[Tiresias]

Looking for a backup plan for all my media in case of theft or damage. Any recommendations?

[scotth_uk]

Hi Tiresias,

If you are looking to protect against theft, I'd say you have two options:

1) Network Attached Storage, which could be placed/hidden somewhere in your house/apartment, away from the main machine yet still accessible via the network.

Plenty of manufacturers make devices like this, including Lacie, however in my opinion they all seem to have some limitation which irritates me. Prices in this space haven't become super competitive either.

2) Directly Attached Storage, which you could bring out, plug in, update and then put away or hide again.

Any USB/FW400 (and perhaps FW800, depending on your Mac) device ought to do this job. You could buy a cheap external drive + enclosure and build it yourself - or you could buy a manufactured solution such as the Western Digital My Book series of devices. Prices are really competitive with these devices and there's a lot to choose from.

If you are looking to add a further level of protection to your data, you could get a device that supports disk mirroring (RAID1). It will contain two internal disks, and every time you write to the device, it will write a copy to both disks. A very safe approach to data storage.

You've not mentioned how much space you'd like, so I'll point you in a couple of directions.

Western Digital make a few different models: WD External Drives Overview

Maxtor also have quite a range:
Maxtor Solutions | For Home & Home Office

(If money was no object, a device like the WD Mybook II 1 TB edition would be great, as you could split it into a 500GB RAID1 configuration)

[Leonard]

I'd suggest a nice external Firewire HD that you can unplug after doing your backup.

Another more expensive alternative might be an external network HD (ethernet HD) which connects via ethernet network which would allow you to run an ethernet cable betweem your HD and your computer so that you could have the HD in a closet or something. Not sure how long of an ethernet cable you can have as I've never used a network HD. Maybe you could also have it connected to a wireless router and have the router and HD in a closet.

[SLiMeX]

Seagate!

[tooki]

I have two 300GB Seagate Pushbutton Backup drives (they're FW400 & USB 2) which work fine. The BounceBack Express backup software they include is a bit unpolished, but it does do the job.

I am also a big fan of Other World Computing's higher-end drive housings, which you can get with drives, or empty to put in a drive of your choice. I'd definitely go with Seagate drives.

tooki

[Tiresias]

Thanks for the advice. I'll look into some of those options.

>You've not mentioned how much space you'd like.

I'm thinking mainly of the irreplacable baby photos of my daughter (I have about 3000!) and about six years worth of writing. This stuff doesn't take up much diskspace, but I'd totally flip out if I lost it. The computer itself means nothing compared with the sentimental value of the data on it, but a thief will take both and probably just delete the latter.

I've also got 12GB worth of music, but then, that's all on CD, and so not so much of a concern.

I wouldn't mind just burning stuff to disk... but then, CDs are not usually rewritable, and it'd be a real headache trying to keep up-to-date.

The activity monitor tells me that I'm using 33 GB of my 80GB PowerBook harddisk. I guess about 30 GB would be more than enough for my purposes.

What do you think of the LaCei hard-drives they have at apple.com?

[iMacfan]

Well, for the very important stuff, especially if it doesn't take up too much space, I'd burn it to a couple of sets of CD/DVDs, and keep one set off site.

If you're interested in an external HD, I'd make sure that it has Firewire, as you can boot from it on a mac, which you can't do with USB. At the very least it helps with potential uses in the future.

David

[iMacfan]

Oh, and I wouldn't get a LaCie - I've just heard too many scare stories.

[Leonard]

I've heard a few LaCie horror storries too, but then again, you're only going to hear the horror stories. I've got 3 external LaCie Firewire/USB drives for backup/emergency use at home and they all have worked great. The Lacie Pocketdrive saved my computer a few weeks back. I had to boot from it to fix my startup drive directory with Disk Warrior which had become corrupted.

[tintin220]

I like the ministack v2s

They have a nice form factor, are convenient, and look like they would fit well beneath an iCurve (or an Elevator)

[art_director]

I've used desktop externals and I've used minis for portable backup / storage. IMO you get what you pay for with external drives. I've gone the cheap route and I've gone the expensive route. To date the cheap drives have all failed while the expensive drives have not.

I've never owned a LaCie drive but have been impressed with the design and fit & finish of their drives. I've heard glowing reviews and nightmare stories related to their drives. I suppose that's the curse of success.

My favorite drives, by far, are the G-RAID drives from G-Technologies. They're expensive but they're solid. Also, when I had a question, G-Tech tech support responded to my email query within an hour.

[iMacfan]

Another suggestion is the Western Digital Mybook Pro - they seem to be the only manufacturer to make 500Gb and 250Gb flavours with USB/FW AND FW800. Also, the design looks great and at least here in the UK they're cheaper than the Seagate ones of the same size without FW800. Don't have one yet, but I've only seen positive reviews. Just don't get the dual drive 1TB option - apparently that sounds like a jet engine.

David

[Madrag]

I've had external Lacie and never had any problems with them.
I recommend them.

[minimalistmatt]

I have 2 Lacie 250gb porsche d2 drives and one has died on me. In the last 6 months it has worked off and on, For example if I started up my system from cold it would usually work, but if I put my powerbook to sleep for 10 mins and then woke it from sleep the drive wouldn't mount. I'd usually have to turn it off and wait until next day before it would work again.

Because of this issue, I think the drive has some problems from overheating. The enclosure is really tight with no fan etc. I did have them on top of each other about a year ago, although I soon corrected this. My drive is about 3 yrs old (1 yr out of warranty ). One thing I don't care for is how flush and perfectly sealed the drive is. My drive always powered on okay but wouldn't reliably spin up, which made me think it could be a loose connector or something - however the way its made there's no easy way to get through the case

I have just ordered 2 mybooks to use with my one good lacie drive, although my previous experience of Western Digital is not great -( I bought a 120gb caviar 4 years back for an imac - it died in less than 8 weeks !) I trust them again as the pro mybook has a 3yr warranty.

I upgraded my powerbooks drive with a seagate 120gb drive some time ago, they have 5 yrs warranty which makes them seem like the best choice, but they are quite expensive and I remember seeing in the forum others had issues with their fans not going silent on the desktop FW models, hence I've plucked for WD this time.

I wish Toshiba or Hitachi would try a consumer friendly desktop firewire drive though like the 'mybook' I may need them in 3 yrs !!

I personally wouldn't buy LaCie again unless their warranty was extended ! They do look good though. I really wished they would let you see which manufacturer drive you were getting, does anyone know if this is possible. When I first got them I thought it would show in System profile, but I was being far too naive

[kcmac]

I just purchased a ministack and set it on the base of my iMac. It looks perfect there and is quick and silent. The extra usb and firewire ports are really nice as well. I will definitely be purchasing a few more of these in the future.