Backup ideas? I need another HD for back up time to improve.

[lukester]

I have a 17' mid 2010 with a 500gig SSD drive I like and it is getting full. I use a 1 gig backup on Airport and its full. I am a photographer so I have a lot of files and videos.
My problem is I sit in my kitchen most of the time to work and I am trying not to fill up my counter with a bunch of external stuff.
I have a Mstand to get my laptop off the counter up higher to avoid leaning and neck problems, with a 500 gig small TM drive inside it out of the way. No problem there.

My only hi speed output is firewire 800 and I have a 500 gig WD desktop drive I can use to take all my recent working files for the year and work on that but then I have an extra drive and wires sitting on my counter. I only have 1 outlet too, so I don't want my wife pulling the plug on the HD and then I need one for my laptop, I could put a strip there I guess but again messy.

I was looking at a Lacie 2 gig mobil HD with 3 inputs, usb 3, Firewire 800, Esat.
I was thinking of using that and splitting it with my TM drive and file storage to save on my Laptop drive space.
Then getting another 2-3 gig backup on my airport system

I basically like to have 2 backups until my jobs are filled for my clients so I don't need anything elaborate.

 

[lukester]

Oh yeah another option if a portable drive, buss powered is not good as a desktop then I was thinking of a 2 gig G Drive, firewire, usb 3, 7200rppm only $179.. making two partitions 1 for files and the other for TM. I will just have to bite the bullet and keep on my counter too.

 

[soupcan]

Both of the drives you pointed out are great drives. If you don't want to be depended on a power plug you're almost always limited to mobile drives.

 

[lukester]

Both of the drives you pointed out are great drives. If you don't want to be depended on a power plug you're almost always limited to mobile drives.

I am just wondering if I should use a portable drive as a desktop replacement or not? It does solve the plugs and connector problem but I will be using it a lot for photography work. Desktop more reliable?

 

[soupcan]

I am just wondering if I should use a portable drive as a desktop replacement or not? It does solve the plugs and connector problem but I will be using it a lot for photography work. Desktop more reliable?

It doesn't matter. The only difference is that it's powered from the wall, not from the USB bus. One thing though: mobile drives usually run at 5400 RPM whereas desktop drives go to 7200 RPM. But if you got a drive that's mobile and 7200 RPM go for that one.

 

[lukester]

It doesn't matter. The only difference is that it's powered from the wall, not from the USB bus. One thing though: mobile drives usually run at 5400 RPM whereas desktop drives go to 7200 RPM. But if you got a drive that's mobile and 7200 RPM go for that one.

I went with a G drive.. 1gig 7200 mini firewire 800,, 500 gig for TM and 500 for files.. also bought a usb 3/2 WD 3 tera gig for backups.. I guess I am all set now.

 

[Ledgem]

For what it's worth, when it comes to backup speeds, Time Machine is strangely finicky... sometimes seemingly without any rhyme or reason.

Case in point, I've been through four Time Machine drives now. My first was a 500 GB 7200 RPM external drive connected via USB 2.0. My internal drive is also 500 GB, but at that time it was less than half full. Even though the external drive wasn't near full, backups took forever; the drive would easily work for 20-50 minutes at a time. It took so long that occasionally the system would seemingly miss an hourly backup, just because the previous backup was still going. I ran speed tests and other diagnostics on the drive and couldn't find it performing any worse than my other drives.

I then switched over to a 2 TB Western Digital desktop external drive running at 7200 RPM I believe, also connected via USB 2.0. I partitioned it to be 1 TB for backups, 1 TB for data. For some reason, this drive was even worse. Again, speed tests and other diagnostics indicated that it was functionally equivalent to my other drive, and to my other drives connected via Firewire 400.

I switched over to a 2 TB Seagate Backup Slim Plus drive, which is a mobile drive in an enclosure running at 5400 RPM. It's a USB 3.0 drive, but my computer can only do USB 2.0 at max so I don't think this has an impact. I was amazed at how quickly backups occurred by comparison. Depending on the size of the backup, hourly backups sometimes finish in seconds. I used to see the Time Machine icon active nearly all the time, and now it's rare that I catch it active. It would have been perfect, except that the drive would randomly unmount itself improperly while my MBP was sleeping. It's an issue that is apparently not all that rare with the drive, and I grew tired of manually unmounting and disconnecting it each time I put my computer to sleep. People suspect it may have to do with the fact that the drive has a single cable and lacks its own power supply, but who knows? Seagate support blamed the issue on Apple, go figure.

The last drive is a 3 TB Samsung D3 external drive, also USB 3.0. It's just as fast as the Seagate Backup Plus, but lacks the flakiness of self-unmounting.

Hopefully your new drive will give you speedy performance.