Apple 24" iMac, Airport Extreme base station setup

[TangoJuliet]

Ok, I am planning on buying a 24" iMac when Leopard comes out but want to start planning on the setup.

I currently have (2) WD 500GB SATA drives that I want to use in an enclosure (RAID) for time machine. What would be the best enclosure for this? I would prefer something not too big and kinda quiet.

Second, with the Airport I want to add a 1TB external drive to it and keep all my music and videos on there so it can be accessed by other devices such as notebooks, apple tv, etc if I choose to add in the future. Which 1TB drive should I go with? Are the WD My Books any good? This is my first time using a mac....is putting the music and videos on the external drive pretty easy and can I set restrictions on who can edit, modify, delete the files that are on there?

For example, I have a bunch of TV shows and tons of music on my computer now. I would like to move it all to the 1TB external drive connected to the airport so that I can access it all through my itunes. Then my wife (with her notebook) take whatever music she wants and add it to her itunes. Is that possible/make sense?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Kaido]

RAID enclosure

Airport enclosure

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: Kaido
RAID enclosure

Airport enclosure

Thanks, I think you recommended that RAID enclosure in my other thread but some people said it was a bit noisy.

The airport enclosure looks really cool but I was hoping to get the enclosure and drive together. I dont have a 1TB drive and havent looked at the prices for an OEM drive lately. I think the WDs are around $300. That enclosure is about $120 + the drive or $549 with a 1TB included.

 

[TheStu]

1TB drives (was looking at them last night) are around $350 or so. Conversely, a 750GB drive is right at $200, weird huh?

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: TheStu
1TB drives (was looking at them last night) are around $350 or so. Conversely, a 750GB drive is right at $200, weird huh?

Yeah that is a little strange. I guess if I went with a 750GB + that enclosure I would be looking at around $320 for it. Its been awhile since I researched any HDDs....is the Seagate 750GB still one of the better drives or has something else come out that is better?

Also, what about this as a solution? Price is $320 shipped.
WD

Also, does the airport extreme work with PCs as well? I was thinking about buying it now and getting it setup for when I get the iMac. I currently only have a notebook, tivo, x360 and wireless printer connected to the router (all wireless).

 

[TheStu]

From what I have heard, the Xbox360 and the Airport Extreme do not always get along. I have heard 2 reasons for this
1: Apple hates Microsoft and therefore intentionally nerfed connectivity to the XBox360
2: The 360 actually has trouble connecting to any and all nWireless Routers.

That MyBook looks like a winner... the only thing I would be hesitant about is if it only allows for RAID 0 setups... Hard Drives fail, it is a question of when and not if, and as such I personally do not like the idea of that much storage without some sort of redundancy.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: TheStu
That MyBook looks like a winner... the only thing I would be hesitant about is if it only allows for RAID 0 setups... Hard Drives fail, it is a question of when and not if, and as such I personally do not like the idea of that much storage without some sort of redundancy.

I wonder if in the enclosure its a single 1TB drive or (2) 500GB drives? It looks pretty big to be a single drive. I'll do some research and check it out later.

Interesting about the x360 and the airport....i guess I'll post a question about it in another forum.

edit: found this on WD's site

Extra data protection with RAID 1 - For extra data protection, dedicate half the capacity for mirroring, and automatically and instantaneously back up data every time you save it.

Extraordinary capacity - With up to 2 TBs of storage in an elegant, small footprint design, you have plenty of space to store an entire digital photo library, your HD movie collection and hours and hours of DV video.

Since its upgradeable to 2TB I could add another 1TB drive to it and do RAID 1 or I can just use 500GB in RAID with the single drive.

edit2: ah....just found this as well

System Requirements
Windows® 2000/XP Home/Pro

So much for that

edit3: just found this
Text
Looks like it just came out 2 days ago!

 

[TangoJuliet]

ok, i was getting a little confused with the mybooks and world books.

this is what I am going to do. I am going to buy this enclosure to connect directly to the imac

http://www.westerndigital.com/...oducts.asp?DriveID=374

And then buy this enclosure to connect to the airport

http://www.newertech.com/products/gmax.php

The WD's capacity is 1TB while the newertech will have both of my 500GBs in RAID. Not sure if the WD device can be put in RAID though...I do see any info on it on their website.

 

[TangoJuliet]

is that a good setup? also is that the correct way about doing the music, photos and videos with the drive that will be connected to the airport only?

basically make folders for each and have itunes set to default to their location on the airport?

 

[TheStu]

YOu might be better off storing the music on each person's local machine unless they all have massive amounts of music. Then you can just have each person share their libraries if that was what you were trying to achieve.

Otherwise, i think that should be good. Also, I see no reason that the nonMac MyBook wouldn't work with your iMac. I know that they come with software for backing up and whatnot, so maybe that is what they mean. It is a hard drive after all.... just format the thing HFS+ and be done with it.

 

[TangoJuliet]

Originally posted by: TheStu
YOu might be better off storing the music on each person's local machine unless they all have massive amounts of music. Then you can just have each person share their libraries if that was what you were trying to achieve.

Otherwise, i think that should be good. Also, I see no reason that the nonMac MyBook wouldn't work with your iMac. I know that they come with software for backing up and whatnot, so maybe that is what they mean. It is a hard drive after all.... just format the thing HFS+ and be done with it.

Well, I not only wanted to put music but photos and videos as well on the external drive connected to the airport. I do have a ton of music and want to start ripping my movies and have them on the external drive as well. That way i could stream them to a apple tv if I get it.

 

[TheStu]

the biggest issue with what you are planning is that last I heard, the AppleTV cannot directly connect to a drive attached to the Airport Extreme. So you would have to look up how to add those movies to the iMac's iTunes library indirectly so you can then have the AppleTV connect to them via that.