Hi everyone,
Apologies, as usual, if this information/topic has been covered elsewhere. Here 's my situation. I have a 2008 MacBook Pro, 2.5, 6GB Ram, Lion. I also have a 3.0 TB Western Digital drive with just over 2 TB filled with movies (no FireWire, unfortunately. It is USB 3.0 enabled, but my older computer ain't, so it's regular USB all the way!).
I recently purchased another of the same model, WD 3.0 TB hard drive. I got the second drive because it was on sale at Best Buy (about $110). I'm not ready to go to an external RAID solution quite yet, as it is pretty expensive and, really, all I'm doing is streaming movies from the WD to a jailbroken ATV2. I just want to at least make one backup of the first drive onto the second. That way I can sleep at least a little better. This isn't the best long-term solution, surely, but it should do until I start earning a better living!
So, two questions for everyone! First, is there a simpler solution to backing up the first WD to the second WD (and then just storing the latter, keeping it in case the first fails) than literally mounting both drives and copying/pasting all of the movies between them? I know about ccc and other solutions, but I wasn't sure because I don't have any other apps or vital data - just movie files. Thoughts on this?
Second question: Like a bonehead, I didn't create an iTunes folder on my first WD, and it occurs to me now that it might be a good time to do it on my new backup. That way, if I ever decide to use the second WD backup drive, I could use it directly with iTunes and not have to use XBMC - which I love, don't get me wrong!
With that in mind, I haven't figured out a way to go into my first WD and make all of the files accessible to iTunes, because the movies aren't in folders - they're just all sitting there, alphabetically, on the partition. I can create a folder on the drive ("Automatically Add to iTunes") but I can't seem to get the movies already on the drive into this iTunes folder. I presume this is because my movies aren't already in folders or organized in any meaningful way. Or is there an easy way to do this, so that I can access these movies (all iTunes-compatible formats, of course) with both iTunes and XBMC?
Whew! I suppose the follow-up question should be, Am I a complete toolbox for not putting the movies into specific folders? So that said, any suggestions to improve my movie structure with the WD backup, as I have the opportunity now to set up the drive in an easier or smarter way because I have to copy all those files in the first place?
As always, I thank you all for your advice and comments. I titled my post with the keywords that I would use to search posts for answers, so maybe this can help others (if the info isn't already out there!!)
Nick
Apologies, as usual, if this information/topic has been covered elsewhere. Here 's my situation. I have a 2008 MacBook Pro, 2.5, 6GB Ram, Lion. I also have a 3.0 TB Western Digital drive with just over 2 TB filled with movies (no FireWire, unfortunately. It is USB 3.0 enabled, but my older computer ain't, so it's regular USB all the way!).
I recently purchased another of the same model, WD 3.0 TB hard drive. I got the second drive because it was on sale at Best Buy (about $110). I'm not ready to go to an external RAID solution quite yet, as it is pretty expensive and, really, all I'm doing is streaming movies from the WD to a jailbroken ATV2. I just want to at least make one backup of the first drive onto the second. That way I can sleep at least a little better. This isn't the best long-term solution, surely, but it should do until I start earning a better living!
So, two questions for everyone! First, is there a simpler solution to backing up the first WD to the second WD (and then just storing the latter, keeping it in case the first fails) than literally mounting both drives and copying/pasting all of the movies between them? I know about ccc and other solutions, but I wasn't sure because I don't have any other apps or vital data - just movie files. Thoughts on this?
Second question: Like a bonehead, I didn't create an iTunes folder on my first WD, and it occurs to me now that it might be a good time to do it on my new backup. That way, if I ever decide to use the second WD backup drive, I could use it directly with iTunes and not have to use XBMC - which I love, don't get me wrong!
With that in mind, I haven't figured out a way to go into my first WD and make all of the files accessible to iTunes, because the movies aren't in folders - they're just all sitting there, alphabetically, on the partition. I can create a folder on the drive ("Automatically Add to iTunes") but I can't seem to get the movies already on the drive into this iTunes folder. I presume this is because my movies aren't already in folders or organized in any meaningful way. Or is there an easy way to do this, so that I can access these movies (all iTunes-compatible formats, of course) with both iTunes and XBMC?Whew! I suppose the follow-up question should be, Am I a complete toolbox for not putting the movies into specific folders? So that said, any suggestions to improve my movie structure with the WD backup, as I have the opportunity now to set up the drive in an easier or smarter way because I have to copy all those files in the first place?
As always, I thank you all for your advice and comments. I titled my post with the keywords that I would use to search posts for answers, so maybe this can help others (if the info isn't already out there!!)
Nick