Written by Philip Roy | 17 April 2009
Posted in Hardware

Over recent months I have been trying to determine the best off-site (but not online) backup solution for my Mac. I wanted a system that allowed me to do a monthly backup, take this to an off-site location (so the backup wasn't sitting in the same house as a Mac that might get stolen) and to then have another drive to backup to, swapping these two drives each month. Readers of the site forum will also know that I wanted a solution that was simple to use, running basic backup software. With the NewerTech system, I've found a solution that is both simple, reasonably cheap and...even better....ever-expandable.

The best way to describe the NewerTech Voyager Q is think of it a bit like a hard-drive toaster sitting next to your Mac (with a drive as the bread slice you put into it). More accurately, it's a drive base unit/dock, that connects to your Mac via USB 2, Firewire 400 or Firewire 800 and accepts 2.5" or 3.5" hard drives being slotted into it without the drives needing any other wiring or connections added. The Voyager Q is a bit on the pricey side, but there is also a cheaper Voyager S2 that doesn't feature firewire (USB only) as well as other systems from NewerTech such as the USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter.

The benefit in using this type of hardware is that the drive you use is never fixed, but interchangeable. This means that whilst I've purchased two 1TB (one terabyte) drives, I have a system that lets me use one of the drives as a backup, whilst the other drive spends a month off-site at another location. Each month I just take the drive I've been using, put it in a simple carry case (well, actually a tupperware container I bought at a plastics shop!) and take it to that location and swap it...bringing the old drive back.

Keeping things simple with Time Machine (at this stage)
Because this review is about the hardware, I'm not going to go into too much detail as to what backup process and application to use, but I did want to state that at this stage I am keeping things very simple by using Time Machine. I found that I could use two drives with TM and one Mac after reading this great blog post that proved it was possible.

However, I have to state that I don't think I will always use Time Machine, although at this stage it is fine. I might change to using a backup scheduler that I can refine more. For example, I use Entourage as an email client and the mail in that application is stored in one database file. That means that every time Entourage receives an email, Time Machine says "OK, that file had changed...so I need to backup the entire file"....when in fact what it is doing is backing up the entire email archive for my Mac...which is way too much.

For those interested, I'll now probably look at the suggestions that many users posted in a forum discussion you can read here. As you'll see, the solutions on offer at the time weren't really what I was after, but now that I have the NewerTech, well...their advice is now quite apt and suitable for me.

Unpacking and setting up
The Voyager Q is exceptionally easy to unpack and set up. It comes with the base unit already to go, a power adaptor and cord, and then a multitude of connectivity cables for you to choose from. It might seem silly to say, but I'm thoroughly impressed that NewerTech provided a cable for every connectivity option you might want to go for...a firewire 400 cable, 800 (the option I've gone for), USB 2 cable and more. In times when so many items seem to get shipped without all the cables you need, it's great to see NewerTech provide them all.

As I mentioned, I've decided to go with the Firewire 800 option because 1) it's a fast connection and 2) I'm not using that port on my iMac at all. It was then a simply matter of connecting the power to the unit and attaching the FW 800 cable to the unit and my Mac.

The Voyager Q accepts both 2.5" and 3.5" drives. I went for the larger one as I felt that I could re-use these elsewhere in the future more easily. Like buying memory, I went with as much drive capacity as I could afford. I got 2x 1TB drives for a little under $400 NZ. It is then just a matter of slotting one of the drives into the Voyager (the slot area has a flap that moves out of the way for the bigger 3.5" drives) and turning it on via the very well placed "On" button on the front of the unit (that glows blue nicely when turned on). My Mac then acknowledged the drive and I formatted it with no issue.

Using the Voyager Q
The Voyager is exceptionally easy. Once you get used to slotting in a drive, the unit sits comfortably next to the Mac, working away. There are alternative systems out there including others systems from NewerTech themselves, but I wanted a system that was simple and effective. The Voyager certainly is, and I was up and running with it in about 10 minutes.

The horizontal silver tab/button you see at the front of the unit works very much like an ejection tool on the front of a toaster. Pushing this tab down ejects (softly) the hard drive from the connectors within the unit and then allows you to slip the drive out and put in a new one.

The unit is completely silent, with the only noise coming from the drives. Because the drives aren't enclosed inside a computer, there's no need to have cooling fans running, so the noise in minimal and very easy to not hear at all if you have music playing.

One thing I did note was that the flap that moves down out of the way when you insert 3.5" drives scratched quickly. You can't see it that well on the image below, but a much darker scratch is now visible on the top and bottom end of the flap where the hard disk comes into contact with it as you put a drive into the unit. Personally I don't really care about this as the flap is hidden from view except when I change disks...but that said, I was still surprised how quickly it occurred.

With Time Machine all running smoothly, the Voyager Q part of this process and working quietly, I am exceptionally pleased with the move that I have made and how easy this process has been. Goodbye tedious backup processes with rewriteable DVDs!!!!

Long term, I may look at issues related to how I do backups (maybe with backup software instead to Time Machine), and as I write this, I am re-partitioning the drive based on some advice on the forum (to have a Time Machine section and a non-Time Machine section)...but none of those issues relate to the Voyager Q itself...which does what you need it to do, simply, effectively and (perhaps most significantly of all) in a way that means I'm never going to run out of space for my backup needs.