running out of hard drive space

[aragorn723]

Hi,

I have an older macbook and am running out of hard drive space.  It is backed up with a Western Digital My Passport, is it possible to play music directly off of that?  Thanks,

Dave

[kgoss]

It should be no problem. Just point your playback software to the music files on your external hard drive. I have been using an old laptop with a USB hard drive and JRiver for a long time with no issues.

[mcandmar]

Please remember that external hard drives, and laptop internal drives (same thing) are notoriously unreliable.  i.e. spend the $50 on another drive to make a backup copy of your music.

I speak from experience as i lost my entire music collection recently due to a failed hard drive and had no backup. Slightly embarrassing for me being an IT Manager

[aragorn723]

That worked, thanks   nothing like finding a solution without spending any $.  Guess i'll have to buy another to be the backup

[rif]

If mcandmar is implying that laptop/typical external drives are unreliable.  I believe they make external USB enclosures that can handle a normal size desktop drive.  It's been awhile since I was in the game, however.

[kgoss]

It really doesn't matter. Laptop, desktop, or external drive. They will all fail eventually so a backup is the answer. Personally, I have my stuff (music, pictures, videos, etc) on three separate drives. That way when one fails I have two good backups.

[Paul Birkeland]

Get something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817707337&cm_re=raid_enclosure-_-17-707-337-_-Product

Set it up for raid 1 with a big pair of HD's.  If one dies, you pull it out and replace it, then the raid controller recopies all the data on the remaining drive back onto the new one.