Backups, hybrid PC/MAC environments and GigabitEthernet

[gkanai]

I have no idea how technical the FG community is but let me throw this out there and see what people think.

I have a hybrid environment at home with a WinXP box (Athlon XP Shuttle PC which I built this summer, great machine!) and a new Mac Powerbook (which I absolutely adore. Expose is tremendous!)

I need a backup solution, for both machines, but for the Mac first and foremost.

The Powerbook comes with support for Gigabit Ethernet but I'd have to replace my router with a 10/100/1000 GigE router and find a GigE networked drive to go with it. That seemed like too much trouble and money, so I ended up going with a standalone Firewire HDD, which I formatted for the Mac and will keep only for the Mac.

I guess my question is/was does anyone else have a networked HDD for backups/storage and if so, do you mind the fact that it is only Ethernet speed and not the speed of Firewire/USB2.0 or Firewire800?

I was totally bewildered this weekend at Bic and decided to go the simple route and purchased just a plain, simple 120GB Firewire HDD for the Mac, but I still need to think about the PC or at least think about a networked drive that could be accessible by both machines. Do those things run Samba? How do they work?

I didn't see any big American brand names selling networked HDDs. Only the Japanese ones like Buffalo/Melco, IO Data, etc. I wonder if that market is about to explode.

Gen

[Big Booger]

http://support.miramar.com/technote.nsf/search?OpenForm&Start=1&Count=1000&ExpandView&Seq=1

Give that link a look or two.


And while you are at it, why not just network them directly over Cat6 Ethernet cable?

Just make sure the Shuttle has a a gigabyte LAN card.. and a regular card installed..

If you have PCI slot available you can add a PCI 1gig Lan card for about 6000 yen... or less.

I have two PCs Lan'd directly over a 10 meter Cat6 cable, & 2 Realtek Gigabit Ethernet PCI cards and the speeds are outstanding.. nearly 100Mbytes/second. Nothing like a 5-6 second transfer for a 700MB CD.. and a minute for a DVD.


If you decide to try the direct cable connect:

on your mac, go to:

System Preferences-->Sharing; turn on personal file sharing.


in the finder press Command+k :

type in afp://peeceeIP

and you then enter your UID and Pass

and start transfering!

Got that tip from:

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/topic/39975-1.html

Hope this info helps.

[gkanai]

http://support.miramar.com/technote.nsf/search?OpenForm&Start=1&Count=1000&ExpandView&Seq=1

Give that link a look or two.


And while you are at it, why not just network them directly over Cat6 Ethernet cable?

Just make sure the Shuttle has a a gigabyte LAN card.. and a regular card installed..

BB, you da man! I never thought of using the Win machine as a backup platform, but I suppose that could work too.

Clarification: the reason I need to have both a 10/100 card and a 10/100/1000 card is the GigE card is for direct sharing and the 10/100 card is for the LAN, right?

[Big Booger]

Precisely.

[Deckard]

Big Booger's suggestion will work great for the DIY route, or you can buy Network Attached Storage out of the box. It will cost you more, but you'll get a lot more functionality too. Like being able to access your stored files from anywhere with an internet connection. Anyway, here's a good writeup/review for a pretty basic model...

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/003/snapserver/snapserver-1.html

[Caustic Saint]

Big Booger's suggestion will work great for the DIY route, or you can buy Network Attached Storage out of the box. It will cost you more, but you'll get a lot more functionality too. Like being able to access your stored files from anywhere with an internet connection. Anyway, here's a good writeup/review for a pretty basic model...

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/003/snapserver/snapserver-1.html

That's a cool little device. Kind of small on capacity for the money though. If I were going to get something like that I'd probably go for the Linksys EFG80 mentioned at the end of the review. It's a bit bigger, but you have the option of adding a second drive (your choice of capacity, up to 120GB) if you want to. It's cheaper as well.

[Deckard]

Yup, the whole market is pretty cool. I hate being tempted by tech stuff that I don't need, but would love to play with.