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Need suggestions and help with home network setup and MBPr

C

CultHero

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
281
1
I am in the market to replace my aging 2006 iMac. The machine has been great and tremendously reliable but it is time. I am going to be getting a 15 inch MBPR and a thunderbolt display but am concerned as to how to manage moving from a 1tb HD to a 512g or 768g HD.

I currently have 800+ gig on my iMac with another 1tb used on a drobo. The Drobo has performed well and kept my data secure but it is also reaching its lifespan as the USB 2.0 is no longer practical for some applications. I use the drobo to store my iTunes library but that is pretty much it. I tried to move video there to edit and it was of course too slow.

I am enticed by the pricing of the 2 and 3tb drives available now, but also nervous to have all my data on a single drive.

I have looked at the pegasus, but it is a substantial investment.

I would like to keep my MBPR as uncluttered as possible moving most libraries over to my external drive, but want my data to be safe. Can I use Time Machine to back up my MBPR and an external drive at the same time?

Sorry for all the questions, I am excited to make the switch, I just want to make sure it can do what I need it to do.

Thanks!
 
runebinder

runebinder

macrumors 6502a
Apr 2, 2009
904
121
Nottingham, UK
Yes, you can use an external HDD for Time Machine and another external HDD for storage. Time Machine can do a back up whilst you are using the storage drive.

My desktop has over 4TB of storage, I manage OK with 256GB on the rMBP and I run Windows 8 in bootcamp. Just prioritise what you need to have on the rMBP and keep everything else on externals. If you plan on having the rMBP mainly docked to the TB display, then a decent USB 3 HDD will do fine, I have the Seagate BackUp Plus portable 1TB and get read and write speeds of around 110MBps, so you'd be able to edit videos on it with no issues.

Also could be worth considering a NAS drive.
 
C

CultHero

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
281
1
I was more wondering if I could have time machine back up the data on both the MBP and the attached storage drive. So essentially I have my iphoto and itunes libraries on one attached HD and they get backed up to the other attached HD when I run time machine
 
M

Mercmanman

macrumors member
Nov 24, 2012
32
0
Canada
CultHero said:
I am in the market to replace my aging 2006 iMac. The machine has been great and tremendously reliable but it is time. I am going to be getting a 15 inch MBPR and a thunderbolt display but am concerned as to how to manage moving from a 1tb HD to a 512g or 768g HD.

I currently have 800+ gig on my iMac with another 1tb used on a drobo. The Drobo has performed well and kept my data secure but it is also reaching its lifespan as the USB 2.0 is no longer practical for some applications. I use the drobo to store my iTunes library but that is pretty much it. I tried to move video there to edit and it was of course too slow.

I am enticed by the pricing of the 2 and 3tb drives available now, but also nervous to have all my data on a single drive.

I have looked at the pegasus, but it is a substantial investment.

I would like to keep my MBPR as uncluttered as possible moving most libraries over to my external drive, but want my data to be safe. Can I use Time Machine to back up my MBPR and an external drive at the same time?

Sorry for all the questions, I am excited to make the switch, I just want to make sure it can do what I need it to do.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I run a 2 tb external drive for itunes music and movies via Firewire. I use a 4 TB USB attached drive that backs that and my iMAC's internal drive up together.

In the case of a 15" rMBP, just get a USB3 external for media (although the TBD only pushes USB2 right now...) and leave a USB 2 drive for Time Machine attached to the monitor all the time. Ideally wait for the TBD to get upgraded to USB3 and you only need the one thunderbolt cable to the display, and hang a media drive and time machine drive off the display.

So yes...the time machine USB attached drive will back up your rMBP SSD and any other USB or firewire or thunderbolt attached drive on your system. Works like a charm and is not expensive
 
C

CultHero

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 20, 2007
281
1
perfect thanks! Sounds like exactly what I was looking for. Figure it is worth waiting for the TBD with USB 3.0.

thanks again.
 
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