External Thunderbolt HDD: Time Machine/iTunes/General?

Question

Level 1

31 points

External Thunderbolt HDD: Time Machine/iTunes/General?

I was thinking of treating myself to an external HDD for one of the many uses I need extra space for when it dawned on me that I could use one to do it all. Thunderbolt is a very capable technology, I would like to know though of it can handle having a 2TB iTunes library running through it, with 1TB dedicated to Time Machine and the final 1TB to house an Aperture Library backup?

All running to and from the same external Thunderbolt connected HDD.

Obviously Time Machine would have the greatest demand, generally followed by iTunes, but only rarely would I not want access to Aperture for 48hrs to backup the vault, could a single Thunderbolt connection deal with all of this reliably?

HDD: LaCie 4TB

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/HB314ZM/A/lacie-4tb-d2-usb-30-thunderbolt-seri es-hard-drive?afid=p219%7CGOUK&cid=AOS-UK-KWG-PLA-PLA_UK_BTB

My Mac: iMac 2.7GHz 2011

Posted on Aug 18, 2013 10:24 PM

Reply

Answer 1

nbar

Level 5

7,019 points

Aug 18, 2013 10:41 PM in response to Hamper

You answered your own question with the link. Yes.

This is key:

External power supply

That being said, it is not generally recommended. If you do so, you will want to create multiple partitions. What will you be backing up to TM? it is recommended to have atleast 2X capacity of your TM volume relative to what you are backing up.

Can I use my TM disk for other stuff?

3 TB of your data will need to be excluded from your TM backup (itunes, aperture files). If the disk fails, you will lose your native volume's backup, and your iTunes library. Keep this in mind.

It is supported, yes. It is a stable or recommended configuration, no.

Reply

Answer 2

Rudegar

Level 10

170,622 points

Aug 19, 2013 2:24 AM in response to Hamper

I use an external firewire hd

unless it's hds in raid in the ext box or it's ssd disks then thunderbolt really should not make it faster as the harddisks would be the bottleneck

Reply

Answer 3

Hamper Author

Level 1

31 points

Aug 19, 2013 1:57 PM in response to Rudegar

nbar: I am not prepared to do RAID right now, I know about it, my data is important, but it's just not going to happen. I am looking at another LaCie product which allows for RAID with slows that allow HDDs to be inserted like slices of bread in a toaster, Thunderbolt complaint also, but not yet.

For now I have a surge protector and am looking into getting a UPS. Backing up to a TC has failed in the past, HDDs have failed, but that's life, one dat everything will go into the cloud.

I intended on creating partitians, sorry, I forgot to mention that. I was only going to do a 1:1, my iMac has 1TB capacity, so I only thought of giving Time Machine a 1TB partition, but on reflection maybe you're right, I could half it and use another HDD for the Aperture backup.

Okay, so that's 2TB for iTunes and Time Machine a paiece, so problem.

Rudegar: Bottle necking is an issue, but it's not an SSD, just a HDD, I don't need speed of access, streaming music and backing up at the same time isn't that costly in data transfer.

Reply