In which there is a problem not unlike seven people travelling by taxi

[serinde]

The Vehicles:
* 600GB internal hard drive
* 750GB hard drive (yclept U-Haul) rescued from Old Gfefx, currently in an external enclosure connected by USB
* [Stuff I Might Buy.]

The Passengers:
* Day to day computering wossnames: OS X, general files and what not
* Perfect archive copies of all my CDs [not extant yet], so I can put the physical media in storage
* MP3s, of which there are Many
* Theoretical: ripped versions of all my DVDs, so I can store them too
* Probable: WinXP partition, because every now and again I do want to re-play Baldur's Gate II or KOTOR
* Backups of all the above

The question is, fundamentally, how to divide up the extant disk acreage in the most sensible, sustainable fashion? E.g., it seems to me that putting the CD archive on the same physical disk as the backup drive means that one is fucked gloriously if the drive eats itself. OTOH, as sweh pointed out, since I will still own the hard copies, it is merely a case of labor, not complete loss.

I could try and stuff all the data onto gfefx' internal hard drive, and just use U-Haul for backups; this should fit everything above easily, I think, unless I do the DVDs, in which case it will be not enough. And then, is connecting via USB solid and quick and reliable for backups? Not to mention that the iMac only has two USB ports, and I do have other USB things I need to plug in from time to time, and there will be more if I succumb to temptation and get an iPhone in the next month. (Yes, I could get a USB hub, but they really do not seem reliable; I have witnessed repeated cases of devices just not being recognized when plugged into one or another.) Firewire seems to be what in The Apple Way is intended for this, but this enclosure supports it not.

Oh, and then there's the question of larger-capacity portability; what if I need to move more data than fits on a flash drive? Should I look into one of those wee portable 75GB things? Do I actually have a need for one, and should I factor it into the architecture?

I still have to decide for sure in what fashion & format I will archive the CDs, but that is outside the scope of the current study; I think the options don't materially affect the above.

Suggestions are solicited, unless it's LOL Y U PLAY GAMEZ, in which case I will slap you with a wet fish.

Comments

[ideological_cuddle]

I have fairly similar requirements and in the end opted for a Firewire 1TB mirrored enclosure (WD MyBook Studio Edition) for media and a spare old disk in a USB enclosure for Time Machine backups of the internal disk.

A mirror is not a backup, of course, but the thing I want to guard against is disk failure not accidental deletion -- I'm willing to take the risk on that as I manage media content either via iTunes or the Finder, so there is the Trash safety-net anyway.

My experience has been that the USB disk used for TM is not hugely reliable and sometimes disappears from the bus. Next time TM runs it's usually OK and continues along its merry way.

The WD enclosure has been quite good so far (I've had it about 18 months now). My only complaint is that it spins the disks down when they've been idle for ten-ish minutes so there's a bit of a delay on access. But it's not unbearable. Firewire has been solid and not any great deal more poorly-performing than the internal.

The internal has OS X, a pile of apps, oodles of scratch space (DVD rips need a lot of temporary room if you're batching them), a ludicrously-huge downloads folder (just checked -- it's a smidge under 250GB -- there's so much space I generally don't bother cleaning that up very often) plus a few XP VMs (one for work, one for the very occasional random personal non-game thing I might want), and a slice hived off for Linux or Windows depending on just how masochistic I'm feeling that month.

For shipping larger amounts of data than a little flash drive will take I have a spindle of DVD-Rs. And an old disk-based iPod.