Small Firewire drives for backup---bad idea?

External Since: Sep 02, 2003 Posts: 5

I need to buy an external HD to use strictly for backing up the internal
drive of my FP iMac with Retrospect. Right now I'm using CD-Rs and it
takes forever, plus I've had the nightmare of being on the "last CD
needed" only to hit some bad blanks wasting even more of my time.

I've been eyeing these "pocket drives" type HDs that can supposedly be
powered off the Firewire port and are quite small. Of course, they cost
more (like 2-4x!!) per GB but the convenience of just plugging in one
cable to do the backup is appealing plus it makes off-site storage of
the backup easier to deal with.

What I'm wondering is how reliable these HDs are and does the port
powered feature really work OK? I'm a newbie to Firewire having just
upgraded from a first generation (SCSI only) PMac this spring.

--

Brian Rost
Stargen, Inc.

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External Since: Nov 14, 2003 Posts: 495

In article <3F4A4ECE.8020305.DeleteThis@stargen.com>,
Brian Rost <rost.DeleteThis@stargen.com> wrote:

> I need to buy an external HD to use strictly for backing up the internal
> drive of my FP iMac with Retrospect. Right now I'm using CD-Rs and it
> takes forever, plus I've had the nightmare of being on the "last CD
> needed" only to hit some bad blanks wasting even more of my time.
>
> I've been eyeing these "pocket drives" type HDs that can supposedly be
> powered off the Firewire port and are quite small. Of course, they cost
> more (like 2-4x!!) per GB but the convenience of just plugging in one
> cable to do the backup is appealing plus it makes off-site storage of
> the backup easier to deal with.
>
> What I'm wondering is how reliable these HDs are and does the port
> powered feature really work OK? I'm a newbie to Firewire having just
> upgraded from a first generation (SCSI only) PMac this spring.

I use a 120GB internal disk in a Firewire enclosure as my backup device.
Retrospect Express is my backup utility (I backup to a compressed
container file).

I move the drive between my Pismo (Powerbook G3/500/Firewire), my Wife's
iBook, and a Blue & White G3 (which has a 3rd party PCI firewire card).

As for cost. You can get an enclosure in the range of $50-$80
<dealmac.com>. You can pickup a 120GB internal disk in the price range
of $100 (with rebates) Again look on <dealmac.com>.

These systems are _NOT_ bus powered, but they work nicely. They also
work fast. Much better than burning CDs or DVDs.

I also have a bus powered 2 1/2 external enclosure where I put a 20GB
disk that I removed from the Pismo when I upgraded it to a 48GB disk.
The enclosure is small and it does work well, _BUT_ 2 1/2 disks are more
expensive than 3 1/2 disks, generally have smaller RAM caches, and
generally have slower seek times.

Putting any of the disks into an external enclosure was a painless
operation. Plugging in the Firewire cable is painless. _BUT_ _DO_
_NOT_ unplug the firewire cable or power down the firewire until _AFTER_
you tell Mac OS X to unmount the file system, otherwise it gets rather
upset at you. Just treat it like a floppy and unmount it first before
unplugging or powering down.

Good luck.

Bob Harris