Which storage way to go

[ankhseeker]

I have 2 macs... MBP 5,3 and Mac mini 1,1. I believe that each has a thunderbolt jack?
I just today purchased CCC to make copies of my drives. Eventually, I would like to install an SSD in my MBP.
1.) Am I crazy in wanting one enclosure that I can swap drives out?
2.) I just want that external enclosure for cloned backups.
3.) Is/are there better options for what I want to do since I am pretty sure from reading here that I can't do a full backup on both machines on one drive right? Other info in my Specs on left if needed.
3.) Would it just make sense to get an SSD right off of the bat?
4.) Do you guys recommend TB over USB? Visa versa?
You guys have been there/done that. Looking for the best option.
Thanks

 

[harryb2448]

Believe you have got the Mini's details wong. Mac Mini 1.1 came with FW400 and 2 x USB2 ports only. If the external drive is a reasonable size, make two partitions and back up to the respective partition you establish for them.

One thing, if it is a 1.1 Mini, it is PowerPC and will have to be set up as Apple Partition Map under Options in Partition, and the MBP as GUID.

Getting the SSD would be the shot and using the current HD in a caddy as an external. Everything will be so much faster.

 

[bobtomay]

1. Yes. Swapping drives out of an enclosure on an ongoing basis would be a pita.

2. ok

3. Wrong. You can keep as many backups on a single drive as it has space for. Time Machine can store backups from multiple machines on the same partition. Bootable clone backups will require a separate partition for each machine.

3 # 2. Depends on the size of the HD coming out of the MBP. Is it large enough to have 2 partitions to backup both of your computers? Personally, even if you do upgrade to a SSD in the MBP, I would not take a 5 yr old drive out of a computer and use it for my backups when new 1-2 TB drives are less than $100. I'd keep that old drive around for miscellaneous use and get a universal adapter that plugs into bare drives. You'll need something like that adapter as your collection of old drives add up.

4. First off - you do not have a TB port on either one of those Macs, so that option is off the table for your use. Get familiar with everymac.com and bookmark the pages with your specific Macs so that you can easily lookup your hardware configuration..

The MBP has USB 2 and FW 800.
The mini has USB 2 and FW 400 - you would need a FW 400 to FW 800 adapter to use an external FW drive.
For simplification of use in your particular case, would likely just recommend USB 2. Especially, if your intent is just to start keeping current backups of your data (that you should have been doing already ).

As to TB vs FW vs USB - depends on what it is you're planning to do with the external drives - like how much data how often is going to be transferred back and forth, plan on keeping a separate OS on the external to boot from, etc. FW 800 will be the fastest connection option for you, but FW externals are getting hard to find with the advent of USB 3. Most manufacturers have discontinued making FW externals.

I use:
Wifi for TM backups to a Time Capsule for 3 Macs.

USB for my wife's bootable clone backups - she is much more a typical user than I am related to the amount of data moved onto/off her computer.

FW for my personal Mac (does not have USB 3) for cloned backups and for my iTunes library - didn't see that TB would give me a significant benefit vs the price of FW. If I still had any desire to boot from external drives to old versions of OS X or beta versions of new releases for testing, I probably would have gone TB.

eSATA (external SATA) to a mirrored RAID for my custom built Win 7 HTPC with my media on it.

 

[ankhseeker]

Thanks you two! Some how I misses Bob's reply. Yes, I am still green, but learning quickly. Ahh. more options to ponder. ;-)