Do I need FireWire? 7200 RPM?

[rusty2192]

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Hi all,

My 1 TB hdd in my iMac is starting to fill up. I have been ripping my DVD collection which is taking up the bulk of the drive. I also mess around with photography as a hobby with my DSLR and Aperture, so that takes up a bit of room as well. I have decided it's time to get an external hdd. I will most likely go with a bare drive and get a separate enclosure.

My main question is whether I need FireWire for the connection. As I said, this will be my storage location for my movies that I stream from the iMac across the network and possibly photos in the future with Aperture. And if FireWire is needed, is 400 sufficient, or should I just spring for the 800.

For the drive itself, should I go for 7200 rpm or would 5900 be ok?

The enclosure I'm leaning towards is the OWC mercury elite-al quad interface as I've seen it recommended around here quite a bit. I'm just wondering if this is overkill and I could save money by going with either FW400 or simply USB. As a side note, I do intend to get a second drive to use as a backup (universal USB connection on that one)

Thanks for any insights.

 

[alust2013]

I'd probably get one of the "green" drives as they run cooler, and either interface would be fine, although if you do get firewire, you might as well get 800, as you would have to buy an adapter cable, since your computer doesn't have firewire 400. It doesn't have to be super fast to stream stuff.

 

[b-rad g]

I use an external drive for my entire iTunes Library and it's just a simple 500gb usb powered WD drive. I can't speak for photo editing, but can say it streams HD movies just fine over Wifi. No stuttering at all. It does take a few seconds longer to start the movie, but just a few.

 

[Fishrrman]

"My 1 TB hdd in my iMac is starting to fill up. I have been ripping my DVD collection which is taking up the bulk of the drive. I also mess around with photography as a hobby with my DSLR and Aperture, so that takes up a bit of room as well. I have decided it's time to get an external hdd. I will most likely go with a bare drive and get a separate enclosure."

What you need to do is decide what is worth keeping on the internal, and what should be removed.

The things you want to remove are files (particularly LARGE files) that you don't often access. These should be "archived" to storage media elsewhere, so that you keep the Mac's internal drive free of stuff that isn't going to be used or things that need to be "immediately accessible".

DVD rips, of course, are very large, and probably can be run without problems from an external "archive drive" when you want to watch one.

Suggestion:
You need TWO "archives" -- essentially, a "backup" of the archive. Drives do go bad over time. Maintaining a second archive drive costs little and may pay off in the long run.

I'd suggest that you consider something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=USB+SATA+dock&x=0&y=0
(many items shown, they all work the same, pick one you like that's cheap)

Use the dock, along with one or more "bare" drives and you will have a good "archiving and backup" station and can add additional drives as needed.

You can also create a "bootable clone" of your internal drive (I recommend CarbonCopyCloner which can be downloaded free), and boot from the dock, too.

Other World Computing sells their "Voyager" SATA dock that has firewire 400/800 as well as USB3, but it costs a little more than the examples shown above. (IMPORTANT: the OWC Voyager I have boots from the USB3 side, but for some reason doesn't seem bootable "from the firewire side")

Just some thoughts...