I like the idea better than DROBO, and it if the drive size is limited only to whatever you can afford, then I think I'm in.

???

As far as I know, the limit is the biggest SATA you can buy, which is 1TB in both slots, for a useable space of 1TB (RAID1).

Jeff Hall

Mar 4, 2008, 08:02 PM

I guess that worked for you. But like I said, I saved a couple hundred getting only the box and waiting for a good sale online. The 1-year warranty isn't an issue since the box only costs $150 and is the kind of hardware that when surge-protected will last a LONG time, unlike a hard-drive that I can pop in a year or two from now when the price for the drive is about 50% cheaper!

That's good you saved some $$$, but you (and everyone else) should know that OEMs tend to get the best batch of drives from a manufacturer (he who buys the most, gets the best stuff). The leftovers (drives with more media defects, lower quality heads, etc) go to smaller businesses. I don't know if Hitachi sends the same quality stuff to OWC that they send to a large distributor (such as HP or Dell), but there's a good chance they get better stuff than the mom and pop online shops.

Not that I've ever had a drive fail on me when purchased from such places, but thought I'd share.

So, bottom line, if you see a good deal on a drive, make sure the shop selling it does a decent volume in sales, otherwise that $50 you might be saving might cost you in the end.

MacFanBoyIIe

Mar 4, 2008, 08:06 PM

So, bottom line, if you see a good deal on a drive, make sure the shop selling it does a decent volume in sales, otherwise that $50 you might be saving might cost you in the end.

All true. And I think tigerdirect and newegg qualify in this department. :)

FanOfMac

Apr 19, 2008, 05:06 PM

slapppy

Apr 19, 2008, 06:12 PM

No sense in trusting less than the best.

I just bought a new MyBook Essential 1TB drive for 218 bucks at Amazon. Its small and absolutely quiet and I have it running all day. The old MyBook that sounded like a jet engine ( without fan modification ) days are gone. I think I'll get another one of these pretty soon.

D0ct0rteeth

Apr 21, 2008, 01:13 AM

Is there any reason why I couldnt buy this and throw 6 1TB drives in it and have a insanely large AppleTV setup using the USB port hack?

http://www.satadrives.com/sasixbay5ina1.htm

Attonine

Apr 21, 2008, 03:51 AM

I've had 3 Lacie drives crap out in the last 6 weeks. All between 1-2 yrs old. One was a 1TB (2x500GB), one was a 500GB (2x250GB), and the other was a single 250GB. The 1TB and 500GB drives both suffered from one of the drives in the case crapping out. I opened them up and played around, swapping other drives in and out, trying to figure if the problem was the drive, the chipset, or maybe with the firewire connection. I haven't been able to get them to work again. Interestingly, my colleague connected them to his windows XP machine and had no problems. I am now looking for replacements, trying to stay away from Lacie, but Lacie are more widely available to me than other brands, especially with the higher capacities.

I have investigated a RAID 5 box. However, a dealer told me that there is a specific issiue with OS X and RAID 5 over firewire for desktop use. The issue is that only capacities upto 2TB are recognised. Does anyone know if this is true?

jason999

Apr 21, 2008, 04:26 AM

LOL.. my first one was like that, until WD released a firmware update to fix it. The new ones are much quieter. I believe they do not have fans also. I have a 500GB and it runs all day and its quiet as a mouse.

Yes but with no fan in the casing, do not expect the drive to last years and years. I had a few cases that had no fans and all the drives gave up the ghost after about 18 months of use where I have another few ext drives with fans and they've been running for several years.

For me. no case fan no buy and must be in an aluminum casing too.

Alrescha

Apr 21, 2008, 09:17 AM

For me. no case fan no buy and must be in an aluminum casing too.

I also believe that the lack of active cooling means an early death for a disk drive. I noticed that the new line of My Books appear to be going fanless, so I just bought another My Book Pro II (with fan) while I could.

There are numerous reports of weird OS problems with the My Book line, I suspect that half of them are related to the WD software. I do not install their software and have had no issues so far.

I've used a LaCie Bigger Disk Extreme (extremely noisy, that is), a Seagate PushButton Backup (firewire compatibility issues with Leopard), and the NewerTech MiniStack (fine if you need USB/FW hubs).

I find the Drobo to be a fascinating device, but it is relatively slow, USB-only, and expensive. Since I already back up to separate drives, it's RAID functionality is of limited value to me. Still, I'll be watching them to see where they take it.

A.

Nimiety

Apr 21, 2008, 09:36 AM

I went with an external case with esata and usb and installed a westerb digital 1 tb drive. Connected directly to the iTunes "server" for appletv streaming and it works great. It's installed in the office and it's very quiet with a small thermo fan (vantec case, I think).

For redundancy, I picked up a 1tb time capsule and make monthly backups of content over to it. It's installed in a network closet with passive air cooling (air vents allowing cold air in and hot air out).

Why not just put everything on the time capsule? Traffic (say, a streaming movie) would go from the TC to the server back to the TC and then to the appletv - since I'm also browsing fairly constantly (I often work from home) and torrenting (shhhh) I wanted a more efficient path for network traffic.

Having the TC, though, gives me a lot more comfort that I won't lose the hundreds of hours invested in encoding all those movies if I lose a drive...

hotshotharry

Apr 21, 2008, 10:02 PM

I just bought a MyBook 1TB and its super quiet, Its got one drive in it, air vents all around it, I just transferred 90GB to it took 50 mins over firewire 400 (avg file size 4gb) and it is easily cooler than the heat raditaing from my macbook hdd lol !

It runs nice and quiet and and just warm to the touch, maybe high 20's (C)

but why is there 2 firewire ports? can you disy chain these things together?

acrahm

May 1, 2008, 09:17 PM

i am debating a couple options and hopefully i could get some great input here.
my situation is this:
have a mac mini and have about 500 gb of vids/music/photos etc but it will grow to just under 1tb. right now i have a 500 gb HD that has everything on it (used as my itunes folder) and a western digital my book 1 tb "mac" edition. I love the 1tb but have read some not so good reviews on it and am thinking of returning it. My worry is the HD's crashing suddenly and losing all the info.

these are the different scenarios i am thinking of doing, which one do you all think is best?

#1-buy 2 of these at costco, getting them at costo because of their return policy. http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11240846&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=&lang=en-US
use one as my itunes folder, other as my back up HD. total cost about $450

#2-buy 2 internal 750 gb and get a 2 bay enclosure for them and use this as my time machine HD and keep the WD mac edition and use that as itunes folder

#3-get a time capsule (tb) and use it as my time machine HD and then use a tb HD as itunes folder.

Which one would be best? feel free to suggest what HD's (internal or external) would be best, what enclosures would be best or a better option all together i havent posted

Thanks!!!

Jeff Hall

May 3, 2008, 10:05 PM

My worry is the HD's crashing suddenly and losing all the info.

Given how much time you're going to invest in getting your media library set up, you really should get a RAID box. RAID 1 or RAID 5. It's the only (reasonable) way to ensure a hard drive failure doesn't cause your data to be lost.

MacBuzz

May 3, 2008, 11:21 PM

After days of research on the net, I bought the following last weekend.
D-Link NAS enclosure DNS-323 $179.99
WD Cavier SE16 500GB $99.99 x 2 ... configured to RAID 1

1. Connected this to my Netgear WPN824 router.
2. Created Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder in DNS-323.
3. Designated the DNS-323 iTunes Music folder as the default path in iTunes. Then did a Consolidate Library. The files on my MBP were copied to the above path.
3. When connected to DNS-323, iTunes will connect to that path upon its start up. If not connected to DNS-323, iTunes will revert to internal HDD iTunes Music folder.
4. This way I still have music to go, i.e. when not connected to DNS-323.
5. Any new music, I will add to iTunes off-line, which will copy the file to the internal iTunes Music folder. Once I get to connect to the DNS-323, do a Consolidate Library so the music is also synced with the DNS-323 iTunes Music folder.
6. For movies, I will add to iTunes when DNS-323 is connected, unless I want to carry that load in the internal HDD as well, in which case same procedure as in #5.
7. ATV streams fine over wireless. Of course, MBP has to be up and running and connected to DNS-323. For longer movies, might want to pause the movie at the beginning and let it load for half a minute or so.

FTP setup was also a breeze. Music streams fine via internet FTP. Photos are good as well. I now have access to my music and photos from any where in the world. Movies, however, lacks the bandwith, but who knows, 2 or 3 years from now, that too may be possible.