Networked Storage - For Mac, At Home, With Dummies
 

I am looking at external primary storage for my new Mac Mini. The Mac's internal HDD will be replaced with a 60 GB SSD (plus 8 GB DRAM!), so all data needs to be stored externally.

I want:
- something redundant, so that a hard drive failure will merely require plugging in a replacement drive, rather than restoring from backup.
- smart enough that the hard drives need not be matched, one can be a 500 GB and the other a newer 1 TB, etc.
- fast enough that the Mac won't feel sluggish in iPhoto, iTunes, etc. The Mac gives me a choice of USB 2 or Ethernet.

What do you all like? If I choose an Ethernet (NAS) device, do I have to futz with Mac OS to get it reading my libraries right, or is it very simple?

This isn't going to be backup storage, that will remain single external drives via Time Capsule and other backup software.

I only use Time Capsule for back up.

I have my Pics, Movies and iTunes on a 2TB external drive and its not sluggish

In fact my Apple TV streams from the external drive through the iMac and to the Apple TV with no lag at all.

I have one of these that works well. I use it with Time Machine for backups and all my photo storage. You can also stream media from it to an Xbox and use it with IP based cameras to dump photos to.

StorCenter ix4-200d Desktop Network Attached Storage by Iomega.

The type of redundancy you are looking for is Raid 5.

The smallest drive will determine the size. You can build a redundant array from 250, 500 and 750 GB drives and your total will be 750GB, not 1.5 TB

The ix4 is pricy compared to the ix2 line. the ix2 uses 2 drives and the ix4 uses 4 drives.

I use an ix2 for my business with an external USB drive to also do a nightly backup. You can configure it so that you have daily backups which can keep up to 7 past days. I take the Friday backup and save it as a weekly backup. I then save one per month for a monthly backup. I wish I could automate this part...

The Iomega units works with both PC and Mac systems, even intermixed. I inistalled an ix2 for my sister and her kids have a mixture of Macs and PCs. I installed the backup software so that each computer will backup the files to the stor center once a week. Timemachine is built into the Macs. Windows XP and up have backup software. Iomega also provides a backup software.

Neither the ix2 or the ix4 can have "random" drives installed. But a single drive failure will not lead to a loss of data. The Iomega units are appliances. You install them, and they work. And the price is right.

Did some reading, apparently the Netgear ReadyNAS 2x is smart enough to construct a redundant RAID from non-matched drives, and to rebuild said RAID when a replacement non-matching drive is plugged in. Using only two drives. It is something proprietary to Netgear I think?

So the next thing is, suppose I have my libraries on the NAS device, can TimeMachine on the Mac back up the NAS volume to an external drive? I've only ever used TimeMachine to back up a volume located on the same Mac that TimeMachine is running on.

yes

Well, it sounds like a go then.

This is an upgrade of my ancient G5 iMac that, while still working, is sadly overtaxed. It will be moved to some secondary use.

I chose the Mac mini with the idea of driving dual monitors. Turns out that driving old VGA monitors from the Mac mini's mini-Displayport and HDMI outputs does not work well, I have the right adapters but the results are flakey. So, two 21.5" DVI widescreen monitors are on their way. Gonna spray the bezels silver to match the Mac.

The next reason for the mini is because I'm going to plug in 8 GB DRAM and a 64 GB SSD, so no reason to get a more oomphy iMac. The machine should be plenty fast with those mods.

Finally, I may wall mount the monitors and stick the mini under the desk, with wireless KB/mouse, for the cleanest work surface.

The home IT has been sorely in need of updating.

No, it's always been this way. As long as the target drive can accommodate the space required for the stripe, you're OK. Certain vendors have restricted rebuild operations to matched drives for safety and performance reasons. Some still do.

It's really only partly a function of the hardware, and then the rest is the controller coordinating the RIS sector on the drives. As long as there is a place for the RIS sector, and the data contained in the stripe it will work.

Ah, okay. Thanks.

Oh, and no WD drives are going in the NAS device.

I've had si many failures, it is time to try a different brand (got lots of help from the prior thread, thanks again).

Btw, I used Migration Assistant to recreate the old iMac's user accounts, settings, data, etc on the mini. And promptly found some problems. Several AVI files in iPhoto failed to come over. Who knows what other glitches there are. So I have to make a last backup of the old iMac's data.

Next time try Clonezilla, it will make a perfect copy. Even works on encrypted drives.

Clonezilla - About

It just cloned my work hard drive to an SSD on Friday, was plug and play using that program.

The reason I didn't use a cloning app is because I'm migrating from a G5 iMac on Leopard to an Intel Mac mini on Snow Leopard. Would a literal copy of the iMac's HDD really work in the Mac mini?

Should be fine, anything new or removed will be corrected during the bootup. That's a plug and play kernel on Leopard. Then you could just update after that. The software is free and it's probably worth a try.

I set up all my new boxes the same way.

I use SuperDuper.

Okay, that is a lesson learned for me. Migration Assistant worked okay enough, but was not perfect. Had to try a couple times, then the glitches.