Boot drive in Bay 3 or Bay 4 will it slow down the startup process?

If I have my boot drive in Bay 3 or Bay 4 will it slow down the startup process? I know in old PCs it would look for the boot drive by looking each time in a certain order. If the MP did that then it would probably look at Bay 3 and Bay 4 last on its ordered sequence.

But.... I think there is a but here... Mac OS does still look for other boot drives none the less.
On a PC, most have an option in the BIOS to set the device types (CDROM, hard drive, USB). and the order of hard drives to look. Meaning that I can have a system on a hard drive that is off line, pop it in, make it the primary boot device and boot from it, and boot quickly.
Sometimes people will disable a chipset or not enable hardware RAID on the motherboard.
Startup Disk control panel sets the boot path in nvram and even if you do have 4 boot drives in Mac Pro, it should still boot in 20-45 seconds.

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If I put the iMovie library on an external drive over a USB 2.0 connection, will it slow down work within a project?

I'm running out of internal disk space on my iMac. I want to move the iMovie (10.0.8) library over to an external disk that has only a USB 3.0 connection. But my iMac has only USB 2.0 ports. When iMovie operates, does it load a project into memory, and do all the work there, or does it bang on the library often while I'm working on the project, so that it would slow down project work? I have a hunch that it does frequent saves during work automatically to disk, which would slow things down a lot.

External disk speed is quite important especially if you have limited RAM since less can be transferred to memory and more has to be read and written back to disk. Your disk will run at USB 2 speed which is not fast but should work. (A Firewire 800 disk would have been better assuming your Mac has this). If you haven't already, update your RAM to the maximum.
Geoff.

My external hard drive goes in to constant access mode and really slows down my computer

I'm using an external hard drive for time machine. After working for an hour or so the drive goes into a constant access mode and realy slows down my IMac. I look at activity monitor and everything looks good, no high CPU usage or memory issues. The only fix is to use the power button to shut down my IMac. After restart it works fine for a while.
If I turn off time machine the problem seems to not happen. I tried disk utility on the external hard drive and it says the dirve is fine. I change out external drives and the problem still occures. Any thoughts?

I didn't realize my profile stated otherwise.
Please check near the bottom of your original post above to see OS X (10.7.2). You might want to update that to avoid confusion and save some time in the future.
OK, please take a deep breath.
Apple does not officially support Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port of the AirPort Extreme....likely because it is not reliable. You might want to review this Apple Support document to confirm:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2038
So, we are not going to be able to provide you with much assistance on that issue.
Some users seem to be able to make this work....some have some problems....and some (like me) who have tried this have nothing but problems.
Sorry, I can't help on this one, but maybe another user who has had better luck will post to provide his secrets.
The iTunes and iPhoto libraries and files are my only copies now. I moved everything from my Macbook to the external then deleted the originals.
Not sure if you have thought about this.
If you deleted the "originals", then your only copy of your data is on one hard drive. You have no backups if the drive has a problem.
A minimum backup plan would be to have a copy of important data on two different drives. When....not if...one drive fails, you have the data on the "other" drive.
You have no "other" drive according to the information that you have provided.
Further.....Time Machine backs up the changes on your Mac. At some point....you cannot know when.....Time Machine will pick up the change on your Mac and delete the iTunes and iPhoto data from your Time Machine backups.
The files might stay there a few months, or even longer. But, I have seen instances where the files were deleted within a week or two.
So my advice would be to only delete data from your Mac that you can afford to lose.

Possible to slow down the drives?

On windows you can use a utility called "Drivespeed" to slow down the drive and make it silent.
Its annoying when Im watching a DivX burnt on a CD/DVD and it makes so much noise when its reading.
Is there any way to do this on a Mac?

First of all, this problem can only be associated to a broken instrument. The instrument itself controls how fast data is sent to it on the bus. That is the primary purpose of the interlocked 3-wire handshake.
If the device is unable to accept any more data (buffer-full), it can assert the NRFD line to indicate it is not ready for data. In fact, it is only allowed to deassert NRFD when it is actually ready for data.
For command transfers, the device is only supposed to deassert NDAC after it has accepted and processed the command byte on the bus.
If this device (or any other) is deasserting NRFD when it is not ready or NDAC when it has not processed a byte it is broken.
One other option available to help communicate to a b
roken instrument is to increase the cable lenght. This adds propegation delays that can sometimes "fix" a broken instrument. I have personally seen an 8-meter cable fix a similar problem. (The device got fancy and deasserted NRFD before it was ready, anticipating that the controller would take a "long" time to change the DIO lines. With new controllers and computers, the DIO lines were changed before the device latched the data, confusing the device.
Hope this helps...

How do i not have my photoshop linked to my macintosh hard drive because it slows down the program by using my hard drive space

how do i not have my photoshop linked to my macintosh hard drive because it slows down the program by using my hard drive space

Which version of mac os x and photoshop are you using?
How much free space is on your hard drive?
How much ram do you have?
Photoshop needs to use your hard drive for scratch space.
If you have more than one hard drive (not partition), you can assign photoshop's scratch disk to another hard drive.
Optimize performance | Photoshop CS4, CS5, CS6, CC

I opened my iPhoto library today which was stored on an external hard drive and several of my videos now will not play. The weird thing is that each file shows a duration of 1 second and when I open them it just shows one frame. What the

I opened my iPhoto library today which was stored on an external hard drive and several of my videos now will not play at all. The weird thing is that each file shows a duration of 1 second and when I open them it just shows one frame. What the !&%$#@ Where did my original video files go?

Sounds like a good plan, you can never be to safe and having a second External HD is safer than one.
The only thing that I would do different, is setup the 3T as my TimeMachine Backup and then erase and move my Photos, Videos and perhaps even iTunes Media to the 1T. That way you will have room to backup both the Internal Hard Drive and the 1T External Hard Drive to the 3T using TimeMachine.
Take your time, study and use the > Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions if you get stuck or aren't sure how to make the move.
Also see > iPhoto: How to move the Library folder to a new location
iMovie ’08: Storing or moving your video library to an external hard disk
and > iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

Is an external hard drive the best way to keep tons of photos and songs, or does it slow down the mac too much to retrieve it?

I have an old Macbook that has a bunch of pictures and songs on it, but few videos. What I do have is slowing it down, particularly iPhoto - I sometimes have trouble editing pictures because the RAM just isn't there (I have it maxed out at 2gb), or even organizing them. I have thought of moving my pictures off the mac onto a hard-wired external drive, but have been told it makes mounting iPhoto even slower to do so. What do people do that have many thousands of pictures?

Install software such as Paragon NTFS. Regardless of the method you use, back the data up; that drive may fail at any time.
(120806)

Default boot drive

As part of my testing routine to try to narrow down the reboot-on-wake issue, I've done a few PRAM resets and in the process observed that resetting PRAM, among whatever else magic it works, resets the default boot drive to Bay 1 (assuming, I suppose, that the drive in that bay has a bootable partition).
I had followed some of the conventional wisdom on this forum (Bay 2 running cooler than Bay 1) and placed my primary boot drive in Bay 2, with Bay 1 holding a bootable clone backup (Courtesy of SuperDuper). SD runs every night to backup my primary boot partition (in Bay 2) to the Bay 1 backup drive.
Through a long combination of events, I found out that I was running on the backup drive and not on the primary. A few minutes of testing later showed that resetting PRAM was the culprit.
So for those of you who are doing frequent or occasional PRAM resets, AND have set to boot from other than Bay 1, AND have a bootable partition in Bay 1...you might want to see what is mounted as / in Disk Utility.
I now have my primary boot drive in Bay 1.

I'll be lazy and not go back to the page Apple has on reset PRAM/NVRAM but usually we do or it recommends using the OPTION key; then reset Startup Disk.

Location of drive in bay

Hi,
I can hear a hard drive platter making noise in my Mac Pro and need to replace it very soon. I have all my bays full. I'm trying to figure out which drive I see on my desktop is associated with the drive in the machine, because I think it's my boot drive and then I have to figure out how to transfer the information.
Is there a way to do that? I can't seem to find a utility that will tell me that information. I have tech tool pro 7 and then the standard mac utilities.
thanks
Dave

Personally I would keep TTPro 7 on another "maintenance system" used for repairs and maintenance only and keep your main system to minimum.
Carbon Copy Cloner is your best friend. And a Samsumg 840 EVO SSD for your system. $139 250GB / $299 500GB - some only need 128GB $85 model
Noise is one thing. Boot from another system drive, repair yours (or use Recovery Mode). Disk Warrior writes the SMART status to system log and will show the number of spare blocks used and remaining, that piece of information is the most telling of a failing drive. Otherwise, consider the directory being an issue, you may only need to clone it and then once sure you have another backup, erase the old system drive. If in doubt, do a 3-way (zero all is not foolproof). TTPro will do a surface media scan. In t he past it would report and tell you it found a bad block but not which and not map it out. If you have Windows the best tool is WD Lifeguard and use it to do full format and extended test. Tests SATA data cable connection for errors as well, and often with drives formatted by OS X you will find errors that are easy to rectify.
A noisy drive - WD Blacks are noisy. Even the green models are when they are being used. Of course a change in what noise it was and use to make versus now may just be seeks or directory or could be a bad sector, all of which can be repaired.

Any drive in Bay 2 freezes MacPro 1.1

I have a 2006 MacPro that has given me trouble free performance since I bought it. I'm way over due for a new system. I'm holding out for the release of the new MacPro.
Anyway, during the past week or so my system was unstable. First - I couldn't get it to wake from sleep without rebooting. A few nights ago I returned to my work area after about 5 hours and took it out of sleep mode. When it started up there was a warning message on the screen stating the the internal HD installed in Bay 2 was improperly ejected. I didn't think it was the drive since it was fairly new and has had light use. I did go ahead and replace it with a brand new drive.
System started up fine. I formatted the new drive, and everything worked as expected. A few hours later the system became unstable, eventually locking up. When I tried to reboot - nothing except a gray screen. I tried booting off CD and a bootable Lion USB Flash Drive. No luck with this. No options to select boot drive ... nothing. Just a gray screen.
Well the system is back up and running. It turns out that if any drive in inserted in Bay 2 - it's impossible to boot. Once I remove the inserted drive, the system reverts back to normal. Definitely not the drives. They've been tested externally and are 100% fine.
Is there anything that I can do to fix this? Sounds like a bad HD controller on the logic board. I don't plan on getting it serviced due to it's age and my eventual purchase of the new MacPro.
thx.
-paul

The hatter wrote:
Did you ever do a "hot swap" with a drive in that bay? some "get away" but it can damage the electronics.
Your running Lion, at some point have you already started over with a clean install? not upgrade over SL?
One way to work around only having 3 drive bays are the two ODD ports, and two SSDs (not bootable) on Sonnet Tempo SSD PCIe card.
Just what type make model of hard drive did you buy that you are trying to use?
Thanks for the tips ...
Never hot swapped. The system was always powered down and unplugged when necessary. And no, I've never done a clean OS install on this system. Like I said, it's been trouble free since I bought it. I mostly run media production applications. I'm going to consider doing a clean install.
As far as the drives that I use - these Western Digitals
The suspect drive that was in Bay 2 works fine when I use it in a docking station. I also tried 2 brand new drives in Bay 2. The problem persists. As soon as I remove the Bay 2 drive, the system boots and works fine.
The ODD/SSD option is cool. OTOH I'm basically holding out for the new MacPro. I'd still like to solve this Bay 2 issue before I decommission the system or sell it, potentially.
-paul.

TS2570 Boot or Restore, can't see my Mac partition but can see my Windows7 partition. From Windows I can access my Mac files which I've backed up on a NTFS drive. I most probably will need to erase the Mac partition & make a new one, what happens to Boot

Hi,
When I boot my 2010 MacBook Pro I get a gray screen, when I try to do a Restore, the Mac partition is nowhere in sight, it sees my Windows Partition.
When I in Windows I can see all the files in the Mac Partition and I've backed up my Mac files on a NTFS external drive. My Windows partition has been working fine, I've installed it 2 years ago and have been receiving regular updates. Only problem is my display driver crashes occasionally.
I most probably will have to recreate the Mac partition and re-install Mountain Lion from the Mac servers. BUT, what happens to Boot Camp and my Windows 7 partition?
Any ideas?
Thanks

Unfortunately, there is no way to expand the partition upwards. As you noted, you would need to either start afresh, or simply find a good use for the first partition.

Boot Drive failed to be found - Question Marks ???

I recently used SuperDuper to clone my primary OSX 10.4 Tiger startup disk to a second internal hard drive in my Intel MacPro, and now I am experiencing strange behavior when booting from the Cloned drive...
To start with, let me first say that upoin successfully cloning my main OS onto the secondary internal drive, I removed my primary drive from my machine and replaced it with a cleanly formatted blank drive for data storage...in other words, there is currently only one capable startup disk in my machine at the moment...
So when running my OS from my new Clone OS drive, everything works fine when the OS is running, and things are fine and dandy...When I restart my computer, the machine loads right back up as if everything is totally normal and functioning perfect.
But then I went ahead and shutdown the machine for a short while, and upon returning and attempting to power up again, the startup process brings me to the FLASHING QUESTION MARK icon shortly after hitting the power button (as if for one reason or another, its not seeing my OS)...
The only way I can get the machine to work again, is by force-quitting the flashing question mark screen thereby powering back down; then restarting holding the 'option' key, and choosing my Clone boot drive from the list of startup discs (as it does show up as the only available drive in this list...)...Then my computer loads back up again, and things are working as normal, again, as if there were no problems...I test restarting a few times - no problem...I then re-test shutting down and powering back on again...QUESTIONS MARKS AGAIN!!
Anyone have any idea what the heck is going on, and how I should go about handling this?
any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... Thanks!

Are you sure you have the startup disk set correctly in System Preferences -> Startup Disk?
If so, try zapping the PRAM. Reboot while holding down command-option-p-r. Continue holding them down until after the third startup bong, then release. After the Mac boots, try setting the prefs again and see if it sticks then.
If not, I suspect you might have a dead PRAM battery. Try shutting your Mac down, then disconnect the power cord and the internet. Reconnect the power cord but leave the internet disconnected. Boot the Mac. If your time and date is set to sometime last century, you need a new PRAM battery.

Why do I get a boot drive not found error only when laptop lid has been closed?

I've got a HP Mini 210 P/Number: VX818EA with Windows 7 Starter.
It works fine when turning on after shutdown, but when I've put it to sleep by closing the lid it won't 'wake up', and I get a blank screen. On restarting the computer I get a 'boot drive not found' error, (3F0) which can be resolved by following the steps on this page: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01443463&tmp_task=solveCategory&lc=en&dlc=en&cc...
I've run disk check etc as suggested on that link, no errors are found, but nothing seems to resolve the problem more than temporarily. Seems odd that this only happens if I close the lid (sleep mode with the lid up is fine, doesn't crash the computer).
Can anyone advise?
Thanks

Hello,
Very strange, can you go to BIOS and reset the setting " By Default " ?. How did you check the disk ?
This is an unusual probleme Hp Mini 210 . And notice me after your reset the bios settings.

External ssd boot drive - tidying up!

Hi all, to speed up my late 2011 27" iMac I've upgraded the RAM to 12gb (small improvement) and then installed an external thunderbolt 256GB SSD drive as my boot drive (massive performance improvement.)
My question is now what's the best thing to do with the internal 1TB HDD? I've read that locating your home folders onto the internal drive is best practice for performance (frees up spave on the SSD for the system to use). I think it would be useful to have a backup of the boot drive on the internal HDD but how to do everything in the best way is what I need advice on....
Should I delete the copies of the home directories on the internal HDD drive before moving them from the SSD to HDD? Should I then delete them from the SSD? At the moment the HDD is still as it was when I Carbon Copied it onto the SSD but that means it's now a slightly out of date version of the boot drive.
I want to end up with a backup of my install but free up as much space as possible on both the SSD and the HDD and get the best performance I can overall.
Any help appreciated!

Look through several of them. There are those for Windows and those for Macs. For example, Using OS X with an SSD plus HDD setup - Matt Gemmell. Or follow the link at the bottom: ssd and hdd together mac.

Can I create an external boot drive for an updated Mac OS Maverick system?

I'm currently running Mac OS Snow Leopard (10.6.8) on my 24" iMac and would like to clone my current drive to an external drive & then update that external drive to Mac OS Maverick. First, can this be done to create an external Boot drive for my iMac System? Secondly, can I then select the internal system (OS 10.6.8) or the external drive Maverick OS system at boot time?

Probably will depend on just what your machine is - i.e. how current and fast is the internal hardware.
Generally though, the performance booting off a firewire 800 should be fine for most things with little if any system lag. My late-2008 MBP ( 2.53Ghz core-2 duo, 8GB RAM) runs quite well when booted from a firewire 800 drive (7200rpm - even my 5400rpm portable clone is perfectly useable).
Just remember if using the external for a long or serious work session, if the power goes out, that external is not going to be powered off battery (I keep my full size external drives plugged into a UPS because of that).

Boot drive in Bay 3 or Bay 4 will it slow down the startup process?

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