Hard Drive Space: Can You Ever Have Enough?!

I bought my iMac in April of 2007. I ordered a model with a 500GB internal hard drive.

I also bought 2 external 500 GB Firewire hard drives.

Since then I've bought 3 more external 500 GB hard drives.

I'm always running out of space, and juggling things around in order to get through the next hurdle.

It's time to "graduate" to the 1 TB+ models.

I recently bought my 1 TB Western Digital Essentials drive.

First, I used it for a Time Machine back of my iMac.

But then I realized it made more sense to use it to make a Norton Ghost backup copy of my Beast PC. The Beast has a 1TB internal drive.

I have reason to fear that my external 500GB hard drives have seen better days. Maybe I just need to get more of the dust out of the insides of the cases.

The two Firewire 800 drives are the ones that make the most noise.

I'm already juggling things around so that I can save my BoinxTV projects onto one of the Firewire drives.

The other Firewire 800 drive is used to make a Super Duper clone copy of the 500 GB Macintosh drive.

If I were a smart or rich man, I'd buy the DROBO unit to handle my backups and storage needs. But it's over $400 just for the "box." You still need to buy the drives.

I guess I'll either start saving money, or buy what I can in the meantime.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by RunDavid on April 6, 2009 at 8:02am: All those drives would confuse the living poop out of me. Yeah, I heard good things about the Drobo. I just recently installed a 500gb hard drive on my macbook pro since it only came with only 250gb and I was running low. I have to bring my iMac to an Apple Certified Tech to install a 1.5tb. I would have gone with external hard drives, but all the noise is crazy. They need to make some silent external hard drives. And, I learned the sad way that USB 2.0 and Firewire 400 are almost the same. If an external hard drive says it has a firewire 400 for extra dough, it's not worth it. Firewire 800 is way to go.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Glenn on April 15, 2009 at 8:21pm: Wow! I have a Western Digital 1 TB Mybook external hard drive, and it makes no noise at all that I have heard. Maybe I need to give it time?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Matz Rios on April 15, 2009 at 8:25pm: same way here dude!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Alucard on April 6, 2009 at 8:02am: i don't think you can have "too" much space, however i also don't believe that having 4 copies of the same drive makes any sense, if you have good enough organization backups are almost unnecessary. sure you have the risk of a hard drive going bad but there are signs, usually they give you warnings and slowly go bad, giving you time to move your files. on my new pc im about to get in the mail i ordered a 640gb hdd and i assume i will only be getting about 600 after format so im gonna put 60 to the os leaving 540 for everything else and that will be more than enough.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ron Knights on April 6, 2009 at 8:06am: One of my 500GB hard drives is full of my iTunes music and video library... And I think my collection is rather humble.

One of my hard drives is a clone of my Macintosh hard drive.

People have suggested it's also a good idea to have a drive for Time Machine... I think it's worth the cost.

The other hard drives are for downloads, projects, etc.

Two of my SATA drives are currently in a USB external case. I want to upgrade that to a Firewire 800 case.

Do you have a clearer picture now?!

Oh, I also have a 500GB IDE drive that was in a Lacie Drive case I bought a year or so ago.

I think the IDE drive will go into a future computer, as a "scratch disk."; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Alucard on April 6, 2009 at 8:14am: wow i feel lame now, all i have is 20gb of music, and i have a 160gb hdd that almost full with EVERYTHING on it, i mean that my whole collection of everything, and a 40 with just my os, i guess i have a few more 40's laying around but those are useless to me; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ron Knights on April 6, 2009 at 8:47am: Brian, there's no need to feel lame.

Maybe I just have too much stuff?!

I've worked with some 3D graphics programs.

I can easily fill up a 500GB hard drive in a day or two at most.; ▶ Reply to This