MP 1,1-5,1 One storage drive consolidation MP 5,1

[cpnotebook80]

Hi everyone, I am hoping to retire my MP 5,1 next year for more room and space and want to consolidate my multiple drives i have in there over the years. I think around 5-6 tb is what I have of capacity drives currently. Decades of stuff from work, family, old machines etc. I will definitely clean them and trim them down.

I have 2 HDD, 1 SSD and 2 NVMEs and an external ssd.

I was hoping that a mac mini would come out and I could just get a high storage drive there or save the cash and buy a nice external fast storage. However, reviews on such drives external ssds makes me a bit apprehensive due to failure and loss of data when saving in just one drive, giving me anxiety. I would like to have that one drive portable atleast, perhaps to use on my m1 mbp etc. when need be or a mac mini down the road.

Any suggestions.

As you can see, my drives are close to being full due to mostly my photography work over the years and back up of some of the old mac machines that have since been sold. I am not versed with NAS etc. I did look at Sabrent but not sure on the reputation and longevity, but seems pricey for a 8tb.

Thanks!

 

[Soba]

If you are storing mostly photos and similar media, you probably do not need an SSD and can get a large hard disk drive for significant cost savings and no appreciable loss of performance in this situation. An 8TB hard disk drive will cost under $200 USD while an 8TB SSD is nearly 4x the price.

I recommend using the APFS file system on the drive storing your photos. Even though APFS incurs a noticeable performance penalty on hard disk drives, it offers many data integrity features that work behind the scenes to protect your files from non-obvious corruption. The performance penalty is also not obvious except when you are moving large numbers of files to and from the disk, so there's no real downside in your case.

If you are actively editing large files in Photoshop or similar, then you want them on an SSD. If you're simply storing them for occasional viewing, a USB hard drive will more than serve your purpose. You can keep the files you are working with on your internal SSD and copy them to the hard disk drive for storage when you're finished. (And there is nothing wrong with editing the files while they're on the external USB hard drive, but it will probably be much slower.)

However, reviews on such drives external ssds makes me a bit apprehensive due to failure and loss of data when saving in just one drive, giving me anxiety.

Perhaps I've misunderstood this part, but you should never store important files on just one drive, whether it's an SSD, hard disk drive, or any other kind of drive or medium.

In IT, we speak about the 3-2-1 backup rule. You should have at least 3 versions of your files on 2 different media with 1 copy off site. If you follow this rule, your data will be pretty safe from most forms of equipment failure as well as natural disasters.

A cloud storage service might also be an option for you, but this would represent an ongoing cost that might get pretty steep since your files are large.

File on your Mac or externally connected storage drive = copy #1
File on a backup drive = copy #2
File on a second backup drive (preferably located off site) or in cloud storage = copy #3

And so on.

I suggest buying one drive for storage that is always connected to your Mac and then at least one additional drive (and preferably two) for backup. You can copy your files to the backup drive using the Finder, you can use a drive cloning app such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper!, or you can use Time Machine. Then you keep one backup at hand and store the second backup off site, swapping them back and forth at regular intervals as you update your files.

Restoring from backup is usually very easy and having such a backup is a life saver if your Mac blows up or gets toasted by a lightning strike. The anguish it saves you is well worth the hardware cost, IMHO.

You can purchase off-the-shelf external USB hard drives, or you can separately buy internal hard drives and empty USB hard drive cases of your choosing. Assembling these takes just 2 minutes and all you need is a screwdriver.

(Edited slightly for clarity after posting!)

 

[cpnotebook80]

If you are storing mostly photos and similar media, you probably do not need an SSD and can get a large hard disk drive for significant cost savings and no appreciable loss of performance in this situation. An 8TB hard disk drive will cost under $200 USD while an 8TB SSD is nearly 4x the price.

I recommend using the APFS file system on the drive storing your photos. Even though APFS carries a sometimes-noticeable performance penalty on hard disk drives, it offers many data integrity features that work behind the scenes to protect your files from non-obvious corruption. The performance penalty is also not obvious except when you are moving large numbers of files to and from the disk, so there's no real downside in your case.



Perhaps I've misunderstood this part, but you should never store important files on just one drive, whether it's an SSD, hard disk drive, or any other kind of drive or medium.

In IT, we speak about the 3-2-1 backup rule. You should have at least 3 versions of your files on 2 different media with 1 copy off site. If you follow this rule, your data will be pretty safe from most forms of equipment failure as well as natural disasters.

A cloud storage service might also be an option for you, but this would represent an ongoing cost that might get pretty steep since your files are large.

File on your Mac or externally connected storage drive = copy #1
File on a backup drive = copy #2
File on a second backup drive (preferably located off site) or in cloud storage = copy #3

And so on.

I suggest buying one drive for connecting to your Mac and then at least one additional drive (and preferably two) for backup. You can copy your files to the backup drive using the Finder, you can use a drive cloning app such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper!, or you can use Time Machine. Then you keep one backup at hand and store the second backup off site, swapping them back and forth at regular intervals.

Restoring from backup is usually very easy and having such a backup is a life saver if your Mac blows up or gets toasted by a lightning strike. The anguish it saves you is well worth the hardware cost, IMHO.

You can purchase off-the-shelf external USB hard drives, or you can separately buy internal hard drives and empty USB hard drive cases of your choosing. Assembling these takes just 2 minutes and all you need is a screwdriver.

Thank you for taking the time and appreciate this so much!
Ah the 3-2-1 and yes I do have icloud storage so will look at making use of that more for backup.
Much thanks