Looking for this type of Ext HD...

ScottW

ScottW

Founder
Staff member
Okay...

I'm tossing aside my VXA drives and tapes to go with a different backup solution. Rarely if ever do I pull information for historical reporting purposes from tape, and the process of backing up and swapping tape sets and what not, is such a burden (ha) for me, that it keeps me from actually doing backups on a regular basis like I'd want to.

My GOAL here is use Retrospect to backup my systems (Mac, Windows & Linux) to a single FW External Drive off my Mac. Seems simple enough.

Here is where the hangup is... and my lack of knowledge of current solutions...

I need to maintain an onsite and offsite backup. I don't want to fork out cash for two seperate, less than 120GB external drives. I'd rather have one "enclosure" that allows for easy swapping of the physical HD... so two physical HD's, one external enclosure... with an easy (prefer non-screwdriver) solution. I store HD #1 offsite, and HD#2 onsite, and swap those out on a regular basis.

What current external solution would meet my criteria, or close to it?
 
Hey... thanks for the link. That is what I was looking for. Now I just have to weigh whether or not to get two lowercost drive/enclosers ($159) range or buy one of these monsters... then I can put any HD into it. Which is kinda nice.

Hmmm...

Oh, to answer your question... I have an 17" iMac... so can't fit a second drive into it. I keep one drive (tape set in my current case) in a Safety Deposit box (offsite). So I need something that I can just swap out at the bank.
 
Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just buy two firewire enclosures instead of one hot-swapping one?
 
In theory yes. Well, okay, in reality yes. It would be cheaper. The things you need to think about though is, will the full enclosure fit into the safety deposit box? (meaning, do I have to upgrade my box so it would fit?) What additional cost is that if necessary.

But the advantage, and what I like about the swappable drive option, is that I can use other IDE drives I have just sitting around as potential backup drives or just storage solutions for whatever I deem necessary at the time.

If I was looking solely at upfront cost, two seperate lower cost drives would be the ideal solution. However, I am also looking at forward moving costs, if I needed a bigger drive down the road, or just a 30B for something random, it has the most flexibility and becomes a potentially cheaper solution cost wise, as you use it for more duties. The flexibility allows it.
 
Oh well, i bought a DIY firewire box and just put in one of my old drives. If I would need to upgrade it, I would ge the old drive out and put a new drive in. If you don't buy some sort of expensive, shiny, welded-shut case, any firewire enclosure can be unscrewed and the disk swapped. Not something you would want to do several times a day with my model, but you can upgrade easily once a year.
You could also think about a swappable drive bay in one of your machines. They generally do not add much extra's to the IDE disk, just a module at the back and a handle at the front and of course the drive bay in you computer. You could backup through your internal network to the drive bay in your PC and have several IDE disks to swap.
 
Yes, I could use a drive bay in the winblows box, and even have those hot-swap trays in it as well, and run Retrospect on it, and backup my machines to it. Which I have done in the past, and is kinda nice.

Again, this solution is a great idea, and one I actually spent 3 minutes thinking about. However, the disadvantages are:

1) It's Windows, the drives would have to be formatted as windows. I hate windows.
2) Money invested in those drives ties me to having a "Windows solution" available to perform backups. We know how reliable Windows is.
3) It is not "cross platform".

With the FW external encloser, I can hook it up to my windows box or my Mac and have multiple drives, two for my backup drives, and another to store misc files on a windows formatted drive and move the ext encloser over to the Windows box. This allows for huge amounts of flexibility, or even hooking up a drive for my Linux box directly, not just for backup purposes.

The upfront cost is more, but the amount of flexibility it provides is almost limitless.

I could probably buy 3 complete, drive/enclosure solutions,120GB and still be lower than the upfront cost of this hot-swap solution. However, that is three enclosures now I'd need to have, that is more desk space (even if two where only available at any given time), two power outlets (I've already created a fire hazard (ha)) and I am forced into a situation in which any drive swapping requires a screw driver.

That means that the flexibility of the standard enclosures drops, because of the time and effort to swap them out, and get them back, to perform backups, becomes a burden, much like swapping a tape that is full. The physical act, not very long, but when you want to run it at night while you sleep and have it complete in the morning, or you want to set it up just before bedtime to run properly, you are looking at a larger deal (espeically when your tired) opposed to just swapping out a HD that would take a minute and be done.

I know, I've already convinced myself that the above solution is what I am looking for... now I am just justifying it. ;)
 
Well, that's settled then... :D

Just out of sheer curiosity, would it be very impractical/undoable in current setup to mount a drive in the drive bay in the Windows machine remotely from your Mac or Linux box and hence have it formatted any way you like? I'm not quite sure whether this could be done straightforwardly...
 
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