Tech help please, Prof Hat, JD et al - replacing/swapping ext. hard drives.

Charlie Jefferson

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I've asked this before I believe, and I've just done a (very) cursory online search, but would feel happier in my jittery technophobe state asking someone I can trust.

So here it is: currently got two 500GB HDs which are now both crammed full of music. One backs up the other. The plan is to simply (!) replace each with a 1 or 2TB hard drive.

How do I do this without losing any data or messing up anything? It's all synced to my iTunes library and the drives are external to an iMac (not sure which model, if that has any bearing on proceedings).

Help and advice in the form of a nice, simplified walk through would be much appreciated.

Oh, is there any issue with make/type of drive. My Mac-literate, but non-audio friendly mate says FireWire 800 is the way to go. I currently have one or maybe both drives connected this way.
 

AnotherJoe

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Have you considered a 2-bay NAS connected up to you network such as a synology ds211-j or dlink readynas duo?

Then you wouldnt need to have your pc on when using ipad/iphone or dlna enabled tv/amp/streamer etc.
 

Charlie Jefferson

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No, I haven't considered the NAS option. Not too concerned about computer needing to be on, but what would you say are the other advantages?

Is it easy to transfer my existing 25,000 songs to this set up? I'm not really au fait with how such network storage operates.

Interested though, perhaps.
 

AnotherJoe

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The advantage of a NAS is that everything on your wired/wireless network can access it without your pc being on. (so uses about 30W instead of around 300W).

Instead of having external drives plugged into your computer, a NAS is a neat box that can sit anywhere (as long as its connected to the network).

You'll need a mac person to tell you how you move the iTunes library - but I believe its childsplay.

(Shorten the title of your post - other people may not be replying as website complains the title is 79 chars long when max allowed is 64).
 

John Duncan

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Moving is easy, if it's only your iTunes library on the external drive. Have both drives plugged in at once. Change your iTunes library location to the new drive, and do 'Consolidate library'. Then iTunes knows where it all is.

Dunno about Firewire, I'd probably just get a USB 2 drive, which is easier to find, cheaper and easier to transfer between Mac and PC if you need to (provided it's formated FAT32). Bigboss posted a link to a 1.5TB drive for under 60 quid earlier today...
 

Charlie Jefferson

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Thanks Another Joe and JD, I appreciate your informed and informative answers. I'm going to stick with the Mac into DAC system at the moment. I'll check out the Big Boss link to dirt cheap ext.hard drives. Thanks again.
 

John Duncan

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No probs. If you have 500 gig of music, do the 'consolidate' thing overnight, will take a while. Do you have anything else on the drive?

Note also that a USB drive will probably come formatted NTFS and you will need to format it FAT32 to get the Mac to read it.
 

John Duncan

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Yep. Open up 'Disk Utility' (search for it in finder if it's not on your dock - it's in Applications/Utilities), click on the new plugged-in drive, and click on 'Erase'. Select 'MS-DOS file system' if you want to share it between Macs and PCs, or 'Mac OS Extended (Journaled)' if you'll only ever use it on a Mac.
 

Charlie Jefferson

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Thanks.

Just one more thing(!): I'll be buying two new hard drives to replace the current two. One to back up the other.

You mentioned in your initial post about keeping both drives plugged in, but I'll be dealing with four. Is it simply a case of replacing one pair at a time?

Or is that my simple brain being too simplistic?
 

John Duncan

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Forget about backups for now - use the master of your two drives as the source, and plug in the new master as the target, so you're only worrying about two drives. After all the data's transferred over, then set up your backup routine again. What are you using?
 

Mr Steve

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Charlie Jefferson said:
... My ... mate says FireWire 800 is the way to go. I currently have one or maybe both drives connected this way.

It is most likely that the speed "bottleneck" is going to be in the read / write access times for the (i'm assuming traditional spinning platter type) hard drive and not the data transmission speed possible through either the firewire or USB connection.

If you were using a NAS with multiple disks working simultaneously then there may be a need for a faster "transmission line" than USB.

Otherwise, to just go with the USB connection should not make any difference in speed.
 

Charlie Jefferson

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John Duncan said:
Forget about backups for now - use the master of your two drives as the source, and plug in the new master as the target, so you're only worrying about two drives. After all the data's transferred over, then set up your backup routine again. What are you using?

I'm not formally using anything. I just "manually" drag and drop Master drive onto spare drive. What would you recommend that's a tad more reliable and seamless?
 

John Duncan

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I use Time Machine built into the Mac; it's possible to configure it to backup only particular directories (in this case your iTunes folder, even if it's external). Default is every hour; it only adds changed files so once you've done the first (big) backup, it runs in the background. If you happen to detach the backup drive, it'll catch up next time it's attached.

If the backup drive's big enough, you could also add the rest of your Mac so you can restore any other lost files if your internal drive goes kaput, not just your iTunes library.
 

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