How to move all data to another drive?

Question

I've just upgraded to Tiger and simultaneously installed two internal Seagate 325GB drives in mirror RAID configuration. I plan to keep the original 80GB drive for OSX and applications only, and move all documents, photos and music to RAID. But I'm not sure how to link the applications (iPhoto, iTunes, Word, Entourage etc) so they know where to find existing data and where to save new data. I can't find specific instructions anywhere. Could someone walk me through the steps?

Answer 1

Allan: I do appreciate your spending so much time to try to make sure I understand your real concerns about RAID as a backup. Since first questioning your explanation I have re-read most of the discussion threads on the topic, and noted that over the years, you have been passionately warning about mirrored RAID arrays for private and amateur people like me, on the perfectly reasonable grounds that we are not fully protected. I also noted that you are/were an IBM IT professional and bring that experience and viewpoint to the discussion. I suggest that explains our different perspectives. For the last five years I have been running without hard drive backup of any kind; relying on burning my most important data - photos and movies - to disk, until I could figure out the best way to use my machine's capabilities. Heeding warnings of the inevitabile end of my one internal drive, I decided to install twin drives in the available bays and configure them in a mirrored RAID to insure against main drive failure. That is my priority. In 26 years use of PCs and Macs, I have not found accidental deletion, application quits or keyboard mistakes to have been a noticeable, let alone significant problem. (I did lose a whole chapter of a book once, but that was because I forgot to enable Auto-save. Neither RAID nor backup would have protected against that!) I did also notice that in the forum discussions, nobody could report problems with their RAID setups or with recovery in the case of a failed drive. (I know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but at least there doesn't seem to be a great problem). So for a home user, I've concluded that the RAID setup is both the most appropriate for my needs, and the best value for money. I guess we'll have to disagree, but thank you for explaining your point of view. I do hope that our discussions has set out the pros and cons of RAIDs clearly, for the benefit of other readers.
Geoffrey
Powermac G4 Quicksilver Dual 800/ iBook G3 700   Mac OS X (10.4.9)  
Powermac G4 Quicksilver Dual 800/ iBook G3 700   Mac OS X (10.4.9)