How can I physically change external HDs, without losing file pathways?

I hope this makes sense to you guys... I posted this on a non-computer forum, got no real help, so here we are... Macbook with 2 external harddrives for files... One is a backup...
I have two external hard-drives. Well, 3, but two for the point of this question.
One is newer than the other, and larger, so I want it to be my 'main' drive (Drive beta) , and the other one (Drive alpha) to be my backup drive.
Currently, Drive Alpha is my main drive, and Drive Beta is my backup Drive.
If I exactly swap the names of the drives to the opposite, does that sufficiently trick the computer into thinking that one drive is the 'other' drive. I don't want to have to have each program 'look' in different places for the various files they all use to operate. Thoughts?
Part 2:
One is a a 500GB that's about a year and a half old, the other is a 750 that's a week old. The majoirty of my files are on the 500 GB drive. I had another 500 gb that was a backup drive. That drive died last week. The 750 arrived today as a replacement for the backup drive. However, since this drive is larger, newer, faster, and has a longer warranty, I want it to be the main drive, with the 500 gb to be the backup drive.
Basically, I want to know if I take all of the files from the 500, copy them to the 750, and rename the 750 to the exact name that the 500 was called, would my programs see the files on the new drive? I could then format the 500, and use it as a the Time Machine drive.
Hope that clears it up.
also: I boot from another drive, the internal.
Thanks guys

Whether your programs will be able to "find" your files or not will depend on the method the application uses to reference the files on the external drive. If you just want to switch the names around, you'll probably be okay.
If an external drive has a volume name of "Beta", its (POSIX) path is "/Volumes/Beta". If there's a file "file" on the root level of Beta, its file path would be "/Volumes/Beta/file".
If you have a second external hard drive that you rename to "Beta", its (POSIX) path will be "/Volumes/Beta 1", since the Volumes folder can't contain two items that have the same name. Similarly, if there's a file "file" on the root level of this second Beta drive, its file path would be "/Volumes/Beta 1/file".
If you were then to use the Finder or Disk Utility to unmount both of the drives and then re-mount them, whichever one you chose to remount first would be at "/Volumes/Beta", and the other would be at "/Volumes/Beta 1". In other words, their POSIX paths could potentially be mixed around.
As you might see, file paths can be somewhat fragile, and for that reason, Developers are encouraged to use more robust methods to refer to files such as aliases. The aliases they use are similar to the aliases you can create with the Finder. Aliases can potentially keep track of a file or folder even if you rename it, move it to a different place on the same hard drive, or move it to a different drive. Using aliases takes more work on the part of the developer than file paths do, so they don't always use them.
Since you just want to switch the names around, you should be okay. What I would do is to quit as many extraneous applications as possible (to quit your web browser if necessary select the text of my post and drag it to the Desktop to make a .textClipping. Then double-click on the .textClipping to see its text). Then open Disk Utility (in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder) and return back to the Finder. Use the Finder to rename the volumes and then switch back to Disk Utility. Select the volumes you renamed and choose File > Unmount for each of them. Then choose File > Mount for each of the volumes. Now you should be all set. (The reason you need to use Disk Utility to unmount them, is because, when you rename the first volume (Alpha to Beta, for example), it will "conflict" with the other volume name and so will be mounted at /Volumes/Beta 1 like I explained above. After you rename the second volume, there will no longer be a conflict, and so when you unmount and remount them, the volume you renamed to Beta will mount at /Volumes/Beta).
Hope this helps....

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