I Tunes Backup


After loading about 500 CD'S I started to think about a way to back up My music. I have my music on a external hard drive now, [ a Mac Mini system ] I see most of you have either a second hard drive or a raid system for backup . I also thought about that way to go but went another way and picked up a external DVD burner and make backup DVD duel layer disk's . I think this is a little simpler for me to do than set up a raid system i know it may be a pain to load all the data back on to a new hard disk when it fails but. I want to know if anybody else is doing this or do you just have several hard drives or a raid set up. Any thoughts on backing up your music for now I own all the CD'S I ripped to the hard drive but that may change [ download , library , friends CD'S ] thanks for your thoughts Marc
lake513

Showing 4 responses by macdadtexas

I repeat, look at a Drobo, look it up on CNET. It's the idiots version of RAID, couldn't be easier. No back up needed, it is it's own backup.
Not if the external drive fails and needs to be replaced. Also, you are limited by the size of the drive you are backing up. You use the Drobo as an external drive, it has virtually no size limit, and acts as it's own back up, no need to use additionaly software to back everything up, and no need to take up any other disc space with it.
I bought a Drobo and Drobo Share which is basically infinite storage with self-contained back up. I have pathed my iTunes there, and it currently has 4TB drives in it. That gives me 3.2 TB of storage, and backs it all up. If any of the drives fails, Drobo tells you to replace it, and you just plug in a new one. I don't back anything up past this, because it backs it all up internally. Really a great invention.
Synthfreak, I own a Mac and I am well versed in Timemachine, Drobo is not backup, but redundant storage. It's not cheap initially, but in the long run as external drives fail, as every one I have had over the years has, it is MUCH cheaper. SATA drives, which DROBO takes, are extremely cheap and continue to fall in price with every larger capacities. As an example, if you put in (4) 1TB drives you will get approx 3.2 TB of storage space, and all of it is backed up on itself and secure. If 2 or 3 of the drives were to fail at once, you still have all of your data. If all 4 of your drives were to fail at once, there is something majorly wrong and you have bigger problems than data storage.

If you want to keep your iTunes secure, I know of no better way to do it. Also, if you have a very large collection you don't need to go to a RAID area to mirror 1 TB plus drives, or use the HD on your computer at all. iTunes allows you to easily path the library to the Drobo where it resides for all time without taking up any space on your computer. If any of the drives fail, the Drobo tells you to swich them out, and they are hot swapable.

Once again it's not a backup, it's a way to secure your iTunes, or any data file for that matter, without having to have mirror data files.