tray Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 Hey Mac peeps, I believe that the vast majority of you have at least some form of external storage. The HDD space that comes with your Mac, short of the Mac Pro, should not be sufficient right? Because I am using an iMac, the non user-upgradability forces one to resort to external drive solutions. In the past, when my storage requirements were lower, 1 or 2 enclosures each housing a single drive would suffice. However, I realized that as my storage needs grew, I could not continually add more drives via enclosures each housing an individual drive. This is not a viable option in the long run. I look set to purchasing 2 more external HDDs. Since the iMac comes with only 3 USB2.0 ports, I would definitely have to use them in conjunction with a USB hub. * Is it silly to connect 5 external HDDs in their respective enclosures to the Mac through a USB hub? * Does using several external HDDs connected to a USB Hub slow down performance? There would be too many enclosures, each requiring their own power point. Some had to be (I naively bought USB2 enclosures as they were cheaper) connected through hubs. Moreover, it made for crazy cable management on my table. Lastly, I am not sure if I have been pursuing the right storage solution. I look to use my external storage as a * Backup solution. I plan to use SuperDuper! to store a clone of my hard disk. * Music storage. The iTunes music library would be housed externally as the current size of my music library negates the meagre size of my existing internal hard disk. * Media storage. Videos, TV shows, Movies, Ripped DVDs, Video Podcasts and the like. * If possible, I would like the above media to be accessible from other Macs in the household via the wireless-G network I have at home. While the accessibility from other Macs is nice, speed is important too. Currently, USB2 does not cut it. For example, I wanted to transfer the contents on one drive to another; it was around 100GB and it took more than a day! * My media collection is already very large. Do you guys actually make a backup copy of your media collection? I am not referring to precious photos but your mp3 and video collection. * Is replacing all my enclosures with FireWire ones and then daisy-chaining them a viable solution? * I have read up about RAID but am still confused. Do I need it? * What are the setups that you guys have? I’m open to anything. I just hope that it would not involve spending too much money cause I don’t have that much to spend. I would really like to hear from you guys. Thanks all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asap18 Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 ehh, you can upgrade the hard drive in your imac. Pop a 1 TB drive in there and youll be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erbic Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 Agreed; that'd be the easiest way to do it. A terabyte should easily satisfy your needs. I've been considering upgrading my Macbook Pro's HDD and cloning my old drive to it; 120 gigs really isn't all that much, and there's only so much you can do with an external 160GB drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tray Posted February 5, 2007 Author Share Posted February 5, 2007 ehh, you can upgrade the hard drive in your imac. Pop a 1 TB drive in there and youll be fine. Haha, but I can't open the iMac without voiding the warranty right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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