WD my book/my book live??

[Jonesy135]

Ive had a look but i cant really find a simple answer to my question as i really dont know much about routers and stuff.


im going to by an MBA later this year and i want to get an external harddrive to set up time machine

when setting up a NAS such as a WD my book live does this get plugged straight into my modem/router (i have a BT Home Hub 3... i live with my parents so this cant change) and if this is the case, how does this differ from a normal USB harddrive (WD My book essentials) which would get plugged straight into my home hub??

does the NAS have firmware and stuff which speeds things up or something??


any help would be much appreciated, thanks!

 

[Lucion]

The difference with these two drives is the interface and how you will interact with them.

The WD Live will plug into your router and exist on your network. Any computer on your network can see and use the drive if you want. It uses an ethernet cable, not USB. It is designed with sharing or serving media in mind. Like having your DRM-free music or movies there and streaming them to your Xbox or similar.

The other plugs directly into your machine via USB or FireWire. You could still share it on a network if you wanted, but you would need to be plugged into it first. I believe you will need some other programs running to duplicate the sharing capabilities of the Live.

Either will do Time Machine backups.

It comes down to what you want to do. With the Live, you set it up and forget about it until you need it. It will do its thing behind the scenes without you needing to do anything special. With a notebook I would prefer this so I didn't have to plug and unplug it all the time. With a desktop, a drive that is always plugged in isn't a big deal. The drive that is plugged in directly will most likely be faster for file transfers, but at the cost of portability. With Time Machine backups it will happen behind the scenes and you won't likely notice outside of the initial backup.

Hope that is somewhat helpful. I have a lot of My Book drives, and they have served me well. I wouldn't mind having a NAS hidden in a closet or something, though!

 

[Jonesy135]

The difference with these two drives is the interface and how you will interact with them.

The WD Live will plug into your router and exist on your network. Any computer on your network can see and use the drive if you want. It uses an ethernet cable, not USB. It is designed with sharing or serving media in mind. Like having your DRM-free music or movies there and streaming them to your Xbox or similar.

The other plugs directly into your machine via USB or FireWire. You could still share it on a network if you wanted, but you would need to be plugged into it first. I believe you will need some other programs running to duplicate the sharing capabilities of the Live.

Either will do Time Machine backups.

It comes down to what you want to do. With the Live, you set it up and forget about it until you need it. It will do its thing behind the scenes without you needing to do anything special. With a notebook I would prefer this so I didn't have to plug and unplug it all the time. With a desktop, a drive that is always plugged in isn't a big deal. The drive that is plugged in directly will most likely be faster for file transfers, but at the cost of portability. With Time Machine backups it will happen behind the scenes and you won't likely notice outside of the initial backup.

Hope that is somewhat helpful. I have a lot of My Book drives, and they have served me well. I wouldn't mind having a NAS hidden in a closet or something, though!

This perfect thank you!

Basically my router is down stairs and MBA will spend most of its time upstairs in my room, I wanted to set up time machine to run in the middle of the night so. It doesnt get in the way when I use it during the day.

So I think I'll go for a live, so I don't have to remember to plug things In at night.

Thanks for your help!

 

[flynz4]

This perfect thank you!

Basically my router is down stairs and MBA will spend most of its time upstairs in my room, I wanted to set up time machine to run in the middle of the night so. It doesnt get in the way when I use it during the day.

So I think I'll go for a live, so I don't have to remember to plug things In at night.

Thanks for your help!

I think Time Machine does not support scheduling. Instead, it backs up approximately once per hour. There may be 3rd party programs that offer TM scheduling... but if so, I have never used them.

I just let mine rip. It is not a problem for me, and I like the near continuous backup. My second backup solution (Crashplan+) is configurable, and I set it to a 15 minute backup period. It is completely transparent and I never experience a slowdown, even when using my most demanding applications.

/Jim

 

[Lucion]

Like flynz4 says, Time Machine doesn't usually run according to your schedule, it typically runs every hour. You can modify this with a command line tweak or by using something like TimeMachineScheduler (see here for more info on these).

I don't have much experience with either, since I use an iMac which is plugged into a Time Capsule via ethernet, but the utility mentioned above might do exactly what you want (set it to backup only at certain times like the middle of the night).

One thing to note about Time Machine is that it is rather clever. It will only backup what has changed since the last backup. The first backup will take awhile (best to plug it in directly for this unless you have lots of time), but it is pretty quick when it is just backing up changes. Mine usually only takes a couple minutes unless I install a new app that I want to backup. Also, take a look at the exclusions you can set in Time Machine. I don't need it to back up browser cache files or my entire download directory which both change a lot because those aren't things I need or want backed up.

It also doesn't really get in the way, to be honest. The only reason I remember it most of the time is because I use a Growl notification to tell me when it starts and how long it took when it finished. You will notice the drive mount on your desktop and then disappear when done and the little Time Machine clock in the menu bar spins, which you can turn off if you want. I hear the drive spin up (it is on a shelf above my head) and I continue about my business. Unless you are doing something that is disk-intensive like editing a video or something it won't interfere with your work. Plus, you can always tell it to stop and it will happily pick back where it left off during its next scheduled backup.

I've been delighted with Time Machine. I have used it to go back and restore files I accidentally overwrote or deleted and I once had to use it to restore my whole system. I know it is supposed to work that way, but I was amazed when my HDD died and I restored it to a brand new disk, restored, and found my desktop and files exactly like I had left them within an hour of catastrophic drive failure.

 

[Jonesy135]

Like flynz4 says, Time Machine doesn't usually run according to your schedule, it typically runs every hour. You can modify this with a command line tweak or by using something like TimeMachineScheduler (see here for more info on these).

I don't have much experience with either, since I use an iMac which is plugged into a Time Capsule via ethernet, but the utility mentioned above might do exactly what you want (set it to backup only at certain times like the middle of the night).

One thing to note about Time Machine is that it is rather clever. It will only backup what has changed since the last backup. The first backup will take awhile (best to plug it in directly for this unless you have lots of time), but it is pretty quick when it is just backing up changes. Mine usually only takes a couple minutes unless I install a new app that I want to backup. Also, take a look at the exclusions you can set in Time Machine. I don't need it to back up browser cache files or my entire download directory which both change a lot because those aren't things I need or want backed up.

It also doesn't really get in the way, to be honest. The only reason I remember it most of the time is because I use a Growl notification to tell me when it starts and how long it took when it finished. You will notice the drive mount on your desktop and then disappear when done and the little Time Machine clock in the menu bar spins, which you can turn off if you want. I hear the drive spin up (it is on a shelf above my head) and I continue about my business. Unless you are doing something that is disk-intensive like editing a video or something it won't interfere with your work. Plus, you can always tell it to stop and it will happily pick back where it left off during its next scheduled backup.

I've been delighted with Time Machine. I have used it to go back and restore files I accidentally overwrote or deleted and I once had to use it to restore my whole system. I know it is supposed to work that way, but I was amazed when my HDD died and I restored it to a brand new disk, restored, and found my desktop and files exactly like I had left them within an hour of catastrophic drive failure.

thanks guys,

i think ill just let time machine run its course then if it wont really interupt me.

one thing though, i stay with my girlflriend for a few nights a week,

will time machine automatically continue its backup routine when i get back home and within range of my NAS??