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Storage on my 2011 iMac

ghsDUDE

ghsDUDE

macrumors 68030
Original poster
May 25, 2010
2,949
763
So I recently bought a DVD ripper and ripped a million DVD's to my iMac with 500 GB of storage and I'm down to 60 GB. Movies take up 300 GB on my iMac and music takes up 50 GB.

So I was thinking the best solution was to buy an external hard drive and put my entire iTunes folder into it so I can free up 350 GB's from my iMac and get long term use out of it.

I've already updated the RAM to 8GB so I think I could get another 5 years out of it.

My question is what is the best type of hard drive for this situation? I don't want any lag and I stream to my Apple TV from iTunes. So should I get an external hard drive with Thinderbolt, FireWire, or USB 2.0?

I also want a very RELIABLE drive because if I switch and all my music and movies over and it fails...my life will be over lol.
 
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And USB 2.0 drive will suffice, and if you care about not losing them, get two, in order to backup the one HDD to the other, in order to be still alive after one HDD might fail.

I for example have one 500 GB HDD for my photographs (digital and analog) libraries and editing documents, one 500 GB HDD with my personal video footage in an editing friendly format.
Both 500 GB HDDs get backed up to one 1 TB HDD via CarbonCopyCloner.
And that 1 TB HDD gets backed up to another 1 TB HDD via CarbonCopyCloner.
Therefore I have three copies of my important data.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
And USB 2.0 drive will suffice, and if you care about not losing them, get two, in order to backup the one HDD to the other, in order to be still alive after one HDD might fail.

I for example have one 500 GB HDD for my photographs (digital and analog) libraries and editing documents, one 500 GB HDD with my personal video footage in an editing friendly format.
Both 500 GB HDDs get backed up to one 1 TB HDD via CarbonCopyCloner.
And that 1 TB HDD gets backed up to another 1 TB HDD via CarbonCopyCloner.
Therefore I have three copies of my important data.
Click to expand...

I already have a 1 TB external hard drive but I just do backups with that one of my hard drive. I partitioned it to do 500 GB Time Macine backup and 500 GB Carbon Copy Cloner. Should I just stop doing the Time Machine and just do CCC?

And what 1 TB hard drive would you recommend I get to go with my 2011 iMac for the tasks I explained? There's so many options on OWC.

Edit - And I just realized I don't have a free USB port so going through the fire wire port would be best.
 
Any advice? Sorry to bump but I'm skimming sites now and I'd like to order online ASAP.
 
Ok so I'm looking at buying either one of these as an external hard drive. They're both fire wire and I was wondering if there are any better suggestions?

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MSQ7S10TB32/

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MS8U3H7T1.0/

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEQM7T10GB16/

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Buffalo/HDPA1.0TU3/
 
Get the thunderbolt buffalo 1tb. its worthit, fast transfer speed and easy hookup with a single cable, alot quicker to access when streaming.
I have one, but use it for doing tech stuff (imaging, data migrations, etc)

The newertech drive is good, but no thunderbolt.
I use mine with a mini, so theres no streaming, and futs in nicely. But for your needs definitely try the thunderbolt.
 
Alright I think I'm going to trust you and buy it!
 
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johndoejohndoes said:
Is the buffalo thunderbolt reliable? I'd like the drive I get to be really reliable because if I lose all my data that would really suck lol.
Click to expand...

Irrespective of reliability (accepting that nothing is perfect)... if you do not have a robust backup system... you are screwed.

/Jim
 
well its a mechanical drive, so making sure its backed up helps.
So far so good. It was between that drive and the lacie rugged 1TB thunderbolt. but people were having issues with the TB cable and OWC simply had a better price for the buffalo and heard more positive reviews of the drive. Besides it is well constructed, i place it in my messenger back and do field calls here and there and that is my main diagnostic/deployment drive.
thinking of getting another one.

The drive that is in there is ST1000LM024 (Samsung 1TB 5400RPM)
 
AppleNewton said:
well its a mechanical drive, so making sure its backed up helps.
So far so good. It was between that drive and the lacie rugged 1TB thunderbolt. but people were having issues with the TB cable and OWC simply had a better price for the buffalo and heard more positive reviews of the drive. Besides it is well constructed, i place it in my messenger back and do field calls here and there and that is my main diagnostic/deployment drive.
thinking of getting another one.

The drive that is in there is ST1000LM024 (Samsung 1TB 5400RPM)
Click to expand...

How much did you get yours for?
 
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johndoejohndoes said:
Any suggestions would be great.
Click to expand...

Get a raid1 solution.

What that means is, there are two hard drives. First hard drive the data resides on, the second hard drive contains a real time backup of the first hard drive. If any one of the harddrives fails, you don't loose any data.

This gives you a chance to fix the drive in question and create extra backups while your raid1 solution is being fixed.

I personally use a 4 drive bay enclosure that is connected to the iMac via firewire 800. The 4 bay enclosure holds the data in a raid5 configuration. It works simular to raid1, but all data is spread across the 4 drives. If one drive fails, it can contine to work, but instead of using 100% redundancy on a second disc, a smaller proportion of the redundancy is spread across the drives so it uses less space.

I currently have 4 x 3TB drives in raid5, which means total drive space is 12TB, but I effectly only have 9TB of usable storage. The missing 3TB is spead across the drives to accomodate for in the event of a failed drive.

I store my iTunes music and ripped videos on the external drive. The transfer rate I'm getting is roughly 30MB r/w which is more than sufficient for streaming to the Apple TV.

Keep in mind this storage does not accomodate for accidental/intentional/malicious file deletion. You have to create a one direction backup for that on another drive. I use a Mac Mini for that with a external drive sufficient to hold the data. I'm only using about 4TB in data and not all data is being backed up. Only files I can't afford to loose.
 
Seems to me....

that Thunderbolt and FireWire 800 are the fastest. Hence, a good suggestion will be either. But thinking in a budget, maybe the FireWire 800 can help you saving money.

:):apple:
 
FW800 is good, Thunderbolt is better, both worked with my 2011 iMac but I now use a Drobo 5D (Thunderbolt) to steam iTunes movies to two ATV's and one Macbook Air. On weekends (and some weeknights) all three could be steaming simultaneously.

While my FW800 drive (OWC 8TB) was a bottleneck once I added the second ATV, the main bottleneck was wireless streaming. My home is already wired, so I switched everything to the wired ethernet and now everything's smooth as butter.
 
johndoejohndoes said:
I'm reading reviews on OWC that says it runs very hot when connected through Thunderbolt. Do you have this issue? I'll literally be using it for my iTunes stuff.
Click to expand...

No hotter than any other external drive. thunderbolt connections do have quite a bit of tech in their ports, so it gets warm but not hot or how over dramatic some of the reviews are. mine is usually run for hours at time any way and havent had issues with heat or anything of that nature.
 
You guys are the best, thanks!
 
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johndoejohndoes said:
I think I'm going to go with FireWire 800. I've been reading reviews with the Buffalo Thunderbolt and I read the cord will stop working and it over heats. I'm sure the drive I posted below with FireWire 800 will stream to my Apple TV fine...right?

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer Technology/MSQ7S10TB32/
Click to expand...

The mini stack is fine. i have that hooked up to a MacMini that streams to my appletv, ipad and other Macs with no problem, i have a 3TB drive in there currently.
 
AppleNewton said:
No hotter than any other external drive. thunderbolt connections do have quite a bit of tech in their ports, so it gets warm but not hot or how over dramatic some of the reviews are. mine is usually run for hours at time any way and havent had issues with heat or anything of that nature.
Click to expand...
What about the cord you got? I'm reading on Amazon that the cord they supply you for thunderbolt stops working. The USB will still work but I don't want to have to fork out another $50 for a cord.
 
I can't wait for mine to come in the mail...I ordered it!
 
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johndoejohndoes said:
Yeah I only have 1 Thunderbolt slot. 1 FireWire. And 4 USB. I'd love to free up a USB slot and use my Thunderbolt and FireWire so I now may get the buffalo lol. Did you get the Buffalo from Amazon or OWC? It's $15 cheaper on Amazon but of OWC has better coverage id rather get that.
Click to expand...

USB ports can be expanded with a USB hub (powered or not powered), Firewire is daisy chain capable, thus every proper Firewire HDD enclosure has two Firewire ports, one for connecting it to the computer, one for connecting another HDD, thus up to 63 Firewire devices can be put into one chain. Thunderbolt has the same capability as Firewire, but is limited to six devices.
 
johndoejohndoes said:
Yeah I only have 1 Thunderbolt slot. 1 FireWire. And 4 USB. I'd love to free up a USB slot and use my Thunderbolt and FireWire so I now may get the buffalo lol. Did you get the Buffalo from Amazon or OWC? It's $15 cheaper on Amazon but of OWC has better coverage id rather get that.
Click to expand...

If amazon doesnt charge you sales tax itd be cheaper there
 
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