Hard drive settings for Ultra 2, IBM DNES-309170, 390-0007 drives

I recently acquired an Ultra 2 workstation without hard drives. I found some working IBM DNES-309170 drives from a Dell Pentium 2 server and see that they are Sun part 390-0007 for use in the Ultra 2. When I try to load Solaris 8, an error appears that there is a bad magic number or something like that. Is there a problem with the drives' jumpers? Thanks.

You'd best get your Solaris installation CD's
Boot from the first disk and then you're in an OS environment.
OK boot cdrom -s <enter>
If you don't happen to use the "-s" command switch for single-user mode, the installation process will launch.
But ... that's OK as well because partway through you can right-click the GUI that eventually appears
and open a terminal window for command line interaction
while the install otherwise waits your interaction (which you simply don't give).
Some links for you:
The Ultra-2 in the Sun System Handbook (SSH)
http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/U2/U2.html
The Ultra-2's manuals, as linked from that SSH page
http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/Workstation_Products/Workstations/UltraSPARC_Workstations/Sun_Ultra_2/index.html
OBP 3.x Command Reference Manual ( # 806-1377 )
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806-1377-10?q=openboot+command+reference
Solaris Operating Environment as found at Docs.Sun.Com
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/prod/solaris
( ... and for example, the Solaris 8 installation guide http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806-2224-10 )

Similar Messages

Max Hard Drive size for Ultra 10s

Hi,
I'm kinda new to sun and I have a ultra 10s with a 9 Gig factory installed HD.
I was wondering what the maximum sized IDE hard drive that can be installed. I would like to mirror the system as well. I've seen another post about this but the max size was a 27 Gig drive and didn't explain how to mirror. I have Solaris 8 1/01 meda kit does that include the required software to mirror the drives. I think it's called Raid Manager?
Many thanks

I'm not sure what the max drive size supported on an Ultra-10, but most
new Sun products are shipping with 40 GByte EIDE drives and use the
same chipset. Caveat emptor: Solaris <7 may or may not support EIDE
larger than 8GBytes, but since you are on Solaris 8 you should be ok.
For SCSI drives (requires a PCI SCSI HBA for the Ultra-10) the size can
be quite large. The most common large size SCSI drives today is 180
GBytes, but SCSI is designed to scale much larger.
You don't want RAIDManager for mirroring. Look for Solstice DiskSuite (SDS)
in your media distribution. If I'm not mistaken, it is cleverly hidden in
the "EA" directory on CD 2of2 in the media kit. Also, look for docs on
mirroring root using SDS on http://docs.sun.com
-- richard

EIDE Hard Drive list for Ultra 5

Hi,
I recently bought an Ultra 5 and would like to upgrade the hard drive. What are my options, can I get any EIDE drive (any size any speed)?
A recommendation would also be appreciated!
-cramped in 8Gig.

You'd best get your Solaris installation CD's
Boot from the first disk and then you're in an OS environment.
OK boot cdrom -s <enter>
If you don't happen to use the "-s" command switch for single-user mode, the installation process will launch.
But ... that's OK as well because partway through you can right-click the GUI that eventually appears
and open a terminal window for command line interaction
while the install otherwise waits your interaction (which you simply don't give).
Some links for you:
The Ultra-2 in the Sun System Handbook (SSH)
http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/U2/U2.html
The Ultra-2's manuals, as linked from that SSH page
http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/hardware/docs/Workstation_Products/Workstations/UltraSPARC_Workstations/Sun_Ultra_2/index.html
OBP 3.x Command Reference Manual ( # 806-1377 )
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806-1377-10?q=openboot+command+reference
Solaris Operating Environment as found at Docs.Sun.Com
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/prod/solaris
( ... and for example, the Solaris 8 installation guide http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806-2224-10 )

HT4718 I want to install a new internal hard drive for my Macbook (13in, Late 2009) and restore to factory settings. However, I want to keep my Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

I want to install a new internal hard drive for my Macbook (13in, Late 2009) and restore to factory settings. However, I want to keep my Mac OS X Snow Leopard., which I downloaded from the app store. How can I restore computer with the updated OS?

What I did on our two computers was partition the hard drive so that both Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion can be used on the computers. This allowed me to be able to retain/use older applications and games on the Snow Leopard partition. This will allow you to do a clean install of Mountain Lion on the newly created partition. The Mountain Lion installer has a button that allows you to select another drive so you don't install it over Snow Leopard. I cleverly name one partition Snow Leopard and the other one Mountain Lion so I wouldn't confuse the two (I never claimed to be smart).
To partition, you need to have sufficient free hard drive space (I suggest 50 GB minimum). Boot off the Snow Leopard DVD or the disks that came with the computer and use Disk Utility to partition your hard drive into two partitions. If you plan to make Mountain Lion your primary OS, then you can reduce the size of the Snow Leopard partition so most of the free hard drive space is available for Mountain Lion. While booted off the disk, you can install Snow Leopard on the partition you want it on.
Restart and download Mountain Lion, remembering to select the correct partition before installing. I would make a copy of the installer and move it out of the Applications folder because the installer self destructs.
After getting all that sorted out, I found that while booted in Mountain Lion I could access the Snow Leopard partition. That allowed me to drag files and applications from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. Applications that won't work with Mountain Lion will be grayed out with a slash through them.

How do I change NTFS settings for my external hard drive in Mac and PC

I recently purchased an external hard drive
SAMSUNG (Model No NM-0802)
when i plug the USB cable it will not display on the desktop of my mac
I operate on MacBook Pro and Mac OS X Lion
On the other hand, It is detected in the Disk Utilities pane and is currently set as NTFS format
how do i reformat it to work both in PC and Mac?
thx in advance

Shootist007 wrote:
I have never had any problems with a drive formatted FAT32 or exFAT on a Win PC when connected to a Mac.
Would you please comment on these two links
<http://krishaamer.com/2011/07/10/exfat-mac-pc-compatible-disk/>
<https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2767345?start=0&tstart=0>
(The second one is referred to in the first item.)
Wouldn't you think a MS OS knows how to format a drive correctly using that format, I do. It is Apple Mac that is not doing it correctly.
Kindly note that the word "correctly" does not appear in my post. I'm not quite sure how the statement,
"the Mac OS X exFAT filesystem implementation is not compatible with Win's default cluster size for exFAT"
can be interpreted to suggest that any OS is not "doing it correctly".

Jumper settings for WD caviar hard drive

Hello There,
I want to put a new hard drive in my iMac CRT but am a bit confused by the diagram on the Western Digital 80Gb drive I have bought. The drive that is fitted at the moment has the little jumper thing across the two end pins, as does the seagate one I fitted in my other iMac not long ago (I just set it like the one I swapped it with). The diagram on the WD drive gives me lots of options, cable select, slave, master only, etc. Which one is right for my iMac - (it has a CD-RW, I don't know if this makes a difference). Thanks

According to Apple for the 600MHz iMac the Hard Drive should be set as Master. (Reference - Click Hard Disk Drive on the left hand side.)
mrtotes

Babylon browser hijack has taken over my firefox. I have deleted all files that I can from my hard drive, I have gone to about:config, searched for babylon and reset the settings, however it still comes back. How can I get rid of babylon?

I have tried malwarebytes, it only found "mywebpage" bugs, but I deleted them too. I also did a scan of my hard drive and deleted five files that all contained "babylon" in them. It still comes back time and time again.

See:
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Preferences_not_saved
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Preferences+are+not+saved
Start Firefox in <u>[[Safe Mode]]</u> to check if one of the extensions or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox (Tools) > Add-ons > Appearance/Themes).
*Don't make any changes on the Safe mode start window.
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode

Hard drive failed on windows computer. all data lost. backed up most itunes on an older model my passport ultra external hard drive. How do I transfer from external hard drive to new computer hard drive?

The hard drive on my windows computer failed and the data is not retrievalbe.
I had a new hard drive installed.
I had backed up on a older model my passport ultra external hard drive my itunes up to about a year ago.
How can I move the back up extenal drive Itunes data onto my new hard drive- will it work on itunes?
===========
Meanwhile my ipod has all my music and podcasts up till a month ago. What will I lose if I put my external drive music back on?

Hi Perilman,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities! I understand that all of your iTunes media is on an external hard drive and you would like to move that media onto your new Windows computer hard drive. The following article has step by step instructions for this specifically. Part 5 in the External drive section is probably what is going to be most relevant to you.
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
Part 5: Copy music to your new computer
To copy all your music files (including the library file that holds all your playlists and other settings) to your new computer:
I hope this helps,
-Joe

How do I Access purple backups from external hard drive for Time Machine

My hard drive crashed and I installed a new one.
Did internet recovery and upgraded to my previous OS.
I am trying to get my data but the backup is purple that I need and I cannot access it.
How do I do this.
Also if I did something wrong, how do I setup Time machine to restore my whole system and set it up so the backups are accessible instead of purple.
Thanks in advance.
I am using Mavericks
External hd connected with USB

donavonknight
Very impressive that it is that easy but trying to get my data is a pain.
Time Machine is a backup of your computer SYSTEM, not idealized as a data archive.
Consider other options for the future >
Data Storage Platforms; their Drawbacks & Advantages
#1. Time Machine / Time Capsule
Drawbacks:
1. Time Machine is not bootable, if your internal drive fails, you cannot access files or boot from TM directly from the dead computer.
2. Time machine is controlled by complex software, and while you can delve into the TM backup database for specific file(s) extraction, this is not ideal or desirable.
3. Time machine can and does have the potential for many error codes in which data corruption can occur and your important backup files may not be saved correctly, at all, or even damaged. This extra link of failure in placing software between your data and its recovery is a point of risk and failure. A HD clone is not subject to these errors.
4. Time machine mirrors your internal HD, in which cases of data corruption, this corruption can immediately spread to the backup as the two are linked. TM is perpetually connected (or often) to your computer, and corruption spread to corruption, without isolation, which TM lacks (usually), migrating errors or corruption is either automatic or extremely easy to unwittingly do.
5. Time Machine does not keep endless copies of changed or deleted data, and you are often not notified when it deletes them; likewise you may accidently delete files off your computer and this accident is mirrored on TM.
6. Restoring from TM is quite time intensive.
7. TM is a backup and not a data archive, and therefore by definition a low-level security of vital/important data.
8. TM working premise is a “black box” backup of OS, APPS, settings, and vital data that nearly 100% of users never verify until an emergency hits or their computers internal SSD or HD that is corrupt or dead and this is an extremely bad working premise on vital data.
9. Given that data created and stored is growing exponentially, the fact that TM operates as a “store-it-all” backup nexus makes TM inherently incapable to easily backup massive amounts of data, nor is doing so a good idea.
10. TM working premise is a backup of a users system and active working data, and NOT massive amounts of static data, yet most users never take this into consideration, making TM a high-risk locus of data “bloat”.
11. TM like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
12. *Level-1 security of your vital data.
Advantages:
1. TM is very easy to use either in automatic mode or in 1-click backups.
2. TM is a perfect novice level simplex backup single-layer security save against internal HD failure or corruption.
3. TM can easily provide a seamless no-gap policy of active data that is often not easily capable in HD clones or HD archives (only if the user is lazy is making data saves).
#2. HD archives
Drawbacks:
1. Like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
2. Unless the user ritually copies working active data to HD external archives, then there is a time-gap of potential missing data; as such users must be proactive in archiving data that is being worked on or recently saved or created.
Advantages:
1. Fills the gap left in a week or 2-week-old HD clone, as an example.
2. Simplex no-software data storage that is isolated and autonomous from the computer (in most cases).
3. HD archives are the best idealized storage source for storing huge and multi-terabytes of data.
4. Best-idealized 1st platform redundancy for data protection.
5. *Perfect primary tier and level-2 security of your vital data.
#3. HD clones (see below for full advantages / drawbacks)
Drawbacks:
1. HD clones can be incrementally updated to hourly or daily, however this is time consuming and HD clones are, often, a week or more old, in which case data between today and the most fresh HD clone can and would be lost (however this gap is filled by use of HD archives listed above or by a TM backup).
2. Like all HD-based data is subject to ferromagnetic and mechanical failure.
Advantages:
1. HD clones are the best, quickest way to get back to 100% full operation in mere seconds.
2. Once a HD clone is created, the creation software (Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper) is no longer needed whatsoever, and unlike TM, which requires complex software for its operational transference of data, a HD clone is its own bootable entity.
3. HD clones are unconnected and isolated from recent corruption.
4. HD clones allow a “portable copy” of your computer that you can likewise connect to another same Mac and have all your APPS and data at hand, which is extremely useful.
5. Rather than, as many users do, thinking of a HD clone as a “complimentary backup” to the use of TM, a HD clone is superior to TM both in ease of returning to 100% quickly, and its autonomous nature; while each has its place, TM can and does fill the gap in, say, a 2 week old clone. As an analogy, the HD clone itself is the brick wall of protection, whereas TM can be thought of as the mortar, which will fill any cracks in data on a week, 2-week, or 1-month old HD clone.
6. Best-idealized 2nd platform redundancy for data protection, and 1st level for system restore of your computers internal HD. (Time machine being 2nd level for system restore of the computer’s internal HD).
7. *Level-2 security of your vital data.
#4. Online archives
Drawbacks:
1. Subject to server failure or due to non-payment of your hosting account, it can be suspended.
2. Subject, due to lack of security on your part, to being attacked and hacked/erased.
Advantages:
1. In case of house fire, etc. your data is safe.
2. In travels, and propagating files to friends and likewise, a mere link by email is all that is needed and no large media needs to be sent across the net.
3. Online archives are the perfect and best-idealized 3rd platform redundancy for data protection.
4. Supremely useful in data isolation from backups and local archives in being online and offsite for long-distance security in isolation.
5. *Level-1.5 security of your vital data.
#5. DVD professional archival media
Drawbacks:
1. DVD single-layer disks are limited to 4.7Gigabytes of data.
2. DVD media are, given rough handling, prone to scratches and light-degradation if not stored correctly.
Advantages:
1. Archival DVD professional blank media is rated for in excess of 100+ years.
2. DVD is not subject to mechanical breakdown.
3. DVD archival media is not subject to ferromagnetic degradation.
4. DVD archival media correctly sleeved and stored is currently a supreme storage method of archiving vital data.
5. DVD media is once written and therefore free of data corruption if the write is correct.
6. DVD media is the perfect ideal for “freezing” and isolating old copies of data for reference in case newer generations of data become corrupted and an older copy is needed to revert to.
7. Best-idealized 4th platform redundancy for data protection.
8. *Level-3 (highest) security of your vital data.
[*Level-4 data security under development as once-written metallic plates and synthetic sapphire and likewise ultra-long-term data storage]

New internal Hard Drive for my Ibook G4 (March 2005); Panther 10.3.9

Hi there,
hope I'm not posting a post which is already answered, but couldn't find any appriopriate one.
The thing is I want to buy a bigger HDD for my lovely Ibook. Questions:
1) I looked in "about this MAC" and found out, that it should be an ATA drive. Is that correct? Or can I use some other drives types as well? Can I use Ultra ATA to speed up the whole ship?
2) At what else, when buying, should I pay attention?
3) Is it advisable to buy a used hard drive, or would you strongly disadvise?
4) Any brands, types you would suggest (I'm thinking about some nice 60-80gbs)?
5) After buying, is it possible to make a 1:1 copy from the old one to the new one, so that I don't have to install everything again from the beginning?
6) New ibooks are shipped with this Sudden Motion Sensor, which helps protecting the HDD. Is it possible, to have this one too?
Thanks for all the help and response,
and sorry if there is a post with the same matter already
Peter (Piotr)
iBook G4 12" Mac OS X (10.3.9) 768 RAM, 30GB

Hi iMaster,
1 - Apple uses Ultra ATA hard drives.
2 - RPM (Revolution Per Minute) I use a 5400RPM in my internal and a 7200RPM for my external. The 7200RPM hard drive I believe run hotter then the 5400RPM. You will need a hard drive that is 2.5" wide X 9.5mm tall. I believe IDE and ATA interfaces are the same.
3 - I wouldn't buy a used hard drive because it may not last as long as a new one. Using a hard drive usually eats away at the life span.
4 - Toshiba, Hitachi, Seagate, or IBM. You may want to look at iFixit.com for iBook compatible hard drives.
5 - Yes, you will need to backup your iBook (on to an external drive, whether a external hard drive, iPod, computer, etc. I suggest using Carbon Copy Cloner. You may want to look at Macworld: Take Control of Mac OS X Backups and Knowledge Base Document #106941 which has examples on How to back up and restore your files.
6 - AMS (Apple Motion Sensor, Mobile Motion Module, or Sudden Motion Sensor) is an sensor that is integrated into the logic board. It is not a hard drive feature.
To be honest with you, I don't really recommend upgrading your internal hard drive. Do you still have an outstanding warranty on your iBook? You do realize that replacing the hard drive will void Apple's One (1) Year Limited Warranty, unless they are an AASP. If you would like hear more, let us know.
Jon
Macbook 2.0 White (100Gb HD 2Gb RAM) Mac Mini 1.42Ghz, iPod (All), Airport (Graphite & Express), G4 1.33Ghz iBook, G4 iMac 1Ghz, G3 500Mhz, iBook iMac 233Mhz, eMate, Power Mac 5400 LC, PowerBook 540c, Macintosh 128K, Apple //e, Apple //, and some more... Mac OS X (10.4.5) Moto Razr, iLife '06, SmartDisk 160Gb, Apple BT Mouse, Sight..

New Hard Drive for My T-61

My hard drive in my T61 crashed and none of the info could be retrieved. I've got to replace it. Never had to do this on my own. Here are my questions:
1) Are all these drives the same size . . . since I can't find them tied to individual notebooks, like you do batteries, etc., are they one-size-fits-all i.e. if I order a Western Digital WD3200BEKT Scorpio Black Mobile Hard Drive - 320GB, 2.5", 7200rpm, will I be able to just slip out the old one and slip in the new one?
2) The machine came with Vista and I'm thinking about going back with Windows XP. What about all the lenovo drivers, etc, that make everything work on the old system. Will I ever be able to get all of them installed and how do I go about finding them.
3) I know nothing about disk partitioning or whether it's even necessary. Will the new installation of windows take care of that automatically?
4) Any other issues that you can anticipate for a new installation like this.
Thanks.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hi gcsimpson,
1) Not all notebook drives are of same size, nonetheless, the one you have discovered is a compatible drive. It will slip in like a baby
2) You can find all lenovo drivers from their website. You can either download them manually here:- http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-67853.html. Or through thinkvantage system update:- http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/TVSU-UPDATE.html
3) Windows installation disc will give you an option to partition the drive. Frankly, I don't partition drives unless I plan to dual boot my system with another OS. In my standpoint, it's not deemed necessary.
4) Remember to change hard disk drive settings from SATA AHCI to Compatibility in the BIOS or else Windows wouldn't detect your drive. Further, proceeding is a good guide on installing Win XP on T61:- http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=188992
Hope it helps.
Maliha (I don't work for lenovo)
ThinkPads:- T400[Win 7], T60[Win 7], IBM 240[Win XP]
IdeaPad: U350
Apple:- Macbook Air [Snow Leopard]
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Ultra ATA hard drives???

So i have a 120gb Ultra ATA hard drive so i bought a casing to make it an external HD but it would not show up in disk utility or my desktop. So i took a regular ATA HD and it worked fine. my question is does apple not support Ultra ATA or is there somthing else i need to do to get it show up?

What are the manufacturer's recommended jumper settings for the drive when installed in an enclosure?
It should work as long as the drive settings are correct and the enclosure is getting enough juice - either through the ports or a power adapter.

IBM Hard Drive Only Runs In One Computer

Hey guys,
I have a weird little problem with an IBM Travelstar hard drive. I am working on a Dell Latitude 400 for a friend. She wanted XP installed on her laptop, as it currently has some version of Fedora on it, and she dislikes Linux. However, her computer does not have a disc drive, floppy drive, or support for USB boot. So, I went on to Ebay, and bought a 2.5 to 3.5 IDE hard drive adapter, and went through the process of installing MS-DOS 7.1 to a spare drive, and using that to install XP. Sure enough, using my spare drive, everything worked smoothly. However, when I tried the same thing with her hard drive, none of my computers can find it. My Gateway 2000 cannot detect it, my A31 Thinkpad cannot detect it, and so on and so forth. Of course, when her hard drive is in her Dell, it runs fine.
I am wondering if maybe the hard drive is somehow 'locked in' to her computer...as I have experienced a similar problem with another hard drive that would only run in an I 1200 Thinkpad. The model number off the drive in question is IC25N010ATDA04-0. It has a manufacturing date of April 02. If anybody has any ideas, I would really like to hear them.
Thanks in advance,
- Nycto

Right, Windows cannot handle ext3. I am aware of this. I tried reformating the disc with one of my Kubuntu discs, and Kubuntu could not detect the hard drive. I couldn't detect the drive with Max Blast either. I have yet to try every computer in my house, but, thus far, regardless of operating system, the only computer that will can detect the drive is the Dell from which I pulled it. When I boot my Gateway 2000 with the laptop drive attached, the bios only recognizes the two CD-ROM drives and my primary hard drive. Even when the laptop drive is the only drive in the system, it fails to detect the drive. So I couldn't tell you if I could view the drive in Windows' Device Manager, as I can't even get Windows to boot with this drive connected. And, like I said, Kubuntu couldn't find the drive either.
I know my converters work, as I was able to successfully install Windows using the previously described method with an old Hitachi notebook drive I had lying around. Additionally, as I mentioned before, I have seen this once before with another IBM Travelstar...except that drive was only detected by an IBM Thinkpad 1200. Which is why I wondered if there was something built into the hard drive's firmware that locked it in to a particular computer or something. I've tried most of the obvious stuff...jumper settings, loose cables, etc, and yet I don't have any other computers that can detect the drive.
I'm tempted to solve my Windows XP installation by installing VMWare, or something similar, to the Dell, and then copying over an ISO of XP, and mounting it in a virtual drive and installing it that way...but this machine is so old, I doubt it's a good idea to run XP on top of Linux...

Format Hard Drive for Capture w/ FCP and use on PC?

Can someone tell me how I can format a hard drive that will ultimately be used by a client with only PC's -- so that I can capture video on my Mac using FCP?
In the past, I thought FCP broke up captured video into 2 GB segments when a hard drive was formatted for MS-DOS. But tonight I formatted my client's external hd using Disk Utility and the drive wasn't even available under system settings on FCP.
I'm really not at all PC-savvy anymore...can someone tell me if there is way to do this?
If it matters, I'm capturing home video from several sources: Canopus ADVC-300, and mini-DV tapes using a Sony camcorder.
Thanks!
Jenny

Thank you so much. The NTFS-3G did the trick. I have one more dumb question (again...I'm completely PC-illiterate). Would .dv be the best format for me to capture video again for a client who is a home user of a PC? I was planning to capture with FCP (in .mov format) -- but perhaps for ease of use for the client, I should use Toast or iMovie and capture in .dv?
Again...thanks for your help. This is the first time I've encountered this situation!
Jenny

Time machine hard drive for transfering files from 2010 MBP to rMBP

Hello!
I have a couple of questions here!
I will be getting the rMBP in the next few weeks so want to do a bit of housekeeping before transferring across.
1) What is the best way to clear my current MBP of files and applications that i dont use and are just taking up space? I currently have a 256GB hard drive with 8GB free - there should be no reason for this as my large audio/ Raw photo/ video editing files are on an external hard drive. So i think there must be a lot of flotsam and jetsam on there that needs to be removed as i don't want to carry that from computer to computer!
2) Is Time machine the best option for this kind of service?
3) Can anyone recommend an external hard drive for the job? I don't want to rely on thunderbolt ones at the moment so would it just be any usb hard drive seeing as Apple has sodded of firewire?
Cheers
K*

OK, I'll bite:
1) you can just delete the documents that you don't use by throwing them in the Trash. To delete apps and all associated files (and some will disagree with me or suggest another application) I recommend using AppDelete. I believe it's $13 or so but I have used AppZapper and AppCleaner as well but find that AppDelete finds all associated files.
2) After you've rid yourself of your 'junk' files, I recommend using Time Machine on a dedicated or partitioned hard drive for backups. When you get your new machine, you can just use Time Machine to restore all of your settings, apps, documents, etc. For everything you ever wanted to know about Time Machine, see http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html.
3) A USB drive is definitely the way to go. I would recommend the G-Drive series from Hitachi here. They have all sorts of connections, including USB 2.0 and Firewire 800. When Apple (finally) releases their Thunderbolt>FW800 adapter, you'll be ready. Others might recommend USB 3.0 drives for the speed but I've seen too many posts of, in particular, Western Digital USB 3.0 drives that have problems with the 2012 Macs to go the USB 3.0 route right now. Maybe someone will jump in and recommend a USB 3.0 drive that they actually have working on a 2012 MBP?
Good luck,
Clinton

Hard drive settings for Ultra 2, IBM DNES-309170, 390-0007 drives

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