External HDD which doesn't need to be unmounted?

[dantastic]

My laptop is running out of storage and I need to add external storage.
I also use Backblaze backup, they support physically attached devices like USB, Firewire & Thunderbolt but they do not backup NFS drives.

I find I move around a lot more that I thought and the USB disk is attached to a thunderbolt hub and most of the time I don't unmount the USB disk properly before running off with the laptop.

So I'm looking for a solution of sorts which will allow me to just unplug the storage (Like NFS). But something which will also work with my backup vendor.

 

[kschendel]

That's really a function of the filesystem, not the drive. NFS is designed to deal with the server end vanishing, so you can generally get away with improper unmounting. Most filesystems aren't designed for it. I think your best bet is to learn the habit of always unmounting first.

 

[ColdCase]

Depending on which OS you are running, there is an app that unmounts USB drives when you close the lid or sleep, then then automatically mounts them when you wake up. Its designs for those that want to grab the laptop and run. Off hand I don't recall the name.

On the other hand, when the machine is sleeping, there is nothing going on to corrupt the drive. So besides the nasty warning, there is no harm unplugging a drive from a sleeping Mac.

 

[dantastic]

I'm on el capitain.

The app is 'Mountain' - I've tried it. It's didn't seem to work that well.

If I'm unplugging the laptop with it on logged in I eject the disks. Most of the time I just have to grab the laptop and run and the laptop would be sleeping. I just really don't like the horrible warning!

 

[Fishrrman]

It's time to "get critical" about what you really need to keep on the laptop's internal drive, and what can afford to be moved to external storage.

Then get a USB3 external and set it up accordingly.

What size is the internal drive that is filling up?

 

[ColdCase]

I used Jettison, http://www.stclairsoft.com/Jettison/index.html . Worked well for me but haven't used it since 10.9.

 

[dantastic]

It's a 500GB SSD so I don't think getting a larger internal drive is going to be cost effective.
I have identified a huge amount of data I'm quite happy to offload to external storage. That's not the problem. The problem is how my backup service is operating. The external disks need to be plugged in in order to remain backed up.

I'm actually considering getting a mac mini and use it as NAS + time machine. It would solve a lot of other (first world) problems as well such as making media library available to connected devices etc.