Use one of the 500GB HD in the mac mini server as time machine?

Question

Use one of the 500GB HD in the mac mini server as time machine?

Looking at buying a Mac Mini Server to replace our old 10.3 Xserve,
But was wondering if one of the two 500GB HD's could be used as a time machine back up
of the other HD?

Thanks,
Brad

Mac OS X (10.6.1)

Posted on Oct 27, 2009 4:55 PM

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Answer 1

Dah•veed

Level 9

64,747 points

Oct 28, 2009 11:10 AM in response to colourprintsolutons

That idea should be fine, they are both independent HDDs free to configure as you wish. Is one 500 GB HDD sufficient for your server needs? Is Time Machine the best bet for backing up Server?

Dah•veed

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Answer 2

Oct 28, 2009 3:32 PM in response to colourprintsolutons

Hi

The second HD is empty when you get the Mini. You can easily use it for backup. Just point to it when you run through the setup dialog.

Bob

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Answer 3

Oct 29, 2009 2:15 PM in response to Dah•veed

thanks guys helpful stuff,
500gb is well enough for us, we only use an old 10.3 xserve at the moment, with a 250gb HD

" Is Time Machine the best bet for backing up Server?"

is there any other ways we could back up the drives? we could run a constant external HD from the mc mini server

Brad

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Answer 4

Dah•veed

Level 9

64,747 points

Oct 29, 2009 4:53 PM in response to colourprintsolutons

I believe that you can configure 3rd party utilities, such as CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, to make a scheduled bootable clone.

I use a Newer Technology miniStack v3 as my backup drive. It is available in various sizes up to 2 TB, with 3.5" 7200 rpm HDDs. It is both USB and FireWire with a hub for both to supplement the ports on the mini. It is the same footprint as the mini and sits under it.

Dah•veed

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Answer 5

Nov 4, 2009 12:30 AM in response to Dah•veed

if you configured it as raid 1 you would have a 500gb raid drive (mirrored) and you would not need to run time machine at all.

there are other threads here with info on doing this as well.
you wouldn't get the time machine versioning but you wouldn't get the performance hit either.

(or is it only me, that when i am maxing out the mac doing 8 diff things that time machine decides to start)?

JP

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