is there any benefit to get aluminum cases? the price is almost double from the one recommended in the second post here.
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Recommendations for an external firewire backup drive
- Thread starter thomapa1
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is there any benefit to get aluminum cases? the price is almost double from the one recommended in the second post here.
Aluminum is a much better conductor of heat than plastic, so the drive will run cooler. It's an important consideration if the drive will be running for long periods of time. Since mine are on 24/7, I was really concerned about this. Of course the aluminum cases are also stronger, although I wouldn't go throwing them around!
I would put the emphasis on another point of talmy's post, too ;-)
"I no longer buy external drives in cases that can't be opened"
Very observant! The controller chip in the case can fail, bricking the drive. If you can't get the drive out of the case without damage then you can't recover the data. Conversely, if the drive fails you have to toss a perfectly good case. And of course a sealed case can be used to hide a questionable quality, low performance drive.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEFW924AL1K/
this says up to 2.0TB ??? this means can not install driver which is over 2 TB?
this says up to 2.0TB ??? this means can not install driver which is over 2 TB?
Yes, and because aluminum conducts heat so efficiently it usually means the case doesn't need a fan, so it's quieter than fan-cooled enclosures.
+ some cases use USB/firewire, directly bond to the HDD, so you can't even swap the drive, because there is no usable SATA-connection on the HDD itself.
i just got my self this enclosure , any suggest on the 2 Tb hard drive ..where to get it ,which one .. and what should i look at while buying a hard drive to use with this enclosure (this is the 1st time i am doing this )
I always get low power drives to reduce power consumption and keep things as cool as possible. No reason to buy 7200 RPM for backup and streaming large files (which mine are used for). This past year I've purchased Samsung drives. Just today I ordered several 2TB models from NewEgg at $80 each, including shipping.
1) First question - do you need a backup? Usual answer is overwhelming yes, but answer it anyway. If your computer got hit by a truck now, what would the effect be? Do you have priceless pictures? Video? documents etc?
2) if you answer yes to 1, if your information is valuable then a 2 target backup is a good idea. One onsite & 1 offsite.
A backup drive attached to your iMac is a good idea. It should save the data if the hard drive on the iMac fails. It generally will not protect you from theft or lighting strike. Thats where an offsite backup comes in. The odds of 2 catastrophic events taking your data is likely very small.
I have a USB hard drive for my Time Machine backup. I think that is adequate. The Time Machine backup drive should be larger than your regular drive. I recommend a 2T.
I also have Firewire drives for offsite. I use Superduper. CCC is good too. The firewire is faster.
2) if you answer yes to 1, if your information is valuable then a 2 target backup is a good idea. One onsite & 1 offsite.
A backup drive attached to your iMac is a good idea. It should save the data if the hard drive on the iMac fails. It generally will not protect you from theft or lighting strike. Thats where an offsite backup comes in. The odds of 2 catastrophic events taking your data is likely very small.
I have a USB hard drive for my Time Machine backup. I think that is adequate. The Time Machine backup drive should be larger than your regular drive. I recommend a 2T.
I also have Firewire drives for offsite. I use Superduper. CCC is good too. The firewire is faster.
I will be doing video editing and stuff ... and my media files will be on this drive, i will be connecting this drive to my imac using firewire connection. will i get a better speed if i get 7200 rpm or should i go with a low power one? what exectly is low power 5900 prm ? any recommendations?
The transfer speed is limited by the Firewire 800 interface. Don't get a FW 800 or USB 2 only housing. A 7200 RPM drive will have less latency (time between a disk request and the data is available). This is important when accessing lots of small files, not the case with video.
Look at the drive descriptions for low power drives. The most famous (?) are the Maxtor Green series drives, but all manufacturers have them and the Samsung drives I bought are low power.
some 2TB hard drives are $200 and some with same pretty much the same specification for $90 ! ? why is there such a big price different ????
i am confused
Western Digital Caviar Black WD2001FASS 2TB SATA2 7200rpm 64MB Hard Drive for around $200
and
Western Digital WD20EARS 2tb SATA 64mb cache for $90
why?
i am confused
Western Digital Caviar Black WD2001FASS 2TB SATA2 7200rpm 64MB Hard Drive for around $200
and
Western Digital WD20EARS 2tb SATA 64mb cache for $90
why?
WD's Caviar Black line are their highest performance drives. They will also consume the most power, generate the most heat, and be the loudest. There are also expensive drives that are extra rugged for server use where they will be accessed continuously for long periods. You'll do just fine with the low cost drive in the external case. If it were an internal drive in a Mac Pro, I'd make another suggestion!
great! that means i should be ok with Western Digital WD20EARS 2tb SATA 64mb cache for $90 or some thing similar ....
For Time Machine, you'll want a drive bigger than your system drive. I used to used a 320GB Time Machine drive to backup my 250GB system drive, and it filled up in a matter of weeks.
These days I don't use Time Machine anymore, and I just just make a clone (with incremental changes) using SuperDuper! I like the idea of just popping the other drive in if I should have a problem. The backup drive in the enclosure is even the same brand/speed/type. It's as much of a clone as one could possibly make.
Ideally, I'd like to start a Time Machine backup again just to have both, but for now the clone method works for me. I also clone my external audio drive. Clones are good.
These days I don't use Time Machine anymore, and I just just make a clone (with incremental changes) using SuperDuper! I like the idea of just popping the other drive in if I should have a problem. The backup drive in the enclosure is even the same brand/speed/type. It's as much of a clone as one could possibly make.
Ideally, I'd like to start a Time Machine backup again just to have both, but for now the clone method works for me. I also clone my external audio drive. Clones are good.
How easy it was back in the OS 9 days. Though Norton has never been really good, there was one thing that I liked. Instead of buying an expensive TimeMachine, you could just restore allready deleted files from the trash. Of course this did not work always since it depends on whether the drive had allready overwritten the part were the old file was stored... but it worked enough for me. These days I use SuperDuper only and just search for older files (that I have erased on my main HDD, but then later realise I want to have it again) manually with spotlight.
The case & bare drive thing makes total sense. I like the Macally cases & I'm trying to decide between the WD Cavier Green & Black versions. It seems Green is quite a bit cheaper (at least on Amazon).
Could anyone tell me what the difference is in quality & which is the better buy?
Also, what's the best way to store a bare drive?
Could anyone tell me what the difference is in quality & which is the better buy?
Also, what's the best way to store a bare drive?
???
TimeMachine is a free program, just add external harddrive...1.5Tb for under $100 at buy.com....closer to $50 for smaller drives
You REALLY think trying your luck with an unerase program (Norton) is better than being able to go back hours, days, weeks or even months in TimeMachine to have a nearly 100% chance of retrieving a lost file?