Time to get a new Mac and I think we have settled on a 27" iMac. Every Mac I have bought I have been sucked into thinking "wow the hard drive on this thing is huge!". Not this time. I want to set things up to maximize speed and have as few long term problems as possible. Please let me know your thoughts on what is optimal and if my plan makes sense.
I am planning on attaching an external hard drive to the Mac for all media; music, photos, videos, etc. My hope is to keep the hard drive on the iMac from slowing down so the machine continues to be fast. All I really plan on adding to the drive is new programs/ apps. Does this make sense and will it really help?
If the external hard drive helps and I set up a Time Capsule hard drive (which I have yet to purchase) can the Time Capsule drive backup both the internal drive and the external drive? Can my Apple TV then read TC drive? Would a second external drive work just as well as the TC drive under mountain lion?
Any opinions and/or help is appreciated.
I am planning on attaching an external hard drive to the Mac for all media; music, photos, videos, etc. My hope is to keep the hard drive on the iMac from slowing down so the machine continues to be fast. All I really plan on adding to the drive is new programs/ apps. Does this make sense and will it really help?
That's exactly how I run/ran my iMac. I really like that system. My main HD recently crapped out on me but at least all my data was safe on another drive.
Keep the external for backup, the USB2 connection is the bottleneck for speed in this scenario. Return the Time Capsule. For optimal performance and storage, order the iMac with the 2TB internal and then have an SSD installed behind the optical drive on the secondary 6Gbps SATA hard drive interface. This will give you both speed and storage.
__________________ Apple Certified Macintosh Technician (ACMT) / Support Professional (ACSP) MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012) 8GB RAM, 256GB Flash Storage Mac mini (Late 2012) 16GB RAM, Fusion Drive (128GB SSD/750GB 7200RPM) iPad mini 16GB, iPhone 4S 16GB
Keep the external for backup, the USB2 connection is the bottleneck for speed in this scenario. Return the Time Capsule. For optimal performance and storage, order the iMac with the 2TB internal and then have an SSD installed behind the optical drive on the secondary 6Gbps SATA hard drive interface. This will give you both speed and storage.
This makes a lot of sense if you're looking for speed. An even greater impact would be to load up on RAM. The more the better.
Also, now might not be the best time to buy, unless you're looking at the refurbs. Aren't the iMacs due for an update soon?
This makes a lot of sense if you're looking for speed. An even greater impact would be to load up on RAM. The more the better.
100%! 8GB for sure, 16GB inexpensive ($100) at the moment.
__________________ Apple Certified Macintosh Technician (ACMT) / Support Professional (ACSP) MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012) 8GB RAM, 256GB Flash Storage Mac mini (Late 2012) 16GB RAM, Fusion Drive (128GB SSD/750GB 7200RPM) iPad mini 16GB, iPhone 4S 16GB
I am planning on attaching an external hard drive to the Mac for all media; music, photos, videos, etc. My hope is to keep the hard drive on the iMac from slowing down so the machine continues to be fast. All I really plan on adding to the drive is new programs/ apps. Does this make sense and will it really help?
This is how i've had it setup for years. Not sure if this helps it terms of speed, but i do it for convienence. Everytime i get a new mac, i have all my media ready to go, without copying it all over to a new Hdd.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mmp
If the external hard drive helps and I set up a Time Capsule hard drive (which I have yet to purchase) can the Time Capsule drive backup both the internal drive and the external drive?
1) If you have the budget, go Thunderbolt for an external drive. USB2 is quite slow by modern standards, and the iMacs don't have USB3 yet. WD has a good 4TB desktop thunderbolt drive.
2) An AppleTV cannot stream content stored on a Time Capsule. The AppleTV can use the wireless LAN from the TC to stream from the internet or iTunes cloud.
3) If you only have the iMac in the house, the Time Capsule isn't that useful, an external hard drive would do just as well. The TC is more useful for multiple computers, especially over WiFi for notebooks.
4) A very flexible alternative to the TC (and actually not that much more expensive), is to buy the cheapest Mac Mini you can find that will run Lion or ML (used or refurb) and install OSX server on it (20$ from the App store). The mini can host Time Machine backups for the whole network, run iTunes to stream to AppleTVs and do a host of other things like remote access and network shares. And unlike a TC, it's easy to add more storage to a Mac Mini. Run Crashplan on it to backup to a remote PC (I do it reciprocally with a friend), and all your backups are covered even if the house burns down.
I'm coming in a bit late here, but if it was my choice, I'd get a good sized Thunderbolt HDD hard drive with the idea of partitioning it for various usage that suits your use.
Their availability and options have increased and the prices have come down.
And if the budget is tight, nothing less than a FW 800 drive, and forget any overpriced Time Capsule or cheaper USB external drives unless USB eSATA 3.0 is a viable but also a somewhat dubious option.
If and when you need more space, just add another Thunderbolt or FW 800 drive.
Best new Mac setup?
Linear Mode
