External HD Issues - a few questions

[sigamy]

I need help with external drives for about 3TB of video, family memories that I can't lose. I've done home videos for 20 years. I've gone thru many Macs and many external drives. I've been living with some issues for about 4 years now and I'm tired of it and want to find a solution.

First problem is I'm still on a mid 2011 iMac so I only have Thunderbolt 1, USB 2 and FW800. The Thunderbolt port is already used by an external SSD that I need to boot from, as internal HD died maybe three years ago. I will be getting a new iMac when they are refreshed this year.

I have a dual bay enclosure that has FW800 and USB 2.0. I have two drives in this, formatted as JBOD, so it looks like one 4TB volume. About four years ago this enclosure started acting up. It will randomly unmount. I've used it with both USB and FW so I think it's a power issue. Maybe the power cord has stress and it bends and losses connection. This has been going on for years and I need to move on.

First option/question: Replace this enclosure. Can I just take these two drives and stick them in another enclosure? I'm worried about any potential data loss. I feel like I tried this years ago with a different set of drives and it didn't work. If this can work, can anyone recommend a good dual bay enclosure?

Second question/option: New enclosure + new drives. Again, looking for recommendations on an enclosure. The problem here is keeping the current drive mounted long enough to allow the transfer of 3TB of data. That won't be easy.

Third question: I was thinking of going Thunderbolt but I haven't paid attention to Thunderbolt so I'm confused by USB-C and Thunderbolt 2, 3. I think I need Thunderbolt 1 or 2 for my current iMac. But then when I get new iMac will this be useless? I guess I should stick with USB 2 for now, right?

My ideal would be to throw money at this and move to all SSD for the video. 4TB SSD. So I would need a Thunderbolt enclosure or Hub that has 2 Thunderbolt 1 ports so that I can daisy chain my current external boot drive.

I hope this makes sense. Any help is appreciated.

 

[glenthompson]

I got an enclosure from OWC that can use FW or USB3. Needed to hook it to and old Mini and wanted better speed than USB2. Been working great.

As reference you are running RAID0 not JBOD if it appears as a single volume. With JBOD each drive appears as a separate drive. There may be issues moving the drives to a new enclosure.

You can get a TB3 to TB2 adapter that allows the new computer to work with older devices. Consider an enclosure that works with TB2, TB3, USB2, and USB3 if you can find one.

Lastly, before changing anything make sure you have everything backed up.

 

[Fishrrman]

"I have two drives in this, formatted as JBOD, so it looks like one 4TB volume."

If the two drives "look as one", it IS NOT "JBOD".
You are using some kind of RAID setup. Hazardous to your data's health!

If you have about 3tb total, I suggest the following.
Get TWO 4tb drives.
I recommend Hitachi or Toshiba. Buy bare drives and put them into your own enclosures if need be. They should be USB3.

Now... copy all the data onto ONE of the two drives.
Get it set up as you like.

Then... use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to clone the contents of one drive onto the other drive, which becomes your backup.

Actually, one backup is not enough.
For precious stuff, you should have at least TWO backups in addition to your primary drive.

I would NOT "go thunderbolt", as in time this tech will be discontinued as well for something new coming down the pike.
USB is probably going to be around for a long time. It's more affordable, too.

 

[sigamy]

Thanks guys. I do 3-2-1 backup of the final project output: 3 copies, 2 different media and 1 off-site. I have backups of the final video projects (local, Backblaze and Youtube).

This issue is for the scratch disks for the raw video.

I like the USB 3 route and two 4TB 7200 drives. I will look at OWC. I've had their stuff in the past.

I'm using Youtube now as both an online backup and my plackback mechanism. I've been through it all over 20 years: iTools, iPhoto gallery pages, iWeb, sharing to iTunes to Apple TV, iMovie Theater (complete bust), burning DVDs (many don't work anymore). Exporting to 4K or 1080p file for local and then uploading that file to YouTube seems like a good solution for next 10 years at least.