Where to Keep Music on a Mac, etc.

[annoying bugger]

Where's the best place to store music (on a Mac)? I've had some problems with files being corrupted on my main HD so I reformatted my second HD, set it as my iTunes music folder, and have started reimporting everything to copy it to that HD.

After this I'm going to set Deja Vu to make a backup of this HD on my main HD (it's 120 GB vs. 60) weekly incase one HD dies.

Anyway, is there any danger of messing up the files or degrading their quality by doing this? Is it okay to run the files off another HD or will this create problems? Thanks.

 

[annoying bugger]

Ew, one more thing. I also have a HD that's just sitting around doing nothing which I could use to backup the music when I run out of space my my main HD...should I install it in my PowerMac or get a firewire enclosure for it? It seems a separate enclosure would be safer, but I've never tried doing this before.

 

[IstariAsuka]

I don't really see how it's safer to have a HDD in an external enclosure rather than internal. Anyways, you could always just back up the music on both, or run some type of Raid 1 array (do macs support raid easily?).

 

[annoying bugger]

Well, somehow the transformer malfunctioned and destroyed my computer about a year ago. If this happened again the internal drives would be fried.

What's raid?

 

[3lusiv3]

I have no music on my internal drive. All of it is on an external Firewire drive. It works great for me.

 

[drminky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by annoying bugger What's raid?

stands for: Redundant Array of Independent Drives
aka 'striping' or 'mirroring' disks.

Basically it means using 2 (or more) drives as 1 effective drive, why use 1 drive when you can use 2 for only twice the cost you ask?

..either for speed increase or to protect against data loss, or both, depending on which raid level you use. For data protection 1 drive automatically copies (mirrors) everything that goes onto the other drive, so if 1 fails, you always got a backup. Luckily raid is very simple to set up on a mac and needs no additional hardware (except for the extra drive).

 

[Oliver :)]

Quote:

Originally Posted by IstariAsuka (do macs support raid easily?).

Ai:
http://ohlssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm

 

[justanotheruser]

Cool, I'll give that a try. Do you know where I can find a cable to connect three HDs? The one that came with my mac only has two connectors. Thanks!

 

[3lusiv3]

What's the question?

You wouldn't want to do raid via usb.

Firewire drives connect to each other.

Quote:

Originally Posted by justanotheruser Cool, I'll give that a try. Do you know where I can find a cable to connect three HDs? The one that came with my mac only has two connectors. Thanks!

 

[justanotheruser]

I was just going to install the third HD inside the computer...unless it's a hastle to install a third HD (do I need a PCI ATA adapter or something)? Then I'd just get a firewire enclosure. My tower will have to be replaced with a powerbook when I go off to college so eventually I'll need those enclosures anyway. Too bad the same thing can't be done with PCI cards...I should have gotten a firewire interface instead of this darn Delta 44...what a waste.

 

[3lusiv3]

You can do raid with internal drives too.

 

[justanotheruser]

I know that...but how do you connect a 3rd HD inside a PowerMac G4? There's space for the drive but no 3rd connector...