Time capsule and external hard drive question

[mathieuplante]

Right now I have an i5 MacBook Pro with a 320 GB hard drive. I want to move that hard drive to my Time Capsule via a USB enclosure and use a 60 GB OCZ SSD hard drive in my MacBook. Do you think this is a good idea speed-wise?

Also, does anyone have any experience with using iTunes or viewing videos with a hard drive plugged into a Time Capsule that's a few rooms away? I'm probably only going to use the wireless hard drive to listen to music and maybe move files to it once in a while. Would that be too slow? I would unplug it from the Time Capsule and plug it into my Mac to transfer big files or install software that's on the external drive.

Thank you for your replies.

 

[mathieuplante]

One more question, can Time Capsule backup the external hard drive that's connected to itself?

 

[Tom71]

I use iTunes on my time capsule, but the base station is not too far away - I do have some delays already, but it's not too bad, I'm using videos as well. But it will really be a question if the signal is strong enough so I recommend you to try first what kind of signal strenght you get with the time capsule "a few rooms" away which sounds really far to me.

Good question if you can backup the time capsule mounted hdd via the time capsule. I haven't seen such option.

The only comment towards the 60 gig OCZ is that it is very small...

 

[mathieuplante]

According to this thread (Time Capsule and external usb hard drive), "Time Machine will not back up anything not physically attached to the computer, so any externals attached to a Time Capsule/Extreme will not be backed up by Time Machine."

Well that sucks. I guess the only other option is to send my library to my always-on desktop computer and listen to music through the Home Sharing feature. Any other suggestion?

 

[Tom71]

Well if you use iTunes, sure you can just use the built-in sharing. Or screen sharing, true. Now that I think of it, also my iTunes library isn't backup'ed ... but well it gets synced to an ipod every now and then.

 

[djasterix]

If you're going to use the SSD as a system drive only, and don't mind having to carry the external everywhere you go, it's ok.

As far as I know, time machine only backs files on your main drive, so you can make a partition for TM on the external to backup your system drive, but data on the other partition will be by itself.

 

[mathieuplante]

Well if you use iTunes, sure you can just use the built-in sharing. Or screen sharing, true. Now that I think of it, also my iTunes library isn't backup'ed ... but well it gets synced to an ipod every now and then.

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I could always backup the iTunes drive every few weeks by plugging it into the Mac. It wouldn't really matter if lost a few songs in a worst case scenario. Time Capsule is already rather slow from the living room to the kitchen when it backs up, but it's bareable. It was slow when wired via ethernet too, so it's not surprising. Transfering files isn't that bad. iTunes Home Sharing worked great the few times I tried it, but I would prefer a regular library where I could move stuff around and I don't think Home Sharing allows that.

I just tried copying my library to the external drive and plugged it into the Time Capsule, it worked wonderfully, even with video. I'm in the kitchen right now listening to some music. I have an Airport Express in extend mode, so I'm sure that helps.

Well, I think it's worth a try!

Thanks again for your help and for suggesting that I try it first. Good idea.

 

[mathieuplante]

If you're going to use the SSD as a system drive only, and don't mind having to carry the external everywhere you go, it's ok.

As far as I know, time machine only backs files on your main drive, so you can make a partition for TM on the external to backup your system drive, but data on the other partition will be by itself.

On my previous MacBook Pro, I used to backup my internal hard drive (the SSD) and my external (regular HD) to my Time Machine drive. It doesn't do it by default, though, so you need to delete it from the "do not backup" list in the options. That's how it was with Time Machine, I'm not sure about Time Capsule. I would guess it's the same thing.

 

[mathieuplante]

I gave up on this project for the time being.

I installed everything and it was really really fast at first, everything was snappy. Then I installed Parallels. It turned out to be really laggy and Audition wouldn't install at all on it.

I guess that generation of SSD (OCZ Solid Series 60 GB) doesn't like doing two things at once. That and it would be too much trouble to have iTunes on one drive, plug it in when I need to install an app, etc. In the end, having a really fast SSD drive is not worth it if you need to plug in an additionnal drive or connect to the network every time you want to do something. I think I'll stay with the 320 GB for now until the prices drop, then I think I would need at least 128 GB to be comfortable.

Oh well, it was a good idea on paper and it was worth trying!