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Backup and storage

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boltman519

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 28, 2011
29
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Not sure if this is the best section for this, so sorry if needs to get moved. But I am looking for a some ideas on other people handle this situation.

I have a 128gb mid 2013 early 2014 MBA. I want to get ride of my mini that is a 500gb hard drive and has 250+gb of music/movies/photos

Obviously this won't fit on my MBA. I would rather plug in a external/network drive to my 3tb TC but that won't back up.

So, with that what are some other ways that people get around this? Any suggestions? It would make life so much easier if TC would just back up a plugged in drive.

Thanks,
 
boltman519 said:
Not sure if this is the best section for this, so sorry if needs to get moved. But I am looking for a some ideas on other people handle this situation.

I have a 128gb mid 2013 early 2014 MBA. I want to get ride of my mini that is a 500gb hard drive and has 250+gb of music/movies/photos

Obviously this won't fit on my MBA. I would rather plug in a external/network drive to my 3tb TC but that won't back up.

So, with that what are some other ways that people get around this? Any suggestions? It would make life so much easier if TC would just back up a plugged in drive.

Thanks,
Click to expand...
You should see the TC listed as a server in a finder window or by opening the "Macintosh HD" drive icon on the desktop (provided of course you have checked the box to "show connected servers" in the Finder Prefernces). Then, just connect to the TC (should be listed under the "shared" column on the left of the finder window, click on that and connect to an icon titled "Data") and copy the media files from the Mini to Data (which is the TC storage drive).
Honestly though, the best thing to do would be to just purchase a 500gb WD portable drive ($50 on amazom) and transfer the media to that. Simple, fast and you can take it with you anywhere you go.
 
Last edited:
When you say "I would rather plug in a external/network drive to my 3tb TC but that won't back up. ", I assume you mean that you can't backup a drive that is connected to the Time Capsule. That is true, but you could use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to backup to/from any disks on the network or local machine.

I would consider keeping the Mini however. You could install MacOSX Server on it which only costs $20 IIRC. Then plug whatever disks you want into the mini to use with Time Machine and you could sell the Time Capsule.

The mini also makes a great iTunes server. I moved all my media off my MBA when I started running out of room on its 512gb SSD. Now I have over 1TB of media on the Mini, available 24/7 for my Apple TV, MBA and iDevices.

And the Mini will be way faster than the Time Capsule (I have the current generation Time Capsule myself). Using gigabit ethernet, the Time Capsule tops out at about 50MB/s and the Mini does over 100MB/s. Those numbers are using the internal Time Capsule disk too - external drives on the Time Capsule are dog-slow, only about half the speed of an old USB 2.0 drive - in the range of 15 to 20MB/s.
 
Boyd01 said:
When you say "I would rather plug in a external/network drive to my 3tb TC but that won't back up. ", I assume you mean that you can't backup a drive that is connected to the Time Capsule. That is true, but you could use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner to backup to/from any disks on the network or local machine.

I would consider keeping the Mini however. You could install MacOSX Server on it which only costs $20 IIRC. Then plug whatever disks you want into the mini to use with Time Machine and you could sell the Time Capsule.

The mini also makes a great iTunes server. I moved all my media off my MBA when I started running out of room on its 512gb SSD. Now I have over 1TB of media on the Mini, available 24/7 for my Apple TV, MBA and iDevices.

And the Mini will be way faster than the Time Capsule (I have the current generation Time Capsule myself). Using gigabit ethernet, the Time Capsule tops out at about 50MB/s and the Mini does over 100MB/s. Those numbers are using the internal Time Capsule disk too - external drives on the Time Capsule are dog-slow, only about half the speed of an old USB 2.0 drive - in the range of 15 to 20MB/s.
Click to expand...

So I thought of this. My TC is a the wireless/TC combo so I would want to keep it and if anything back up the mini and MBA still to the TC for redundancy and piece of mind.

I also bought the server when i purchase my mini two years ago, I just had no luck in getting set up. Maybe I will try it again and set up the iTunes server etc. Any tips on making this easy? I am still relatively new to the Apple world.
 
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