Multiple External Drives as 1 volume?

[Cyndane]

I have a late 2012 mac mini with Mountain Lion and i have a fairly large iTunes TV episode library, more than 1 TB at present.

I currently use 2 separate Western Digital external 1 TB HDD daisy chained with Fire Wire 800. With this set up i can not use the iTunes consolidate library function.

Can i get an external multiple disk enclosure and put 2 or 3, 2TB drives in it and have Mountain Lion see it as 1 Volume for iTunes purposes?

 

[Gav2k]

I have a late 2012 mac mini with Mountain Lion and i have a fairly large iTunes TV episode library, more than 1 TB at present.

I currently use 2 separate Western Digital external 1 TB HDD daisy chained with Fire Wire 800. With this set up i can not use the iTunes consolidate library function.

Can i get an external multiple disk enclosure and put 2 or 3, 2TB drives in it and have Mountain Lion see it as 1 Volume for iTunes purposes?

Yes you can

 

[Cyndane]

any suggestions as to a good enclosure for non raid multiple drives?

 

[ConCat]

I recommend creating a Core Storage LVG. It will give you the most flexibility in the future. There are guides online for setting one up.

 

[Cyndane]

What about a RAID, 4 disk array in RAID 10 config?

used as a NAS i could have 4x4TB drives, with stripping and redundancy. File access would be at wifi network speed.

Or should i use it as a desktop array with direct connection to my mac mini?

Thoughts?

 

[flynz4]

What about a RAID, 4 disk array in RAID 10 config?

used as a NAS i could have 4x4TB drives, with stripping and redundancy. File access would be at wifi network speed.

Or should i use it as a desktop array with direct connection to my mac mini?

Thoughts?

DAS will outperform a NAS... but for an iTunes library (which streams)... either a NAS or DAS will be fine.

The NAS has the advantage of being usable by many devices in your home.

I would generally recommend a NAS for sharing access by multiple computers. I would suggest a DAS if you need more storage on a single machine... and performance is important.

I use RAID 10. However... it is not a replacement for backup. You still need to backup all of that data.

/Jim

 

[Cyndane]

So it might be better to get a 2 disk DAS with 4TB storage and use it in RAID 0 for speed. Then use a single 4TB external drive as a backup?

or this
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEQX2T4.0S/
in NRAID mode with 2x2TB drives

http://eshop.macsales.com/Customized_Pages/OWC_Qx2/imgs/gallery/qx2_3.jpg