Best HD for music storage/backup.

I use Oyen minipro. Check the reviews on the computer audiophile forum.

I've been happy over the years with OWC Mercury Elite Pro from Other World Computing (Macsales.com). I've owned several over nearly a 10 year period and have yet to have any of them die on me.

Since you're using Mac's, I'd recommend Time Machine (assuming you have one external drive per computer). If you're just using this as a method of sharing the data between computers, just leave it on the Mini 24/7 and have another external drive that functions as the Mini's Time Machine, and set it to also back up the music external drive. Then set up sharing in your Mac Mini to share the music files so that the laptop can access them.

But even this isn't enough for good protection. You'll also need an offsite backup. I use Crashplan for this purpose (Crashplan will do both local and offsite backups) but there are a number of companies that offer online backup services.

Having the offsite backups protects you against theft and fire, and the combination of local and offsite backups gives you the best protection that is reasonable for consumer-grade equipment.

Hope that helps.

Michael

I use the software SuperDuper! on my Mac Mini to back up my AIFF music files. It's $25 and well worth it. I just use a Western Digital 2TB Passport USB-powered drive. Plug it in, run SuperDuper! to do the incremental backup, then unplug and store off-site.

Regards,