I'm needing help with my Time Capsule, External HDD and USB Hub!

[MecPro]

Hi there guys, I've tried to search already and I wasn't getting too much luck.

I basically want to add a USB hub to my time capsule to connect two 1TB HDDs, in a basic RAID array. I want one HDD to replicated weekly to the other using Carbon Clone Copier or Super Duper. I am just wondering if this is possible and if anyone is currently trying it?

Cheers,

MecPro

 

[agentphish]

Regretfully, Not supported.

 

[mstrze]

I have a USB hub hooked up to my Airport Extreme which is essentially a TC without the HDD. I have my printer and an external drive hooked up to it. Works beautifully.

I don't see why you couldn't have more than one drive attached and run a program on your Mac to do whatever you want with the data. i.e....clone one drive to another...as long as those drives are available (on the network in this case).

Exactly what isn't supported agentphish?

 

[balamw]

Exactly what isn't supported agentphish?

RAID. (Or running anything on the TC itself). (EDIT: Note that the TC does have a feature by which you can clone the internal drive to an external which you access via Airport Utility, I don't know if/how it works with externals http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1281).

Even though what MecPro describes, isn't RAID and can be implemented as you describe from the Mac, or on the fly instead of weekly by using a 2x1TB RAID 1 enclosure.

If the weekly updates is still preferred over a RAID1 enclosure, performance would be an issue since the Time Capsule NAS isn't particularly fast to begin with. I'd suggest using ChronoSync instead of CCC/SuperDuper as it might move less data.

B

 

[mstrze]

Thanks for that clarification.
But ignoring the term 'RAID' for a moment...

Why couldn't you have multiple drives connected to the TC through a USB hub and use CCC to clone one drive to another every week or so? Seems to me that any external drive connected through the network should be able to be used by any program so the OP could in effect, run CCC to back-up one TC-connected drive to another TC-connected drive.

Theoretically, isn't this all the OP wants to do?

 

[MecPro]

Thanks for that clarification.
But ignoring the term 'RAID' for a moment...

Why couldn't you have multiple drives connected to the TC through a USB hub and use CCC to clone one drive to another every week or so? Seems to me that any external drive connected through the network should be able to be used by any program so the OP could in effect, run CCC to back-up one TC-connected drive to another TC-connected drive.

Theoretically, isn't this all the OP wants to do?

Basically yeah! I used the term RAID in the wrong sense, I just wanted to imply replication of data from one HDD to another via CCC or SuperDuper. Which is similar to RAID1

I hope that's supported!

 

[balamw]

I just wanted to imply replication of data from one HDD to another via CCC or SuperDuper.

You can certainly use CCC/SuperDuper/ChronoSync to automate replication from one attached drive to another as I said earlier. However, the replication tool needs to run on the Mac, not the Time Capsule. The replication will not perform well since the data to be replicated has to go HDD1->USB->TC->Ethernet->Mac->Ethernet->TC->USB->HDD2. (Time Capsules are notoriously slow compared to other NAS solutions.) If you go this route, try to figure out which tool will require the minimal data transfer to sync and use that.

Alternatively, once a week. Remove the drives from the TC, connect them to a Mac and replicate away. It'll be a lot faster.

Also just check to make sure that the replication that is built in to the TC isn't supported for external drives, as that would take the Mac out of the equation.

B

 

[agentphish]

HDD1->USB->TC->Ethernet->Mac->Ethernet->TC->USB->HDD2.

Hence why I said not supported. 1. It's really not a great method. 2. I don't think apple supports using an external disk on the timecapsule/airport extreme, to use as an automatic backup drive or extending the time capsule.

Better off just connecting them to the Mac once a week and clone.

 

[balamw]

Alternatively, once a week. Remove the drives from the TC, connect them to a Mac and replicate away. It'll be a lot faster.

Better off just connecting them to the Mac once a week and clone.

Really?

2. I don't think apple supports using an external disk on the timecapsule/airport extreme, to use as an automatic backup drive or extending the time capsule.

Time Machine has been supported out of the box on disks connected to Airport Extreme form some time now and adding disks to a TC is supported, so I'm just not sure what you are saying is not supported.

B