[PhishPhan]

I'm looking at buying a new imac. Question is, do I get the low-end 500GB 21.5" and use an external hard drive or just get one with a TB internal HD? Would be used mostly for music storage and some photos. I've been thinking about buying a refurbished model and getting an external HD, but I'm kinda concerned about the reliability of this setup over one that's all internal.

Which external HD would you recommend for music storage and playback?

[Crimson]

I wouldn't let the size of the HD be a determining factor, especially with desktops, even though larger HDs tend to come with higher end machines. I'd buy a pair of externals from MacSales.com, one for storage and the other for backup.

[minotaur]

I'm reading your post as saying that you are wondering if the internal 1TB Hard drive will be more reliable than having a 500GB Hard Drive + external.

I believe that you should *assume* any hard drives will die. To me internal vs. external is irrelevant in terms of reliability. Hard Drives will die. The question is whether the data was important and what the backup plan is.

Apologies if I sound all doom and gloom but everyone needs to have a good backup plan

edits for clarity

[low.pfile]

I agree with minotaur and crimson.
regardless of drive configuration you need to backup your drives. whether internal or external, applications or music files. so you will always need an external drive.

my friend just purchased the same i3 21in imac you are considering and he is using the internal HD for his music storage. but he has a small music library and knows it it unlikely to expand past the 1TB space. he has external for backup of all data.

I have to add that there is potential for incompatibility with the iMac and certain USB DACs... with my i5 27in iMac I found incompatibility with my wavelength Brick DAC, as did Crimson.
[my thread]

Which external HDD to can be answered with "it depends"

Firewire or USB?
Personally I am a fan of using a different connection than the DAC, so firewire DAC would mean USB HDD and visa versa.

Noise tolerance?
Will you be in the same room as the HDD or other? I use an external OWC and it is fairly quiet but not silent by any means, spinning is audible when I am in the same room in front of the imac (since the imac is sooo quiet). But if you listen away from the computer (as I do in another room) for my main system any HDD sound

[simon wagstaff]

yep, if you are using time machine you will want an external drive anyway. External storage is so cheap these days. I have three hard drives with my music stored on them. Every year I take the oldest one and transfer the data to a new one and just pitch the old one.

Wasteful?  Perhaps.

Safe?  Nothing is totally safe but any hard drive should last three years.

With luck.

[toocool4]

If you are concerned about reliability, you are better off getting external drive and making multiple backups. Better still get an external drive with RAID capability, the minimum you need is RAID 1 but I use RAID 5. RAID 5 will give the blend of speed and redundancy. Like minotaur said all drives will die some time or other. With a raided drive you just pop in a new drive and it will re-build itself with no loss of data or down time.

Checkout LaCie or companies like Thecus. LaCie is a bit on the pricey side. With a NAS you can run it on the network and share data with other computers on your network or even across the Internet.

[Crimson]

Just be aware (beware) that RAID redundancy is NOT the same as a backup. If you accidentally delete or change files on one drive, the same changes will be effected on the mirrored drive(s).

[toocool4]

Goes without saying, RAID is purely for drive failures and speed.