Advice on storage and back-up

[RickDastardly]

Hi,

 

I have just purchased a 4TB (2x 2TB) WD Thunderbolt drive. I plan to move my iTunes library (approx 300GB) from the internal HD of my Mac Mini (2011). I also have a 1TB G-Drive (FW) that I have been using for time machine back-up. I am not very computer literate, and would be very grateful for some advice on how to set up and configure my system.

 

What would the most useful configuration of the WD drives be?

- RAID 0, RAID 1 or JBOD? I will only be using it for music, so I guess the extra speed (a reduced capacity) of RAID 0 is unnecessary.

- RAID 1 vs JBOD. Would it be possible to use one of the WD drives in JBOD configuration for time machine back-ups without interfering with the performance of the system for listening to music stored on the other drive?

- should I be using carbon copy closer or something similar?

- I feel I should have some sort of offsite back-up. Would I be best to use my 1TB FW G-Drive for occasional back-ups of my music which could then be kept "off-site" in between back-ups. Or, use an online storage provider?

 

My current preference is to use the 4TB WD HDD in RAID 1 set-up, and continue to use the G-Drive for Time Machine back-ups of my Mac Mini internal HDD. I would then perhaps look at using another HDD for regular back-ups of my music files, or use online storage for this.

 

I would be hugely appreciative of anyone's thoughts or advice on this.

 

Best Regards,

Rich

[DubMarc]

I think you have the basic ideas correct. RAID (anything above 0) is good for availability of data, but mirroring the info doesn't really get you 100% backed up. For instance, it won't guard against accidental deletions, if the RAID controller itself goes bad, etc. That said, if you end up going RAID 1, you'll still have about 2TB of storage available, which seems like plenty, even if your library grows a bit. If it is enough, I would go with that.

 

You should still have some sort of offsite backup. If it were me, I would save the expense of online storage, and go with your plan to use the G-Drive for occasional backups, and keep it off-site.

[RickDastardly]

Thanks!

 

I will try RAID 1 and see how I get on. I will continue to investigate off site back-ups too.

[Chipper]

I simply use the two internal hard-drives in my laptop, and two external usb drives that I update when I put new stuff in. Have never lost a collection with this many mirrors of the collection...if ones goes, I have another (and then buy a new drive to replace the one that fails). One of the externals stays offsite as well.

 

I've never used RAID or any of this specialized stuff. Unless you continually add stuff to your music library daily, you don't need automatic backups by the second. Also cloud storage is a bad idea if your ISP limits your upload speed (only get about 200kbps here)...you'll be there forever getting stuff up "in the cloud".

 

Just some thoughts.

[RickDastardly]

Thanks Chipper. Think I've got it sorted now.

 

BTW - I love my WD Duo Thunderbolt...it's so quiet and fast!

[John Smith]

Hi,

 

I have just purchased a 4TB (2x 2TB) WD Thunderbolt drive. I plan to move my iTunes library (approx 300GB) from the internal HD of my Mac Mini (2011). I also have a 1TB G-Drive (FW) that I have been using for time machine back-up. I am not very computer literate, and would be very grateful for some advice on how to set up and configure my system.

 

What would the most useful configuration of the WD drives be?

- RAID 0, RAID 1 or JBOD? I will only be using it for music, so I guess the extra speed (a reduced capacity) of RAID 0 is unnecessary.

- RAID 1 vs JBOD. Would it be possible to use one of the WD drives in JBOD configuration for time machine back-ups without interfering with the performance of the system for listening to music stored on the other drive?

- should I be using carbon copy closer or something similar?

- I feel I should have some sort of offsite back-up. Would I be best to use my 1TB FW G-Drive for occasional back-ups of my music which could then be kept "off-site" in between back-ups. Or, use an online storage provider?

 

My current preference is to use the 4TB WD HDD in RAID 1 set-up, and continue to use the G-Drive for Time Machine back-ups of my Mac Mini internal HDD. I would then perhaps look at using another HDD for regular back-ups of my music files, or use online storage for this.

 

I would be hugely appreciative of anyone's thoughts or advice on this.

 

Best Regards,

Rich

Hello Rich,

 

It looks like you are you serious about a some backup solution. May be this can help you.

 

I will try it by myself.

[Jsmith]

Like you, I wanted an approach with both local and off site backups. I have found Crash Plan to be a really good source. It is a local backup program where you can also purchase cloud storage and it will also then backup to the cloud. I believe 2 years of unlimited storage is around $200.

 

They have apps for Windows / Mac / Linux. I am currently running the Mac OS version on a MacBook. You can include attached drives so it is also backing up my USB music library.

 

Here is what I really like about the solution. The Linux version. Many NAS today use a form of Linux as the OS. For most of them out there, you can install Crash Plan right on the NAS and have it backup from there. The downside is that there are some requirements for Linux and to get it to work on the NAS may require some work.

 

The other downside is the upload is limited to your ISP speed. Mine is around 2Mbps, so it took about a week or so for my entire music library to get backed up initially. Though it runs in the background and this seemed like a small price to pay to have an offsite back up.