Search the Community

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

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: 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); 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 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?

I have an older iMac (2008) I plan to replace soon. My iTunes library is currently stored on the internal HD, and I use an external HD connected via firewire for backup. I've read that I might get a small increase in sound quality by moving my iTunes library off the boot drive. From what I've been able to gather, I can do this by moving my library to an external HD or a NAS. I'm not sure I need a NAS at this point. I do most of my listening in my home office using my iMac. When I want to stream music to my home theater room, I use an Airport Express (and might replace it with an Apple TV at some point). Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure a NAS would give me any real advantages over this setup. This leads me to think that moving my library to an external HD might make the most sense. This would still let me stream from my iMac to the Airport Express or Apple TV, wouldn't it? What I don't understand about this option, though, is how would I make sure that both this external drive and my computer were backed up? Would it be a matter of linking external drives together and somehow telling them to backup different drives?