How to copy data to 2 harddrives at once (Apple)

[AndreasOberg]

Is it possible to efficiently do backups to 2 harddrives at once on Apple?

I'm planning on getting 2 of these 8TB drives.
http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid.cfm

I'm considering to have 1 as my main disk and the other as my backup.
I have the Apple Retina MacBook Pro which has only 2 usb3 (arg) so it's difficult to setup. Options

1)
- I copy the 512 card to the internal 758 ssd. Takes 40min. This uses both usb3 slots since the 512 needs extra power, or a power outlet. Downside is that it takes extra time and I cannot have any big data already on the laptop.
- I copy to both harddrives. Takes maybe 2 hours per drive. So 4 hours in total if I have to copy to one at a time. If it can simultaneously write to both it should take 2 hours.

Total time = 40min plus 2 or 4 hours. Worst case 4.5 hours.

2)
- I connect 512 to wall power. I use 1 usb3
- I connect the Thunderbolt version of the harddrive.
- Connect the other harddrive which is usb3
- Copy directly from red station to both drives. Takes either 2 or 4 hours. This is faster but then I must have 1 thunderbolt harddrive and I use PCs for editing at home, and PC has no support for thunderbolt yet.

3)
- I connect 512 to wall power. I use 1 usb3
- I connect USB3 or thunderbolt which is setup for RAID1 so it does backup internally.
- I copy to the Harddrive which automatically does backup.
Total Time. About 2 hours.
Drawback is that I would like to easily edit and if I have to use 2 harddrives connected it's a bit more painful. If they are both usb3 I cannot edit and copy from Red Station at the same time for example.

Options
- Get 2 USB3
- Get 1 thunderbold and 1 usb3.

Getting a bit crazy here. What do you guys think? Is there a fast way to copy to both or should I just use Raid?
/Andreas

 

[Mondo Ghulam]

I saw these mentioned a while back her on Reduser. I'm considering it or something like it at some point, not sure if it suits your needs:

http://www.abelcine.com/store/Glyph-Triplicator-2/

 

[AndreasOberg]

I saw these mentioned a while back her on Reduser. I'm considering it or something like it at some point, not sure if it suits your needs:

http://www.abelcine.com/store/Glyph-Triplicator-2/

Interesting. I had hoped I could avoid a hardware solution, but still interesting. Didn't support usb3 though..

After thinking for a while I dont think that Raid 1 is such a good solution. The simple reason is:
- The harddrive is in one place. So if we drop it they could both break.
- If the box gets stolen all data is lost. If I have two harddrives I would split them to 2 different rooms.
- We cannot split it on the airplane. Good to split between different people.

The biggest benefit however would be that when we copy to the external harddrive it's only one copy so it will always be faster.
Complicated...
/Andreas




/Andreas

 

[Gunleik Groven]

R3D data manager is your friend...

And if you are involved with any data of value (including your own... But especially if you are offering any kind of service) you don't want to skip secure copying...

You'd be liable...

 

[AndreasOberg]

Wow, the R3D Data manager looks very cool. Will check it out.
/Andreas

 

[Jean-Claude Benet]

gunleik is 100% correct, being liable for lost footage is absolutely the worst... i learned that the hard way.

Now I run a few g-raid thunderbolt drives for editing (daisychaining them is a breeze to connect multiple drives) as well as a handful of standard eSata hard drives for extra storage and read them via thunderbolt connection on my macbook pro using this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=860104&is=REG&Q=&A=details

 

[Jason H]

that thunderbolt drive deal looks sweet!!!! do you put bare drives on that?

 

[Kwan Khan]

MOre on seagate thunderbolt drive with Mbp;
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showth...CK-PLUS-with-THUNDERBOLT-ADAPTER-(Speed-test)

 

[Nick Shaw]

Now I run a few g-raid thunderbolt drives for editing (daisychaining them is a breeze to connect multiple drives) as well as a handful of standard eSata hard drives for extra storage and read them via thunderbolt connection on my macbook pro using this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=860104&is=REG&Q=&A=details

The B&H page for that Seagate adapter says it powers via the Thunderbolt cable. I believe that is incorrect. The small non-daisy-chainable version with only one Thunderbolt port powers from that. I have one of those and like it very much. But all Thunderbolt peripherals will a loop through port require an external PSU.

 

[Brian Merlen]

shotput pro is another option as well fwiw

 

[AndreasOberg]

I looked a bit at the R3D Manager but one downside I find is that it apparently takes longer to copy files to the harddrive. The data checking is nice but doesn't seem that important compared to the speed.
When I have the harddrives I will test it out.

I did some speed tests at home:
195MB/sec. Red Station 512 -> internal Retina SSD. Works with only one usb cable! Still surprised that it's not faster. Would expect 300MB-400MB/sec, maybe usb3 is limiting the speed.
105MB/sec. 3TB External USB3 harddrive. I'm expecting it to be faster, had some tests at 130MB/sec at my pc. Will test more
100MB/sec. To 2.5" 1TB harddrive. This is interesting since they need no external power and are super light! Will be very MANY of them though. I would get the 2TB versions of course.

I did some tests on my pc to write to 2 harddrives at the same time and I didn't notice any big slowdowns. It was almost the same speed. Will test on the Apple as well.

The thunderbolt adapter is nice but not super interesting since the MacBook actually has 2 usb3 connections.
Any thoughts or experiences are of course welcome.
/Andreas

 

[Nick Shaw]

I did some speed tests at home:
195MB/sec. Red Station 512 -> internal Retina SSD. Works with only one usb cable! Still surprised that it's not faster. Would expect 300MB-400MB/sec, maybe usb3 is limiting the speed.

I think the read speed of the REDmag is your limiting factor here. I've never seen a REDstation read a REDmag faster than 195MB/s.

 

[Brian Merlen]

if you want faster copies grab some raid 5 drives, they use more drives to w/r faster, and don't do the check sums in r3d data manager. it can still write to two (or more) sources off one stream of data... if you don't use thunderbolt don't buy it. go with a esata external and use an adapter or use the usb3 port. you can copy from 1 mag to one external and when that finishes up take out the external and pop in the other one...

or if you wanna speed things up just have both raids attached by using the thunderbolt, with or without adapter, though with helps you since you could get that raid with a port that works on your pc as well,,, Rmbp has limited ports so using that TB port will probably help you out