External Firewire as Main System Drive...

anyone have any comments on using an external Firewire drive as your main system drive? the stock 80GB internal drive in my mini is filling up at an incredible rate, actually had to offload my entire iTunes library just to clear some space, so i was thinking of using my 200GB Maxtor as my main system drive. any doing this? seeing any performance benefits and/or problems? thanks for any info.

from what I've heard from many articles re: MacMini before buying one for my GF, booting from an external FW drive (provided it's 7200+ RPM) you should notice a dramatic difference in performance.
place your install disc in the optical drive restart holding "C".
select the FW drive and use the Archive and Install option from your advanced tab before commiting to the install.
you keep your info on the drive and you get a faster machine!
if you decide to use the built-in drive to boot from make sure that you "re-bless" the internal drive from system preferences or you'll encounter an error screen the first time you try to boot with out the FW drive attached.
have fun with your faster mini!

Similar Messages

I want to replace my main system drive:

Hi all:
I can't seem to find a clear answer on this:
I bought some new drives and would like to replace my main system drive with one of the new drives. It's a bigger drive, 1TB as opposed to 250Gb.
Is it true that I can use Disk Utility to re-image the main drive onto a new drive, then replace the previous system drive with the new mirrored drive?
Please advise. I've found nothing on the site to help me out other than a previous post that seems to indicate that I can do this. If you have details, please share them. Thank you!
-Pete

Either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper will be more convenient.
You can, in fact, use Disk Utility for this without creating a disk image in between. You just need to go to the Restore tab and drag the current volume (from the sidebar) to Source and drag the new volume to Destination. Make sure you drag the volume (indented under the drive) and not the drive to the Source and Destination fields; this is a volume to volume operation. Check the +Erase destination+ box to make the copy exact. After double-checking that you did not reverse the source and destination , click on the Restore button.
The inconvenience is that you can't be booted from the volume you want to duplicate. So if that volume is your startup volume, you need to restart from the Mac OS X installation disc and run Disk Utility from the Installer's menu bar (or start up from another bootable volume).
The non-Apple cloning utilities use a different method for duplicating, and they can duplicate the startup drive.
Since you have a Power Mac G5, you can mount the new drive in the second internal bay. All the cables and screws are already in the case. There is no need to "replace" the existing drive, and there is no functional or operational difference between the first and second bays.

Is it possible to use External HD as main boot drive? (Help!)

Hi all
I am about to buy a Seagate FreeAgent Pro (link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/478636-REG/SeagateST305004FPA1E3_RK_FreeAgent_Pro_500GB_eSATA.html) with 500Gb and FW400/USB2.0/eSATA. I have a Mac Mini, and its internal HD is too small for me (80Gb total for about 70Gb of data).
What I'd like to do is install OS X on the External HD and use it as my main boot drive, and perhaps the Mini's internal HD for data backup. Would that be possible/legal (I only have the install discs that came with it - my first Mac :D)? If it is complicated, could you guys explain me how to do it?
I'd also like to know whether the performance would be better or worse. The Mini's got a 5400 RPM drive, and the external is 7200 RPM and would be connected through FW400 (plus a lot of free space for now).
One last question: if it is indeed possible/legal to use the External HD as my main boot drive, would it be possible to install and boot Windows on the external HD using Boot Camp or Parallels?
Cheers
Daniel
Mac Mini 1.83 GHz Core Duo 1 GB Ram 80 GB HDD Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Performance will be worse because FW400 is considerably slower than the internal bus. For startup I would continue using the internal drive. You can use the external drive for data storage as well as off-loading any music, picture, and movie files to free up space on the internal drive. You can also partition a chunk of the external drive (80 GBs) to use as a backup partition for the internal hard drive. You can clone your internal drive to the external (partition) which will give you a bootable backup. Here's how:
How to Clone Using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (journaled, if available) and click on the Erase button. This step can be skipped if the destination has already been freshly erased.
4. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
5. Select the backup or destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the startup or source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
8. Select the destination drive on the Desktop and press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. At the bottom in the Ownership and Permissions section be sure the box labeled "Ignore Permissions on this Volume" is unchecked. Verify the settings for Ownership and Permissions as follows: Owner=system with read/write; Group=admin with read/write; Other with read-only. If they are not correct then reset them.

External SSD HD as system drive

So I have a mid 2010 27" iMac, and I would like to improve the performance a bit.
One option is to replace my HD with an SSD, but I do not want to go through the trouble of opening up the computer. I know I can install a FireWire 800 SSD externally, clone my system drive, and boot from that.
My questions are as follows:
Is the performance of FireWire 800 fast enough to produce a significant improvement in HD performance?
How much slower (if at all) would it be than if I installed it internally?
Are there any weird issues with running OSX off an external FireWire drive, that I should know about?
Thanks in advance for any help you all can provide

David,
From Apple:
Logic Express 9 - User Manual
FireWire 800 FireWire 800 , also called IEEE 1394b, is the next generation of FireWire after IEEE 1394a, a higher-bandwidth version capable of data transferspeeds of up to 800 Mbps. FireWire 800 is also capable of supporting cable distances of up to 100 meters.
http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/Logic_Express_9_User_Manual.pdf

External Firewire 800 500GB WD drive does not mount

Hi-
Here is the problem.
i) Bought a lacie 500GB d2 drive using firewire 800 to connect to the iMAC but did not work. The port was seeing the drive but disconnecting it every 10 secs thinking that I was unmounting it during operations. I returned back the drive to the apple store since i saw that it had way too many problems.
ii) Replaced the Lacie d2 drive with a WD 500 GB external firewire MyBook Pro but the mac does NOT see or mount the drive at all.
iii) Bought a 23" HD cinema display and extended my dekstop over. I did not connect the additional USB/Firewire plugs to the iMAC as I am plugging in the drive to the iMAC and not the cinema display.
I have tried the following:
-Power off the mac and disconnect the power both on the WD and the MAC
-Check/Uncheck the ports through the preferences menu for firewire
-Repaired permission with the disk utility on the internal hard drive
Any ideas as to why the ports do not recognize/mount at all this drive?

I have read elsewhere that the FW 800 port on the iMac 24 can be a bit tricky. You may want to make sure you have a good connection.
I formatted mine out of the box which is just good practice and because I wanted to make a partition bootable/clone.
Powering on/off wont make a difference.
I don't know what you mean by uncheck/check ports for firewire. There are no such prefs in OSX.
Repairing permissions has nothing to do with hardware.
You only plug the FW 800 plug into the FW 800 port on the iMac. You use the other ports on the drive to plug other drives in on a daisy chain.
Go into drive utility and see if it shows up there for formatting. If not, then you have a bad cable. Try the regular FW 400 port and hook up that way. The 400 and 800 share the same bridge. If that doesn't work, and another drive does, then the FW bus on the drive is dead.

Main System Drives keep failing in PPC G5 2.5 after installing backup drive

Hello,
Two system drives have failed in my PPC G5 2.5 in the past eight months. One was a Seagate (original drive) and I can't remember the brand of the other one. At least the AHT says that they failed. Each time, this happened a month or so after I installed a backup drive in the remaining drive bay.
I'm wondering if the is just a coincidence or if maybe it's related to a power supply issue (or something else). Has anyone else experienced this problem?
Also to note is that the serial number on my G5 doesn't fall within the range of those covered by the extended repair program for bad power supplies.
Thanks,
David

Hi Dennis,
When you formatted did you Zero the Partition?
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
*Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.*
3. Click the Erase tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Highlight the drive, select Partition Tab, then Format type... MacOS Extended Journalled, select the Security Options button, choose Zero Out Data, Erase... after completion hopefully you'll be able to install.
after highlighting the drive, click on the Partition tab, Options button will be down below...
Boot off your Install Disk while holding down the *d key*, (not c key), then run the extended Apple Hardware Test. Some disks require you to use the Option key at bootup to select AHT. Some models have a separate AHT CD.

Best way to take songs on playlist from external drive to main system drive

consolidate?

It will copy everything not in iTunes, into the into the iTunes folder into Artist/Album/ folders.
also will the library then reference the files on the drive rather than the previous location of external drive?
Yes.
Anything you had in iTunes before you consolidate will get copied into the iTunes music folder location shown in iTunes prefs -> Advanced and iTune swill use that folder for everything.
The files on the external will not be used by iTunes.

New Maxtor External Firewire 800 200 GB Drive Install Help

I have noticed lots of posts on this, any suggestions before I plug it in?
Do you recommend for or against the preinstalled software? I know I need to format it, is there a link or for th is someone could point me too?
I am still new to mac so this will be my first addtiion to my G5 Du
Thanks

Not familiar with Maxtor drives, but
You can use Disk Utility to set it up. Mac OS extended journalled is the usual format. DU help covers the basics.
You may want to have at least two volumes/partitions, so that you can clone your working boot drive into one of them, with CCC for instance
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
in case of problems.
It's probably still wise to disconnect the f/w drive while updating OS X.

Tiger won't boot from external firewire

Installed 10.4.3 DVD on clean external firewire (Extended/Journaled). Before I installed Tiger, I ran updates, and repaired permissions. Everything looked good to me.
I'm keeping Panther on main system drive for now - so from System Preferences>Startup Disk>the external tiger drive appears and I select it. Then I select restart and the promt confirms that the computer will restart with 10.4.3. Looks good so far.
After restart, I'm looking at the desktop, guess what? It's 10.3.9, not 10.4.3. How could that be?
Also, when I restart and hold down the Option key for Startup Manager options - the firewire drive does not appear as an option.
So Tiger appears in System Preferences>Startup Disc as an option, but the option doesn't actually work, and that drive does not appear at all in (Option key) startup manager.
I'm Indexing the firewire drive now (OMG is that slow or what!), but I'm not expecting this to make any difference. I'm stumped. What am I overlooking? Please advise.
Muchas Gracias

R MacCool,
"What if I manually drag and drop the 4 folders (from the Tiger DVD) onto a second internal SATA drive without partitioning the drive first? Will I be able to boot off an internal SATA drive like that? When I installed Tiger on the external firewire I see that 4 folders are there - I could drag them from that drive onto the second internal drive. Does that work?"
No, this does not work. MacOS X consists of more then 20,000 invisible files, most of them somehow connected and referencing each other.
MacOS X DOES boot from external firewire drives, both hard disks and DVD drives.
Why don't you just upgrade your current 10.3.9 to Tiger using this procedure: 10.4 Tiger Upgrade: Decision tree+Checklist?
"Why does Tiger seem to install correctly, then System Pref>Startup Disc recognizes it, but then after selecting 10.4.3 it restarts into 10.3.9?"
I am not a technician, but it could be that the firmware is the primary source for connectivity. After MacOS X has booted the internal firewire drivers might take over and "overrule" the firmware (this is why you can see it in the startup disk preference pane) but at boot-time it exclusively depends on the firmware. This theory might be completely wrong though.

External firewire devices stopped mounting on my Xserve

I have two external Firewire 800 Lacie hard drives that I connect to my Xserve alternately to act as backup drives (and use an Applescript to copy over important files daily).
But this week, after having worked fine for a couple of years, the drives are refusing to mount on the Xserve desktop.
They both mount fine if connected to my G5 tower and work fine, but just won't show on the Xserve.
Nothing on the Xserve has changed, it hasn't crashed recently or had any upgrades done, they've just stopped working. I've tried different cables but nothing.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance of any replies.
John

Those LaCie drives can be funky. The external AC power supply bricks tend to fail prematurely. The symptom can be hard to troubleshoot since the drive will attempt to and can pull the juice it needs from the firewire bus. If the drive in question is under warranty LaCie will replace the brick at no charge. Otherwise they sell them for around $20 US. I keep a spare around because I have a lot of LaCie drives.

My system drives locked up -- "custom" access can't be reset

My system crashed and it took be a day and a half to get it working again: Lion wouldn't reinstall from the DVD, from the internet or from the Lion USB stick I made. Finally I pulled out all the drives and put in only a Lion drive I had set aside as a safety. This worked.
My main system drive and the Time Machine drive display a little lock icon and when I open Info, their permissions are all listed as "custom." Worse, when I try to change them, I can't.
All my data is on those drives and Lion won't even let me open them to transfer files.
How do I change the permissions?

I've been wrestling for three days with being locked out of all drives except one. I've tried everything on the planet including variations on the following, with no success. I was stunned when these two simple commands, cut and pasted into terminal, worked. I repeat this from the archives since it took me ages to find it among all the other posts that were efforts to help. Frame this, bronze it, put it on the wall, worship at its feet. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to relax using my Macs again. V.K., you're a god. How about visit a bolt on Cupertino.
V.K.
Re: Drives Locked!
Feb 8, 2010 10:52 PM (in response to CMathis)
run the following terminal commands (copy and paste, please)
sudo chflags 0 /volumes/*
sudo chmod a+rx /volumes/*
you'll have to enter your admin password (which you won't see). that's normal. this should unlock your drives.
Mac Pro 3.2 GHz, Mac OS X (10.6.2), Mac Pro 2.66GHz, powerbook G4 1.5GHz

Holding down the option key when booting my iMac lo longer shows me my bootable external drives, the system just boots up to the main system. Also, holding down command, option,P,R no longer zaps the p-ram. the system just boots up.

Holding down the option key when booting my iMac lo longer shows me my bootable external drives, the system just boots up to the main system. Also, holding down command, option,P,R no longer zaps the p-ram. the system just boots up normally. Why do these key fonctions no longer work?

It could be your timing if on a bluetooth keyboard. I find it best to hit the keys as soon as i hear the chime, release and hit them again but this time holding them before the chime ends....like a fake pump in football.
But....you can always open up system preferences, startup disk, and select your bootable clone for booting. If it doesn't show up there, the Mac doesn't think it's bootable.

Mini system installer disc doesn't install on a external firewire drive!

The osx insteller disc came with my mine doesn't allow me to install the system onto a external firewire hard drive. I am wondering if the retail mac osx be any different?
Would the retail version be able to create the GUID partition?
.....Thanks a bunch.
BTW, what is the normal cpu operaton temperature and the max fan speed?
Message was edited by: Cup of Tea

The OSX installer should be able to install on your external, though if you're talking about an external drive connected to an Intel Mac, it MUST be partitioned in the GUID scheme first. Both original install disk and retail Tiger can perform this partitioning using Disk Utility. Simply boot to the install disk or retail Tiger, exit the installer, run Disk Utility, select the external drive (the top entry showing drive name and size), click the partition tab, then the options button, then the top option for GUID Partition Table. Click OK, then the Partition button.

Cannot Boot from OSX on external firewire drive

I recently bought a seagate hardrive and installed it in an external firewire casing. I partitioned it into two partitions, and installed osx 10.4.10 on one of the partitions, the same as is running on my Ti Book.
I tried selecting the os on the firewire drive as the startup disk, but when i restart, after the grey screen i get the flashing question mark icon, until the mac recognises only the default osx on the internal drive and boots with that instead.
That not working, i created a clone of my startup disk using DejaVu in my system preferences and saved it on the other, empty partition on the external drive and tried booting from that.
On restarting, i get the grey screen once again as the backlight fires up, and nothing more. the screen remains grey without any further ado until i hold the power button and force it to turn off. then as i start it up again, up comes the flashing question mark icon followed by a boot from the internal drive.
Any Solutions on this?
Many Thanks, Neptune.

Hi Dale,
Whoops- everythings not as smooth as i thought it was!
since i restored my internal drive, a lot of things have been really messed up, starting with, for example, iTunes reverting to version 4 instead of 7. that wasnt a problem, i still had the 7 installer, and soon had my whole music library back again. but the computer appears to have a problem with the handling of graphics. the finder wont create previews of even simple jpeg images, nor will it for video. quicktime wont open any video file, i get some random error message which i cant remember stating it could not open the file. and if i view my finder window in grid icon view, the usual blue mac os desktop image that i keep as a background in the finder window isnt there, instead its pitch black. same goes for the slideshow feature in the application graphic converter, i can start a slideshow and it will scroll through the images, but every image will instead be completely black. there are no scroll bars in itunes. i can scroll down randomly by clicking where the scroll bar should be, but there is nothing visual there at all, no scroll bar, no arrows. when i connect my ipod, the main ipod window of itunes wont display any graphics either, be it the picture of the ipod or the capacity bar indicating usage of the drive for music, videos, data, etc. instead, fine print says something similar to 'cannot display image, quicktime and lzw tiff decompression plugin (?) required' I cant remember word for word what it says, dont quote me on that.
the computer also came to a dead freeze twice in ten minutes, i had to hold the power button down to get it to shut off.
im sure there are other issues too which i havent yet noticed, but even these, i havent the faintest clue what could be causing them!
do you?

Using Disk Utility to make a bootable clone on external firewire hard drive

I was just experimenting with making a bootable clone of my Mac HD (OS X 10.5.2) on an external firewire drive. The external drive booted up and all programs worked. However, there were 3 extra folders on the clone: Dev, Net, Home. The folders were empty so I deleted Dev and Net, just to see what would happen. When I restarted the computer, it simply shut down upon reboot. So, I held the option key and rebooted back into my Mac HD.
My (5) questions are:
What are those folders?
Why were they put there?
Can I get rid of them, or hide them?
Once the bootable clone works as a boot drive, can I delete the data from my internal Mac HD or,
Does the bootable clone somehow rely on the internal drive for additional startup information?
Thank you so much for any information.
Dave

These are system folders that the OS needs to operate. DO NOT delete them.
They are normally invisible which is why you don't see them.
You should simply leave them alone. If they bother you visually and you want to hide them, open terminal and run the following command
*sudo chflags hidden /Volumes/"Nameoftheexternaldrive"/dev /Volumes/"Nameoftheexternaldrive"/home /Volumes/"Nameoftheexternaldrive"/net*
Put the name of your external in the above.
You'll be prompted for your admin password which you won't see. That's normal.
To answer your last question, a bootable clone does not rely on the internal drive in any way. You can boot from the clone and do whatever you like to the internal. However, it's not recommended to run your computer from an external for everyday use. Bootable clones should be mainly used for backups. If you hose your system on an internal, boot from the clone and clone it back to the HD.

External Firewire as Main System Drive...

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