What Drive(s) to buy for my machine?

[kikobarbada]

Hello.

I have an interesting setup and I need some help with Time Machine. I currently have an internal 160HD and two 250GB external drives. I am looking for a drive that can backup these three drives. I am thinking of 2 500gb drives but I am not sure if I can make Leopard see the 2 drives as 1, or else (I THINK) I will have to select one 500gb drive to backup my two 250GB (which will fill up fast) and a 500GB drive for my 160GB internal. I can always buy a 1TB, but it is more expensive than 2 500gb drives (ridiculous). I need a full briefing because I know nothing about multiple-drive Time Machine backups. Any information is useful.

Thanks.

 

[gr8tfly]

Which Mac do you have? If a Mac Pro, you can setup multiple internal drives as a single, concatenated disk.

How about a 750GB external drive?

The other day Fry's had the FreeAgent Pro (FW400/USB2/eSATA) for $198.

As far as I can tell, there isn't any way Time Machine can span multiple volumes.

 

[Mal]

Sure it can. Simply RAID the two externals together, and Time Machine should see it was a single 1TB disk.

jW

 

[gr8tfly]

Sure it can. Simply RAID the two externals together, and Time Machine should see it was a single 1TB disk.

jW

I had thought it would work with external FW/USB, but I haven't tried it myself. The KB doc I read earlier mentioned only internal interfaces, but it looks out of date. Good to know it does work with FW/USB.

Personally, I think a single 1TB would be the better solution, even if a bit more expensive.

 

[kikobarbada]

I suppose I am walking towards the 1TB drive. There is no reason to spend more money on Firewire if the drive will be connected to my computer 24/7 and the incremental backups take 15 minutes I think every 1 hour (it would only be a problem if it took like more than 1 hour). Isn't that right? What is the cheapest drive (no online store, only known local stores such as Bestbuy)??