Hard Drive Advice

[uva25]

I have an IMac with a 500 GB hard drive which has all my music, pics and movies. There is about 160 GB available but I still have more movies that I could rip but I have hesitated as I don't want to fill up the drive too quickly. I also have an external USB 500 GB drive which serves as a backup using Time Machine. I am considering getting a 1 TB external firewire drive to hold all my media with plenty of room to spare. Is it reaonsable to use the 500 GB drive to back up music and movies and keep pictures only on the IMac drive? Do I lose any streaming quality to my ethernetted ATV by using an external drive vs my IMAC? Should I look into a NAS? Will the new software let my sync a particular movie from my external hard drive to my ATV to avoid any streaming issues? I'd appreciate your input.

 

[spice weasel]

You can use an external firewire disk with no problems. That's what I do. I have all my photos and music on my desktop computer, and all of my movies on an external drive (no room on my computer). Just reference the files to iTunes and the ATV will play them no problem, streaming or syncing. I sync a large chunk of my movies, but even my 160 gig ATV won't hold them all, so I stream the rest. I've experienced no problems doing this over my g network.

 

[uva25]

You can use an external firewire disk with no problems. That's what I do. I have all my photos and music on my desktop computer, and all of my movies on an external drive (no room on my computer). Just reference the files to iTunes and the ATV will play them no problem, streaming or syncing. I sync a large chunk of my movies, but even my 160 gig ATV won't hold them all, so I stream the rest. I've experienced no problems doing this over my g network.

Thanks for the advice. I just picked up a WD 1 TB firewire drive this afternoon. How do you handle backing the files up? I am thinking I leave my pics and music on my IMAC, movies on my 500GB external and use the new 1TB to back everything up. The only issue I see is that I don't know if Time Machine can work with this scenario?

 

[orme292]

[removed]

 

[uva25]

You can use an external firewire disk with no problems. That's what I do. I have all my photos and music on my desktop computer, and all of my movies on an external drive (no room on my computer). Just reference the files to iTunes and the ATV will play them no problem, streaming or syncing. I sync a large chunk of my movies, but even my 160 gig ATV won't hold them all, so I stream the rest. I've experienced no problems doing this over my g network.

I just copied my movie/tv show collection from my IMac internal drive to an external drive. My next step is to point my Itunes to this external drive. Will this force me to "Add to library" each of the movies? Will I lose any of the information I edied in the tags/info? Any help on how to best do this would be appreciated. How can I have Itunes point to my internal drive for music/photos and external for movies? Thanks.

 

[harcosparky]

Thanks for the advice. I just picked up a WD 1 TB firewire drive this afternoon. How do you handle backing the files up? I am thinking I leave my pics and music on my IMAC, movies on my 500GB external and use the new 1TB to back everything up. The only issue I see is that I don't know if Time Machine can work with this scenario?

I have a 320 GB internal drive. Was running out of space fast.

Had Time Machine on a 500 Gig external.

My fix was as follows .....

Put a 750 Gig in service for Time Machine

Moved iPhoto and iTunes Library to the 500 Gig external.

Once I moved my MUSIC and PICTURE folders to the 500 Gig I let Time Machne back up the entire system.

Then I went into iTunes and deleted all back-ups of MUSIC and PICTURES that were associated with the 320 Gig internal drive.

Now Time Machine backs up the 320 Internal and 500 External on the 750 External.

Should my Libraries approach 400 Gig, I will move them to the 750 and buy a 1.5 TB for Time Machine!

 

[swedefish]

I have a 320 GB internal drive. Was running out of space fast.

Had Time Machine on a 500 Gig external.

My fix was as follows .....

Put a 750 Gig in service for Time Machine

Moved iPhoto and iTunes Library to the 500 Gig external.

Once I moved my MUSIC and PICTURE folders to the 500 Gig I let Time Machne back up the entire system.

Then I went into iTunes and deleted all back-ups of MUSIC and PICTURES that were associated with the 320 Gig internal drive.

Now Time Machine backs up the 320 Internal and 500 External on the 750 External.

Should my Libraries approach 400 Gig, I will move them to the 750 and buy a 1.5 TB for Time Machine!

I am planning a similar setup and I am glad to hear it worked for you. However, I don't think I quite follow exactly how you configured TM to simultaneously backup your internal HD and your external HD (iTunes, iPhoto libraries). Also, I am unclear as to whether all files on the external HD are backed up or only the iTunes and iPhoto libraries.

Is the key to a succesful configuration simply to keep the iTunes and iPhoto libraries on the external HD or will you have to "teach" TM how to behave in the case that the external drive is attached when backing up? Is this question clear?... I find that I'm having a difficult time putting thoughts into words.

Thanks!

Edit: I just wanted to add that this forum (Apple TV) seems to be the wrong place for this question. I only used the best thread I could find on the topic using the search.

 

[harcosparky]

I am planning a similar setup and I am glad to hear it worked for you. However, I don't think I quite follow exactly how you configured TM to simultaneously backup your internal HD and your external HD (iTunes, iPhoto libraries). Also, I am unclear as to whether all files on the external HD are backed up or only the iTunes and iPhoto libraries.

Is the key to a succesful configuration simply to keep the iTunes and iPhoto libraries on the external HD or will you have to "teach" TM how to behave in the case that the external drive is attached when backing up? Is this question clear?... I find that I'm having a difficult time putting thoughts into words.

Thanks!

Edit: I just wanted to add that this forum (Apple TV) seems to be the wrong place for this question. I only used the best thread I could find on the topic using the search.

It's easy to do.

First hookup and configure the external drive you want DATA ( iTunes / iPhoto ) to reside on. Once you have this drive setup and CONFIRMED the libraries are configured, you will want to removed any libraries from you internal drive.

MAKE SURE YOU CONFIRM THAT ITUNES AND IPHOTO ARE IN FACT SEEING THE LIBRARIES ON THE EXTERNAL DRIVE BEFORE YOU DELETE THE LIBRARIES FROM THE INTERNAL DRIVE. IF YOU DO NOT YOU COULD LOSE ALL YOUR LIBRARIES

The reason for removing them is to prevent Time Machine from backing them up twice.

In TIME MACHINE you cannot teach it what to backup, it will backup EVERY DRIVE attached to the computer. The only thing you can do in Time Machine is teach it to NOT backup a given drive.

NOTE: Time Machine cannot backup the drive it resides on. For this reason you will want to dedicate a drive to Time Machine and do not put any data on it that you cannot afford to lose.

In Time Machine Preferences you have 2 options:

1) Do Not Back Up This Drive ( this is where you add or subtract a drive NOT to be backed up - you will see Time Machine on the list and it cannot be removed.

2) Warn when old backups are delelted. ( this is a radio button you check ON if you want to be warned - OFF if you do not want to be warned.

My configuration has changed ....

320 Gig HDD Internal HDD
750 Gig HDD External iTunes/iPhoto
1 TB HDD Time Machine
500 Gig HDD External Scratch Drive - Not backed up by Time Machine

 

[sblasl]

Will Apple's soon to be released Time Capsule be the logical choice for my very large iTunes music Libraries as well as all things Apple?