Time Capsule or Western Digital 2TB My Book Studio II

[bigbaby]

Hi All

New Mac user, loving every minute so far...

Looking for some advice please.

I'm looking for a backup solution for my new Macbook Pro. It has a 500GB internal hard drive which currently stores all my music and photos. In addition I have two external HD's (1TB each but not yet full) which stores all my movies and TV shows. These two externals connect directly to my TV via USB which allows me to watch the video files stored on them on the big screen (I also have 720p blu ray files which play directly on the TV in highdef so it's really handy).

I'm wondering whether to go for a Time Capsule to backup my macbook pro and keep my two externals for my video files. Or, do I go for the 2TB my book studio II, partition it for my macbook pro backup, move my music and photos onto it (if I did this how will this affect itunes??), and the rest for the video files.

The benefit of the my book option is that I can keep it plugged into the TV to watch video, then lug the MBP over to it each time I need to transfer a file, hook it up via firewire, and off I go (handy for large high-def files). However I'm not sure whether the HD format used for mac (MacOS extended or whatever its called) can store large files exceeding 4GB (I know FAT32 cant). And not sure if I can partition part of the drive for movies in NTFS.

The Time Capsule is good because of the wireless backup via time machine, but it does not appear you can connect it via USB to anything (except a printer or another HD).

Sorry for war and peace, wanted to get all the facts down!!!

Thanks

[fangpyre]

Welcome to the Mac and to the site.
To backup using TimeMachine u need any hard disk that is HFS formatted.
HFS can handle anything NTFS can, and then some.

Another option you might enjoy is to use one of your hard disks and connect it to an Airport Extreme.
This is essentially the same as the Time Capsule sans the hard disk.
You'll find the price difference is big, and the versatility a relief.

Also, when connecting to the Time Capsule or Airport Extreme, you can't use USB.
These are network devices, so it makes more sense to use an ethernet cable if u don't want to connect via wireless.
This is much faster than USB.

[bigbaby]

Thanks, good advice. I presume I can format to HFS through the disk utility in Mac OSX (have not played around too much with it). I think I will go for a Airport Extreme. Reading about the issues with time caps. Plus as you mentioned the versaltility.

If I can connect a USB hub to the Airport Extreme and have multiple HD's connected to it, that would be perfect - or am I just asking for too much!!??

[fangpyre]

To my knowledge it should work.
But I have never tried it.

If it does, they will separate devices, not 1 uniform device.

Make sure you have a FAT or NTFS drive for your TV connection.
I seriously doubt it will read HFS.

[bigbaby]

Thanks, I'm off to get an airport extreme.Will keep the current drives in NTFS (which what they are in now).

[fangpyre]

I think the airport extreme will require the ones connected to it to be HFS.

[bigbaby]

You're spot on! Regardless I was going to get an airport extreme (I've noticed my wifi is also a lot faster through it). But now my problem is that one of my externals is NTFS, which the APE will not read, the other is FAT32 which it does read. (also using a USB hub works perfectly, each (compatible) drive shows up individually).

Simple answer would be too format the NTFS one to HFS+ however then my TV will not read the files (I tried this out with a USB stick formatted in HFS). Someone mentioned streaming the files to the TV via PS3 or the TV's built in DLNA functionality using media server software. However I tried this and most of them dont allow the streaming of MKV files, the ones that do the quality is very poor.

I can only think to re-format to FAT32, then split all the files that exceed 4GB to ensure they can be stored! Or just leave as is and transfer them over to the drive using good old usb.

[fangpyre]

Why not format that NTFS to HFS.
This way you get full acces to it from the Mac and APE.
It wil be able to hold anything above 4GB, as well as double as a Time Machine backup.

[bigbaby]

because I need it connected directly to my TV via USB so I can play blu-ray /hi-def video on the big screen. The TV wont read HFS formatted drive.

[michl]

Personally I would never use the same hard disk for Time Machine backup and, well, other usage. Time Machine can be finicky about those things... And the last thing you want is a corrupted backup!

Best is to keep one drive for backup only, and another for TV media. That way you won't have to lug anything around, and you'll have more flexibility in terms of upgrading either. Not to mention the peace of mind to know you have the safest setup.

It will also allow you to reformat the backup drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), aka HFS+, and enjoy better performance and reliability than with NTFS, while keeping the media drive as NTFS so the TV can read it.