Spinners

[stubbsonic]

Can anyone recommend a reliable brand/model of spinner for time machine back-up? Or is it worth throwing extra cash for a SSD for Time Machine?

My 4TB My Passport spinner just failed on me. It's a back-up, so not a catastrophic loss, just without a safety net at the moment.

I'm in the middle of a long first aid session, and might be able to revive it, but not sure if I'd trust it. It has been in service 24/7 for 16 months. I should probably look at getting else.

I also need a better strategy for configuring time-machine-- i.e., like maybe backing up my sound libraries on a separate drive with a separate process, and exempting them from T.M. Would appreciate any advice about that.

[James Steele]

This isn't the exact model I got... looks like they changed the exterior case, but it is very similar. $120 for 8TB external.

https://www.costco.com/seagate-8tb-desk ... 83571.html

Not sure if you have a Costco near you? They're not very expensive for 8TB. Mine have not failed on me yet. I got them almost 2 years ago. November 2021. I say "them" because with a drive like this, and at this price point, I wasn't going to fully trust it, so I have TWO and Time Machine is set up to alternate backing up between both drives. I felt that gives me enough redundancy that if one of them craps out, I'd be okay. I wouldn't dream of trusting just one of these (or really anything for that matter.)

I haven't kept up on the state of the art on these things. I've seen ads for spinners as large as 22TB these days. But again, I'd always allow for redundancy. Those really high capacity drives like that... 22TB... well that's too many eggs in one basket.

But again.... the Seagate has been okay. Costco ran a special I think with similar 8TB external drive from Western Digital, and so I ended up pairing up two of different brands for Time Machine just because I felt a bit safer that way.

[stubbsonic]

Thanks for that tip. There were some worrying reviews on the CostCo site, but I understand those folks are uniquely motivated to write bad reviews, where many probably just had trouble-free sailing.

They do have them in stock at my local CostCo, so I may pick one up, if I don't hear any cautionary warnings before then.

[James Steele]

They do have them in stock at my local CostCo, so I may pick one up, if I don't hear any cautionary warnings before then.

Well as always YMMV. My cautionary warning would be to repeat what I wrote. I don't think I'd ever trust ONE of these. But I felt good enough about setting two up in tandem alternating backups.

[HCMarkus]

I’ve been using the 8tb external Seagates for years now. No failures as yet. But the sample size is small… six or seven or so.

I concur with James’ redundant drive recommendation.

Note that a powered usb hub may be required once a bunch of usb drives and peripherals are connected.

[James Steele]

I’ve been using the 8tb external Seagates for years now. No failures as yet. But the sample size is small… six or seven or so.

I concur with James’ redundant drive recommendation.

Note that a powered usb hub may be required once a bunch of usb drives and peripherals are connected.

I will add that I was able to daisy chain the two Seagate drives as the earlier version I had acts as a hub and has two USB A ports on the enclosure. From the picture of the updated model at the Costco site, it looks like there's just one. Still it's handy. I think I even attached my iLok there as an experiment and it was no problem.

[stubbsonic]

Thanks a bunch. This is reassuring!!

[mikehalloran]

Can anyone recommend a reliable brand/model of spinner for time machine back-up? Or is it worth throwing extra cash for a SSD for Time Machine?

My 4TB My Passport spinner just failed on me. It's a back-up, so not a catastrophic loss, just without a safety net at the moment.

I'm in the middle of a long first aid session, and might be able to revive it, but not sure if I'd trust it. It has been in service 24/7 for 16 months. I should probably look at getting else.

I also need a better strategy for configuring time-machine-- i.e., like maybe backing up my sound libraries on a separate drive with a separate process, and exempting them from T.M. Would appreciate any advice about that.

I use these. Quiet and have 5 year warranties. My next pair will be 22TB. Right now they’re having a sale 2 for $499.95 for 16TB. I back up six Macs onto these and my 14TB pair is showing the strain.

https://www.westerndigital.com/product ... #WD221KFGX

[James Steele]

Can anyone recommend a reliable brand/model of spinner for time machine back-up? Or is it worth throwing extra cash for a SSD for Time Machine?

My 4TB My Passport spinner just failed on me. It's a back-up, so not a catastrophic loss, just without a safety net at the moment.

I'm in the middle of a long first aid session, and might be able to revive it, but not sure if I'd trust it. It has been in service 24/7 for 16 months. I should probably look at getting else.

I also need a better strategy for configuring time-machine-- i.e., like maybe backing up my sound libraries on a separate drive with a separate process, and exempting them from T.M. Would appreciate any advice about that.

I use these. Quiet and have 5 year warranties. My next pair will be 22TB. Right now they’re having a sale 2 for $499.95 for 16TB. I back up six Macs onto these and my 14TB pair is showing the strain.

https://www.westerndigital.com/product ... #WD221KFGX

I'm sure they're better drives and larger capacity. $500 for two... but you have budget for two external drive enclosures also. Not sure how much that might cost? Maybe $30-40 a piece? I looked on Amazon quickly... but wasn't sure. Round numbers maybe $620 for the pair with tax.

Thankfully I'm only backing up one Mac... not six. I went with the cheaper option because I have about a half-full 2TB internal drive and a 1TB external for my sample libraries. Time Machine does incremental backups until it runs out of space and as I understand it, it starts overwriting the oldest backups first, so that's fine with me. Not sure what the warranty is on the Seagate is? That's why I run two, and actually swapped one for a similar unit from WD to hedge my bets. If one of the drives craps out in a couple years, I get another and toss it in there and move forward.

I guess it really depends on how much space you need and your budget.

[mikehalloran]

I never, never, never, ever connect to TM except Ethernet, WiFi or Thunderbolt … well, eSATA but that's not been available on a Mac since 2012.

Unfortunately, TB Drive docks are very expensive if TB3 or you're looking for used TB1/2. OWC may have one still.

I use WD MyCloud enclosures. The 1st gen supports TimeMachine on each drive JBOD but with the current ones, I can access each drive but only use one for TM.

My son-in-law is going nuts about this Synology unit.
https://www.amazon.com/Synology-4-Bay-D ... ef=sr_1_13

It uses folders for Time Machine in an SHR Hybrid RAID setup that leaves one of the 4 drives unused except as a backup in case there's a problem. The bad drive is disabled; the spare drive is incorporated and the RAID is rebuilt automatically. All that's left is to remove the bad drive and replace it with a new one. Since it's a variant on RAID 1, I'm a little concerned about noise. My son-in-law loves SHR — we'll see...
https://kb.synology.com/vi-vn/DSM/tutor ... h%20drive.

I'm going to try Synology's Folder approach to see if I can get a pair of my 12TB Reds to accept Time Machine in my My Cloud Expert Series EX2 Ultra ($199 empty). If I can, I don't need the Synology in the near future since both of my WD housings are working great.
https://kb.synology.com/en-my/DSM/tutor ... me_Machine

The reason I don't like RAID 1 or RAID 0 is because both drives are spinning simultaneously and I can hear that. JBOD alternating hourly is quieter.

There's a lot of armchair expert nonsense out there about RAID 0. Apple supports it for internal, external storage and TM. If you only have one array, then I agree it shouldn't be used for TM but there's no reason not to have a pair of arrays in a 4-bay NAS box. It must be a NAS box where the RAID array is set in the firmware, however. There is no way that I will ever trust OWC's "soft raid" with my data. Anyway, I could get that Synology box and set up my pair of 14TB drives plus my pair of 12TB units, each RAID 0 for 27 and 23 GB backups (RAID 0 is never twice as fast nor twice as large but it comes close).

[stubbsonic]

I'm just needing a back-up drive for my one MBP which has an internal SSD of 4TB. The CostCo Seagate at 8TB seems like the right size for my needs. But perhaps I look for the 8TB "Red Pro" in an enclosure?

Or perhaps something from OWC?

[cuttime]

WD is having a sale:

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/clearance

[HCMarkus]

If you buy OWC HD, inside will be WD or Seagate

[stubbsonic]

If you buy OWC HD, inside will be WD or Seagate

Ah. Ok. That makes sense. Might as well get the Costco one, in that case (no pun intended).

[James Steele]

If you buy OWC HD, inside will be WD or Seagate

Ah. Ok. That makes sense. Might as well get the Costco one, in that case (no pun intended).

I would just again, reiterate, never trust just one physical drive. When I bought one of those, I bought a pair.