Need advice: external drive for MBP+AEBS

Hello! This thread is kinda related to the other external hard drive brand survey thread, but is a more specific question...

I have a new Santa Rosa MBP with a 160GB 7200rpm drive, and the standard ethernet 802.11n Airport Extreme Base Station. I am completely new to Macs and laptops, but not new to computers in general and have made a smooth, happy transition so far.

Before I rip my CD library to iTunes, I wanted to arrange an external backup solution. I figure the initial backup will be done via the Firewire interface (FW800) directly connected to the MBP, and then nightly or weekly incremental backups can be done over my wireless network with the drive connected to either the ethernet or USB of the AEBS (anything that uses the USB is called an Airdisk?).

My problem is, I have no idea which disk to buy. I know brands: I want to get a WD, Seagate or Lacie. I am fixed on that. But would a simple USB interface be quick enough for restoring/backing up movies and music on demand? How much extra cost is it to get something with FW800 and ethernet interfaces (usually I just see things with FW and USB, not ethernet)? What is the minimum speed interface I would need to do photo editing or music/movie playing from the external drive, and would this be possible over 802.11n? Do I need any special software to ensure I can smoothly restore my iTunes library if Mac OS X is reinstalled on my MBP, or will simple backups of the music files be fine? What specific models would fit my needs?

I am looking in the 250-500GB size range. I am particularly interested in hearing from other people with MBPs and AEBS setups, but would welcome any advice... I read a couple other ext. drive threads in the forum, but none of them completely answered my questions

Thanks!

 

I have a Seagate Freeagent Pro 500 GB drive that's connected to my AEBS ... and i have my music/video/pics streamed to me wirelessly through it ... and it works fine...
however... i am not certain whether photo/video editing can be carried out through this setup. I personally don't think 802.11n is fast enough to carry this out ... ppl generally recommend a firewire 800 or esata connection to the external hard drive for such tasks... so ... incase you'll be doing a lot of photo/video editing... i'ld prbbly suggest connecting ur external hard disk to the computer via FW 800 / esata .
the external hard drive i use has usb2.0/FW 400 and esata ... so... when im just generally streaming my music and videos and playing them... i connect them to my AEBS ... and only in the event when im tranferring a ton of data between my computer and external .. do i set it up using the esata connection ...

 

I also have a FreeAgent Pro 500GB - how much did you get yours for Zambie, mine was $89 recently from OfficeMax

 

Is the Freeagent Pro connected via USB or ethernet? Does it spin down when nothing is on the AEBS network or the drive is idle? Is there a drive similar to it which has FW800 instead of 400?

Anyone else care to talk about their MBP/AEBS setup? Thanks for the details in your reply...

 

I have a WD My Book Pro 500GB connected to the AEBS through the USB port. The setup works well even though it's slower that I expected. I also have a linux file server running Samba. The Linux server is so much faster and responsive.

The My Book is formated as HFS+ and contains movies in .avi and .mp4 format. It shows up as an airport disk on both my MBP and a window machine. Streaming contents to my MBP wireless-n works really well.
However I have problem writing big files (> 200MB) from a window machine. It hangs and lost connection. Writing from the MBP is fine tho. I don't know why.

Overall, the AEBS airport disk is fine for light to medium use. It's too slow for heavy use especially with multiple users.

I usually connect the My Book to my MBP with FW800 for heavy file transfer.

Hope this helps.

 

hi chem... ahmm.. the freeagent pro is conneced via usb2.0. I am pretty certain that it spins down after some amount of "idle" time while on the network .. though i really dnt know how to figure this out .. the drive remains so silent and sans vibration while it's reading/writing data that it's really hard to tell..

as for a FW800 external drive ... i havent come across one while browsing... there's only one listed in newegg ... but it's not exactly for personal home use (2TB storage @$599)! ... probably there might be some external enclosures that support FW800, but i'm just guessing...

 

$89!! ... that's a deal... it's a steal... it's the sale of the effin' century! ... seriously... did u get the freeagent pro? (one with the orange light on the side AND on the top) or the freeagent (orange lighting jst on the side)? .. it's a deal enough for getting the feeagent at that price .. most places selling it at abt $100-120 now... the freeagent pro ... iv yet to see a place bring the price below $150-160 range! ... did u have a coupon code or something?
if there are any valid generic coupon codes that you might be having .. it might be nice to paste it in the rebates section where a lot of ppl could take use of it... hell... i still might make use of it !!

 

i got the Free Agent 500GB for 89...not the Pro, sorry.