interbear
Prominent Member
Hi all - hoping for some advice from more experienced Mac users. I use an iMac (mid-2011) with 12GB RAM and a 1TB hard disk. Currently utilising about 75% capacity of the hard disk, primarily iTunes library (videos and music) and Photos. I use Time Machine to back up all content to a WD Passport external hard drive over the FireWire port. All worked fine thus far.
Planning ahead and thinking of moving all of my content to external storage as opposed to the iMac's internal hard disk. Three reasons - (1) capacity (2) I like the idea of a dual external drive to mirror data on a 2nd drive for protection (RAID 1) and (3) this may be easier should I replace the iMac with a MacBook Pro in future. So far my web research has led me to one of two options:
1) WD Thunderbolt Duo - directly connected to the iMac Thunderbolt port. Fast. Dual drive. Relatively simple.
2) WD My Cloud Mirror - connected to my BT HomeHub 6 router ("smart hub"). Not as fast especially via wifi. Dual drive. Potential NAS complexity worries me a bit but this seems a relatively simple option in that respect. But it would (I think) mean that I could access all of the content from any internet connected device.
My questions are :-
1) I am assuming that in each case I would need to move my iTunes library and Photos library to the external drive / NAS, so that the iTunes / Photo application on the iMac would point to the right place when importing or using the relevant content. Correct? Any tips or gotchas?
2) if I have a dual external drive with disk 1 being primary storage for iTunes and Photos libraries and all other content/media and disk 2 being a mirrored copy of this content, would I still need to use Time Machine? I'm assuming I would to back up everything else on the iMac, perhaps still to the external drive I use today via FireWire?
3) Anyone use either of the options above and got any recommendations or tips on them? Or better alternative solutions?
Thanks all.
Planning ahead and thinking of moving all of my content to external storage as opposed to the iMac's internal hard disk. Three reasons - (1) capacity (2) I like the idea of a dual external drive to mirror data on a 2nd drive for protection (RAID 1) and (3) this may be easier should I replace the iMac with a MacBook Pro in future. So far my web research has led me to one of two options:
1) WD Thunderbolt Duo - directly connected to the iMac Thunderbolt port. Fast. Dual drive. Relatively simple.
2) WD My Cloud Mirror - connected to my BT HomeHub 6 router ("smart hub"). Not as fast especially via wifi. Dual drive. Potential NAS complexity worries me a bit but this seems a relatively simple option in that respect. But it would (I think) mean that I could access all of the content from any internet connected device.
My questions are :-
1) I am assuming that in each case I would need to move my iTunes library and Photos library to the external drive / NAS, so that the iTunes / Photo application on the iMac would point to the right place when importing or using the relevant content. Correct? Any tips or gotchas?
2) if I have a dual external drive with disk 1 being primary storage for iTunes and Photos libraries and all other content/media and disk 2 being a mirrored copy of this content, would I still need to use Time Machine? I'm assuming I would to back up everything else on the iMac, perhaps still to the external drive I use today via FireWire?
3) Anyone use either of the options above and got any recommendations or tips on them? Or better alternative solutions?
Thanks all.