Trouble with External HD in Computer Setup

[hatari]

Hi. I ripped all my CDs and then had two hard drive crashes - luckily data was recovered. I have a headless Mac Mini and had an external HD. The problem I faced with this was always having to "eject" the HD, and I think my lack of attention to this resulted in the crashed drives. Is there any way to set up a mini with an external hd, power it up by pressing the "on" button on the mac mini, leaving the HD on all the time and never having to eject the HD when shutting down the mini?

 

I have ripped everything AIFF so it can't fit on the internal HD. That would be ideal, internal HD holds everything, external is only there for occasional backup.

 

I toyed with the idea of getting a Drobo S, but comments on speed etc are refocussing my attention on getting a smaller setup done right.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

[sidssp]

I have been using a pair of WD MyBook Studio 1TB on my Mac Mini for 10 months now and I have never needed to eject them or turn them off.

 

What HD do you have? Is it possible they are FAT32 formatted?

 

 

 

[hatari]

What is FAT32? I bought them from the Mac Store (can't recall the brand, but they were the recommended ones, ready to use with Mac). Did you re-format the WD MyBooks before using them? Is one a backup hooked up by USB, and the other an Ethernet link? Is the ethernet to your wireless network, or is it wired to the computer you use to link to your DAC?

 

Thanks sidssp - appreciate it.

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Check out the DataTale 4-bay external enclosure.

 

http://oyendigital.com/hard-drives/store/RS-M4QO.html

 

It is even easier than a Drobo. configuration is done via dip switches on the back. Speed is not an issue as it allows several direct connection options.

 

[RayW]

Chris,

 

I'm thinking about getting a RAID 5 with Firewire, so I checked this out. They offer it without disk drives or with WD green drives. I just read about the issues with green drives and RAID in the QNAP TS-459 thread, so I asked OyenDigital for their opinion. Here's what they said:

 

My question:

> WD recommends against using desktop drives in a RAID because of deep recovery cycle - See WD Answer ID 1397. Yet you sell the DataTale 4-Bay with WD desktop drives. What is your position on this issue?

 

--------------------------

Hello Ray,

 

Regarding WD's hard drive compatibility issue, we are aware of this note for a period of time. We have also consulted with WD to ask the TLER in more detail, but WD did not address this issue to us per our request. We find that only WD raises the issue of different version of HDDs when applied to RAID systems. We have not encountered any problem when using WD desktop drives HDDs in the DataTale RAID series. However, since WD has raised this issue, you can certainly purchase the RAID enclosure and install any drives that you wish, such as Enterprise drives or another manufacturer's drives.

 

Please let us know if you have further questions.

 

Regards,

 

Steve / Customer Support

Oyen Digital LLC

4668 Bald Eagle Ave

Saint Paul MN 55110

Phone: 866-768-0659

Email: [email protected]

-----------------------------------------

So I'm still not sure what to do.

 

Ray

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Ray - Thanks for the information. I would purchase the DataTale driveless and order either Seagate or Hitachi drives. Done and done. On to the next thing which is listening to music. In other words, don't sweat the small stuff. Use different drives and call it a day :~)