Multiple Hard Drives: one for system & applications, one for backup

Hi jimmh, and a warm welcome to the forums! 🙂

Since I am running OS 10.4.11 and not intending to upgrade to 10.5 at this time for application reasons, I will be using something like Carbon Copy Clone for the backup software (not Time Machine, which requires OS 10.5).

I think CCC is far better than TM.

In perusing the discussions here, it looks like an external drive is always used for the backup. Is this true or would an internal drive work just as well for backup?

Yes, actually better speed wise.

Does the Firewire or USB connection of an external drive offer a greater amount of freedom from potential corruption as opposed to the direct SATA connection of an internal drive?

Not 99.9999% of the time. USB is not only slow, but not bootable by the G5, a Fully cloned drive you can boot from is a great advantage... internal or external.

I realize that burnt DVD’s offer the greatest amount of freedom from corruption...

My experience is the opposite, not only is it easier to destroy optical media, the drives are very short lived for me.

For the internal system drive is there any good reason to partition it?

No, as OSX likes lot's of free space & will do better the more free space it has.

In perusing the discussions here, it looks like an external drive is always used for the backup. Is this true or would an internal drive work just as well for backup?

Yes, actually better speed wise.

I agree but it is better to have an external as a backup. Sometimes failure occurs in the computer hardware and this can take out all attached drives. Then too it is better to have a backup you can physically isolate in case of theft, fire, etc.

I have two internals, but the second one is just expansion space. All my backups are external and kept in the basement (used to keep it at work back when I was employed) when not copying.

I realize that burnt DVD’s offer the greatest amount of freedom from corruption...

My experience is the opposite, not only is it easier to destroy optical media, the drives are very short lived for me.

The media too have a relatively short life unless you get top grade discs. I have some cheapo DVDs and about half of them have verify errors on burning. I have Taiyo Yuden archival and get better results but haven't tested longevity. I have CDs I burned 4 years ago and about 20% have minor read difficulties. Optical media are also hopeless to maintain files you may constantly be tweaking since then you buy lots of single-use discs (forget about backing up on RW discs).

I agree but it is better to have an external as a backup. Sometimes failure occurs in the computer hardware and this can take out all attached drives.

Almost totally agree, but there's always external cases or those Universal USB things, but yes, more than one backup is really a great idea... OSX has become useless here without at last 3+4 backups, & to tell the truth, I never had to reinstall Windows® or reboot it as many times as I have OSX, in fact, I'm switching back, I can't picture ever buying a new Mac from here on out, possibly an older one. 😟

The backup drive is best to be external (security from computer failure).

In some ways yes.

The external backup drive should be connected by Firewire (ability to be bootable & greater speed).

Yes.

Selecting a very frequent automatic backup would require that the backup drive remain connected at all times.

Yes, if external. I use Tri-Backup...

http://www.tri-edre.com/english/tribackup.html

Which can be setup to do the backup mamy different ways only once the drive is connected.

This is almost leading me to think that 3 drives would be the best! One internal for OS system & applications (1 TB), one continually connected for auto backup (my original 74 GB), and one (a bootable clone) attached only during occasional backups (2 TB).

Good thinking. 🙂

I'm perplexed with both your feelings about burnt media. I was not aware of this and fortunately have not experienced problems. However, it is only recently that I gravitated from 700MB CD's to 4.7 GB DVD-RW's for backups. I've been using Maxell

Well that's great, you can't knock what works for you... but its the most unreliable for me here, though a few have been fine for years.

BTW: I tried to quote your messages for this reply..

Easiest way for me is to copy the line(s) you want to quote, put in a blank line/Return, then the > character, Shift + . then paste the copy, use the Preview tab above to see how it looks before submitting.

1) The backup drive is best to be external (security from computer failure).

Yes. I am not sure about the "in some ways" my esteemed colleague qualifies. 🙂

2) The external backup drive should be connected by Firewire (ability to be bootable & greater speed).

Yes. Just beware that some of the Western Digital models have presented problems. Not the drives themselves but the enclosures. [List of Western Digital bootable and non bootable models|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9022456#9022456]

Is a Firewire connected drive any less vulnerable to damage by computer hardware failure than an internal drive?

Yes & no. The yes: I don't know about G5s (they use a different connector from the G4s and earlier with which I am familiar) but in some computers the drives will share the same controller. If the controller goes then all connected drives can be corrupted. The no: Then too, I have had two Firewire drives be corrupted. One was by trying it with a PCI card (not what you're using) that was incompatible with my model computer. The other was when the power source in the enclosure went bad.

This is almost leading me to think that 3 drives would be the best! One internal for OS system & applications (1 TB), one continually connected for auto backup (my original 74 GB), and one (a bootable clone) attached only during occasional backups (2 TB).

The more the better. I usually buy drives in size increments that make sense for my configuration. I have two 120GB internal drives so I bought a 250GB external drive for backup and partitioned it into two so I could just back up one internal to one partition and the second to the other.

I'm perplexed with both your feelings about burnt media. I was not aware of this and fortunately have not experienced problems. However, it is only recently that I gravitated from 700MB CD's to 4.7 GB DVD-RW's for backups. I've been using Maxell

There's backup and there's archiving. Backup is for having a copy of what you're actively using. Archiving is storing stuff that is unlikely to change. Optical media is lousy for backup because files are constantly changing. Backing up a 120 GB onto 4GB media either requires a super organized person or you're spending a day sticking DVDs into your computer.

Optical media is less lousy for archiving, but still not great. Where's the floppy drive on your computer? Where will the DVD drive be in 15 years? It's also a lot faster archiving onto hard drives, and the cost of drives has come down to where the per GB cost is about equivalent of less than high-quality, archival-grade DVDs. Yes, drives change too, but it is also easy to copy from drive to drive. I have items archived on drives that are over 10 years old and as long as I make sure I keep on top of being able to connect those drives to a computer they are usable.

BTW: I tried to quote your messages for this reply, went to "Help" to learn how that is done and found this: "If you want to quote specific text from the original message, click Quote Original to add all the text from the original message to the Message box." I could see no such button "Quote Original". Can anyone please tell me where it is?

There's a '"' icon in the compose window when you type a reply. If I'm doing a lot of quotes (as I did here) I use that, then edit out the bits I don't want. Otherwise I copy and paste the text and add a > before the line to get it to appear in the special format.

Here is my general shopping list advise:

http://www.macsales.com/firewire

Look to see that they have Disk Warrior, download and purchase SuperDuper, and keep your drives cloned, backed up, and repaired.

You can always add more tools later as needed for more flexibility like TriBackup 5, and anything is likely better than Apple TimeMachine (10.5. and later).

Cloning drives is simple, fast, and can be scheduled.

Prevention is worth a pound of cure, hence, use Disk Warrior BEFORE a problem presents itself.