14 GB is really too big for .Mac
burger011 said:
I just bought OS X 10.3 (I know 10.4 is just around the corner) and will be installing over the weekend. I want to do a clean install to get rid of my OS 9 partition.
I've regulary used "Backup" from the .Mac service but have heard this isn't the best way to back stuff up. What is the best way to back my 14 gigs of music, 1000 plus photos and hundreds of word files?
My second biggest concern is I want to make sure my music doesn't lose all those freak'n stars and equalizer settings. I couldn't imagine how long that would take to go back and do. So is there any way to ensure that everything will remain the same? I want to put panther on and reload the files as if nothing has changed.... possible?
iMac 600mhz running 10.2
.Mac is helpful to protect small memory, but it is slow. Tiger 10.4 is supposed to speed it up, but that's in July.
14 GB is just too big for .Mac
An external FireWire Hard Drive is perfect.
2nd choice would be using a FireWire cable between 2 Macs running OS X and turning one into a "T" target drive - that way, the other Mac is an external firewire drive.
3rd choice would be to backup your complete DOCUMENTS folder with all the iTunes,iPhotos, Office OS X Data files, and other documents to DVD-R or RW discs.
Apple just had me send in my 2002 iBook for a motherboard replacement (yuck) so I backed up the whole thing (15 GB) to a 200GB raid drive on my dual 1-GHz PowerMac, and for safety's sake, also on DVD-RW discs.
Once the iBook came back safe and sound, I reinstalled all the Office/Entourage DATA which I had had to remove for security reasons, and reinstalled all the PHOTO and MUSIC files.
CAUTION removing OS 9 - I haven't had to STARTUP in OS9 for 18 months until last week. I got an old copy of MYOB accounting software that runs in Classic, which is an acceptable compromise, although I've upgraded all my old software (OFFICE, Photoshop, etc.) to OS X.
Problem - the installer kept crashing while trying to install in OS X Classic.
Solution - STARTUP in OS 9.2.2, install under OS 9, so I can run it in OS X under Classic. It worked! Once I had finished the INSTALL, I restarted in OSX, and was able to run it in Classic. BUT, I would never have been able to install old MYOB without being able to use the OS 9.2.2 partition as the STARTUP drive.
MORAL - had I removed OS 9 and its partition (I've been thinking about it too) I would not have been able to INSTALL in OS 9 and run MYOB accounting software using Classic while in OS X. To update software like that to OS X can easily cost several hundred dollars for the OS X version.
If you remove OS 9 thinking it is obsolete (it is) and needs to go (it does) just to save space (not that much, right?) instead of increasing the size of a single resident hard drive in a computer like an iMac (or like my iBook, which had a slow 4200rpm 30 GB drive so I replaced it with a 60 GB 7200 rpm hd)... zoom!
you may incur substantial SOFTWARE costs that you never dreamed of incurring.
Hey, GB memory on a hard drive is down to about $1 per GB and that is super cheap. If you check the speed of what you have in your Mac, you might be surprised how sloooow (under 7200 rpm) it is, and certainly the SIZE of an older G3 600MHz computer's Hard Drive is less than 80 GB.
At Fry's Electronics, a new IBM / Hitachi firewire speed 7200 rpm 80 GB drive should cost you around $80... on a sale weekend. Same is true online.
In fact, if you don't have an external FireWire drive, I highly recommend the LaCie d2 (not the Porsche) enclosure with a 7200 RPM drive, and the price per GB runs not much more than $1 each. Pick your size, buy the LaCie d2, backup your entire iMac onto the LaCie (either using CARBON COPY or maybe install OS X Panther on it fresh, then dump everything else onto it) -- then swap the LaCie HD for your internal iMac. How cool is that?
LaCie makes a killer enclosure in the d2 and the HDs they use are excellent. Back your iMac up onto the LaCie's HD - THEN swap the drives. Your old HD is now external and becomes the BACKUP. Eventually, you'll tire of the old, slow, small HD in the cool new LaCie enclosure, so pickup a killer deal on a 7200 HD of your choice in size when someone like Fry's has a super sale you just cannnot refuse.
Good luck.
OR...
Just get a new 2.5GHz G5 and use it as your external firewire drive for Backup instead of the LaCie
