I need your advice.

I'm intending to buy an external firewire drive for my Macintosh, to back up
my iPod's contents, as well as any future data. This type of purchase used
to be easy, but I went to CDW (MacWarehouse) they had Hard Drive Arrays,
Hard Drive Cards, Hard Drive Fibre Channel, Hard Drive IDE/ATA/UDMA, Hard
Drive Solid State, Hard Drive USB/IEEE/Paralll and others. I just don't
know what to get any more. I mean, I bought a LaCie 120Gig a year or so ago
and it (knock on wood) has served me well. Do I just buy another or should
I invest in better technology? Are there faster, smarter ways to back up
40+ Gigs of Mac data?

Thanks,

Stu
(who is not in a big hurry, but would like to make a purchase in the next
week or so)

NP: Can You Leave Tonight? / Arduous Trek / Any News, Colonel? / I Want the
Job Done by George Bruns

In article <BF12B076.19867%stumark@earthlink.net>,
Stu Mark <stumark@earthlink.net> wrote:

> I need your advice.
>
> I'm intending to buy an external firewire drive for my Macintosh, to back up
> my iPod's contents, as well as any future data. This type of purchase used
> to be easy, but I went to CDW (MacWarehouse) they had Hard Drive Arrays,
> Hard Drive Cards, Hard Drive Fibre Channel, Hard Drive IDE/ATA/UDMA, Hard
> Drive Solid State, Hard Drive USB/IEEE/Paralll and others. I just don't
> know what to get any more. I mean, I bought a LaCie 120Gig a year or so ago
> and it (knock on wood) has served me well. Do I just buy another or should
> I invest in better technology? Are there faster, smarter ways to back up
> 40+ Gigs of Mac data?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stu
> (who is not in a big hurry, but would like to make a purchase in the next
> week or so)
>
> NP: Can You Leave Tonight? / Arduous Trek / Any News, Colonel? / I Want the
> Job Done by George Bruns

These are your general choices
Firewire 800
Firewire 400
USB 2
NAS - network attached storage

NAS will most likely be the most expensive, and to get the best
performance from NAS you want 1000baseT (Gigibit ethernet), which will
also cost you. But it allows you to have your storage on-line all the
time.

Firewire 800 would be one of the fastest, but will cost more than
Firewire 400.

Firewire 400 is next is cost, will give fairly good performance.

USB 2 (assuming your Mac has USB 2 ports), would be the least expensive.
While officially 480bit/second and on paper faster than Firewire 400,
the Firewire protocol is a more efficient, so Firewire may actually out
perform USB 2. But but but, it will not be that much, and things like
the performance of the disk in the enclosure itself will affect
performance as well.

You can most likely save money by buying your own external USB 2 or
Firewire enclosure and then installing your own EIDE disk drive. Just
make sure the enclosure supports the size disk you intend to put inside.
<http://dealmac.com> for example, just today, there was a 160GB EIDE
disk for $40 after rebate.

Bob Harris

In article <BF12B076.19867%stumark@earthlink.net>,
Stu Mark <stumark@earthlink.net> wrote:

> I need your advice.
>
> I'm intending to buy an external firewire drive for my Macintosh, to back up
> my iPod's contents, as well as any future data. This type of purchase used
> to be easy, but I went to CDW (MacWarehouse) they had Hard Drive Arrays,
> Hard Drive Cards, Hard Drive Fibre Channel, Hard Drive IDE/ATA/UDMA, Hard
> Drive Solid State, Hard Drive USB/IEEE/Paralll and others. I just don't
> know what to get any more. I mean, I bought a LaCie 120Gig a year or so ago
> and it (knock on wood) has served me well. Do I just buy another or should
> I invest in better technology? Are there faster, smarter ways to back up
> 40+ Gigs of Mac data?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stu
> (who is not in a big hurry, but would like to make a purchase in the next
> week or so)
>
> NP: Can You Leave Tonight? / Arduous Trek / Any News, Colonel? / I Want the
> Job Done by George Bruns

These are your general choices
Firewire 800
Firewire 400
USB 2
NAS - network attached storage

NAS will most likely be the most expensive, and to get the best
performance from NAS you want 1000baseT (Gigibit ethernet), which will
also cost you. But it allows you to have your storage on-line all the
time.

Firewire 800 would be one of the fastest, but will cost more than
Firewire 400.

Firewire 400 is next is cost, will give fairly good performance.

USB 2 (assuming your Mac has USB 2 ports), would be the least expensive.
While officially 480bit/second and on paper faster than Firewire 400,
the Firewire protocol is a more efficient, so Firewire may actually out
perform USB 2. But but but, it will not be that much, and things like
the performance of the disk in the enclosure itself will affect
performance as well.

You can most likely save money by buying your own external USB 2 or
Firewire enclosure and then installing your own EIDE disk drive. Just
make sure the enclosure supports the size disk you intend to put inside.
<http://dealmac.com> for example, just today, there was a 160GB EIDE
disk for $40 after rebate.

Bob Harris

Stu Mark wrote:
> I need your advice.
>
> I'm intending to buy an external firewire drive for my Macintosh, to back up
> my iPod's contents, as well as any future data. This type of purchase used
> to be easy, but I went to CDW (MacWarehouse) they had Hard Drive Arrays,
> Hard Drive Cards, Hard Drive Fibre Channel, Hard Drive IDE/ATA/UDMA, Hard
> Drive Solid State, Hard Drive USB/IEEE/Paralll and others. I just don't
> know what to get any more. I mean, I bought a LaCie 120Gig a year or so ago
> and it (knock on wood) has served me well. Do I just buy another or should
> I invest in better technology? Are there faster, smarter ways to back up
> 40+ Gigs of Mac data?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stu
> (who is not in a big hurry, but would like to make a purchase in the next
> week or so)
>
> NP: Can You Leave Tonight? / Arduous Trek / Any News, Colonel? / I Want the
> Job Done by George Bruns
>
I think a firewire LaCie 120 is a perfect solution.

Stu Mark wrote:
> I need your advice.
>
> I'm intending to buy an external firewire drive for my Macintosh, to back up
> my iPod's contents, as well as any future data. This type of purchase used
> to be easy, but I went to CDW (MacWarehouse) they had Hard Drive Arrays,
> Hard Drive Cards, Hard Drive Fibre Channel, Hard Drive IDE/ATA/UDMA, Hard
> Drive Solid State, Hard Drive USB/IEEE/Paralll and others. I just don't
> know what to get any more. I mean, I bought a LaCie 120Gig a year or so ago
> and it (knock on wood) has served me well. Do I just buy another or should
> I invest in better technology? Are there faster, smarter ways to back up
> 40+ Gigs of Mac data?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stu
> (who is not in a big hurry, but would like to make a purchase in the next
> week or so)
>
> NP: Can You Leave Tonight? / Arduous Trek / Any News, Colonel? / I Want the
> Job Done by George Bruns
>
I think a firewire LaCie 120 is a perfect solution.

Stu Mark <stumark@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> I'm intending to buy an external firewire drive for my Macintosh, to
> back up my iPod's contents, as well as any future data. This type of
> purchase used to be easy, but I went to CDW (MacWarehouse) they had
> Hard Drive Arrays, Hard Drive Cards, Hard Drive Fibre Channel, Hard
> Drive IDE/ATA/UDMA, Hard Drive Solid State, Hard Drive
> USB/IEEE/Paralll and others. I just don't know what to get any more.
> I mean, I bought a LaCie 120Gig a year or so ago and it (knock on
> wood) has served me well. Do I just buy another or should I invest in
> better technology? Are there faster, smarter ways to back up 40+ Gigs
> of Mac data?

You don't say what kind of Mac you have.

If you've got a PowerMac and a spare drive bay, your best and least
expensive option is to buy an internal IDE drive and install it inside
the computer.

If you've got some other model Mac (or if you've used up all the drive
bays in a PowerMac) then your next best bet will be a FireWire drive.

If you've happy with the LaCie you've got, by all means go buy another.
Personally, I don't think much of LaCie's quality control, and would
prefer another brand, but you're probably better off trusting your own
experience than what strangers on the internet tell you.

I am a big proponent of tape drives for backup, but a drive that can
store 40G on a single tape will cost a lot, both for the drive and for
the media, so this may not be a viable option for you. (I'm using an
Exabyte VXA-1 FireWire tape drive. I paid $800 for the drive, and blank
33G tapes cost about $50 each. Definitely not a cheap solution, but
one that works very well.)

-- David

Stu Mark <stumark@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> I'm intending to buy an external firewire drive for my Macintosh, to
> back up my iPod's contents, as well as any future data. This type of
> purchase used to be easy, but I went to CDW (MacWarehouse) they had
> Hard Drive Arrays, Hard Drive Cards, Hard Drive Fibre Channel, Hard
> Drive IDE/ATA/UDMA, Hard Drive Solid State, Hard Drive
> USB/IEEE/Paralll and others. I just don't know what to get any more.
> I mean, I bought a LaCie 120Gig a year or so ago and it (knock on
> wood) has served me well. Do I just buy another or should I invest in
> better technology? Are there faster, smarter ways to back up 40+ Gigs
> of Mac data?

You don't say what kind of Mac you have.

If you've got a PowerMac and a spare drive bay, your best and least
expensive option is to buy an internal IDE drive and install it inside
the computer.

If you've got some other model Mac (or if you've used up all the drive
bays in a PowerMac) then your next best bet will be a FireWire drive.

If you've happy with the LaCie you've got, by all means go buy another.
Personally, I don't think much of LaCie's quality control, and would
prefer another brand, but you're probably better off trusting your own
experience than what strangers on the internet tell you.

I am a big proponent of tape drives for backup, but a drive that can
store 40G on a single tape will cost a lot, both for the drive and for
the media, so this may not be a viable option for you. (I'm using an
Exabyte VXA-1 FireWire tape drive. I paid $800 for the drive, and blank
33G tapes cost about $50 each. Definitely not a cheap solution, but
one that works very well.)

-- David