Backup Plan for New System

[ed71]

Right now I have my iTunes library on the internal hard drive of my old iMac. I have a new iMac on order, and I hope to convert the old one into a dedicated music server. It is old enough that I can't put more than 4GB of RAM in it, which makes running iTunes and Audirvana+ a bit suspect; however, I think it will work since I won't be using it for anything else. I know I need to get the iTunes library off the internal HD and on to an external drive. This leads to my questions about a good backup plan. Assuming I am correct that I should get a backup drive with at least twice the capacity of the drive I am backing up, here's what I was thinking:

 

 

1. Buy one 2 GB USB 3.0 drive for use with the new iMac as a time machine drive (it will have a 1 GB internal fusion drive);
   
2. Repurpose the 1 GB firewire drive I am currently using for time machine backups of the old iMac to hold my iTunes library and nothing else; and
   
3. Buy one 2 GB firewire drive to connect to #2 above to keep my iTunes library backed up.
   

 

Does this seem reasonable? Can I connect drive #3 to drive #2 like I'm hoping, and if so, will time machine allow me to back up this drive?

[Paul R]

Are you looking more for secure backups in case of a disaster or are you looking more at high availability?

 

The first case would be more if a thief stole your machine, or a natural disaster (fire, flood, storm, etc.) comes through.

The second case is more for when a disk crashes. You can get back to playing the music very quickly, and replace the disk the next day.

Or both?

[ed71]

Hi Paul,

 

I was mostly focused on hard drive failure. I will probably get yet another external drive that I can keep offsite at some point to deal with the natural disaster threat.

[Paul R]

Okay, then that makes sense. I would probably follow through with your plan -

 

Move the iTunes library and media files to the new external drive.

Hook a second drive up and image the drive with the iTunes library and media files to it. You can set this up to happen on a daily basis in fact.

Hook up a third drive and point the iMac's main harddrive and the 1st drive with media files and the iTunes library to it.

 

In the event of a disk crash, you can easily recover and use the second disk drive for iTunes and media.

In the event of needing to retrieve a file you have inadvertently deleted, the Time Machine backup will allow you to recover those.

 

For disaster recovery, I would just ensure a copy of the Time Machine disk is stored offsite.

 

-Paul

[venyos]

Useing External HDD for iTunes library is a really bad idea. iTunes is so latent for searching and makeing changes in library, so in External HDD this is more slowler yet.

[ed71]

From everything I have read here, venyos, most people recommend having the iTunes library and all music on an external hard drive as a way of improving sound quality.