Reasonable to run Arch from a CF drive?

I'm building a NAS box for my basement and the frame is going to be a Dell Dimension 2400. I'm using 2x 2TB sata drives which will be configured in Raid-1 for redundancy purposes(losing a drive and everything on it sucks).
Anyhow, I want my two storage drives to be completely dedicated to my data so, I've decided to investigate the possibility of installing and running Arch on a CF card connected via IDE. I've seen mixed yays and nays online from my research, but, in the end, the Arch community has always had not only the best documentation but also one of the most knowledgeable communities I've seen.
So, What do you think?
Oh, and I plan on running X with openbox for speed. I'm just running a couple web daemons to download my shows.
Thanks!

EDIT* - eheheh, I just found an interesting article about installing sickbeard and sabnzbd on freenas.
Awebb wrote: Does it have to be Linux? If you're not too shy to use BSD, I recommend trying FreeNAS. It has everything a home server needs and it is even capable of satisfying a mid-size corporate's file server's requirements. You wouldn't need openbox, it comes with a very sophisticated web interface.
Its going to need to be able to run
1) Sickbeard
2) Sabnzbd
I did briefly examine freeNAS on their website. seems nice and although I know nothing about freeBSD, after moving through various linux distros and then finally successfully installing and using Arch, I'm sure I could figure it out. Actually, originally I planned this project in a way that would make this machine a standalone NAS box using freeNAS. It wasn't until a couple weeks ago I decided that if I did that, it would mean that I would still need some machine to stay on 24/7 which would run Sickbeard and Sabnzbd to supply video content to the NAS box. This defeats a portion of my purpose in that I currently have everything running and stored on what is more of a gaming machine with a large PSU and I'd like to save the power and not have that machine run all the time.
So, the idea was born to just build a box in which its primary function is to store media however it does have an OS for the purpose of running these two web servers so that it can be a lone machine.
Last edited by shushu (2012-03-23 16:09:27)

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Running Arch from a usb drive[SOLVED]

I am trying to install arch on a usb drive with ext3 format. I have entered root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/... on the kernel line and in /etc/fstab file (as mentioned in the wiki). On booting I am dropped to a limited shell with few linux commands. On running 'blkid' there, I find that the fixed computer hard disk is detected as sda1,2 etc and usb drive is not being detected at all. The results are similar if I use root=/dev/disk/by-label/..
How can I boot from the usb drive.
Last edited by rnarch (2012-03-24 15:38:08)

My menu.lst:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
#kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Kingston_DT_101_G2_001CC0EC32C7BAB1B7DE00ED-0:0-part1 ro
#initrd /boot/kernel26.img
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Kingston_DT_101_G2_001CC0EC32C7BAB1B7DE00ED-0:0-part1 ro
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,0)
#kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Kingston_DT_101_G2_001CC0EC32C7BAB1B7DE00ED-0:0-part1 ro
#initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Kingston_DT_101_G2_001CC0EC32C7BAB1B7DE00ED-0:0-part1 ro
#kernel /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=0811 type=ext3 ro
initrd /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
and mkinitcpio.conf HOOKS variable:
HOOKS="base udev pata scsi sata usb filesystems"
Hope those would help, good luck!

HT1923 hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can i remove iTunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space and then just run it from the hard drive. instead of taking space on the mac? even if the mac no longer has enough to accommo

Hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can I remove itunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space?...and then run it from the hard drive instead of the mac,even if the mac no longer has space to accomodate the size of the library?

Yes.
Copy your music iTunes Library folder to the external drive and change the Advanced settings in iTunes to point to this new location.
Once you're happy with these changes you can delete the same Library from your User account to free up space on the internal drive.

Running iTunes from external hard drive, new computer, where to start?

I've seen several threads relating to this, but I'm a bit confused. For some time we have been running iTunes from an external hard drive with no issues. We now have a new laptop with windows 8, and I'm not sure where to start to set up iTunes (we replaced the computer with a laptop). Do I need to do a new install of iTunes on the laptop? Do I install it to the hard drive (C) or to the external drive (G)? My biggest source of concern is losing the library. I also want to be sure that we can continue to run iTunes from the external drive, I don't want it taking up space on the laptop hard drive.

With more & more people looking towards external drives as a storage solution, it's important to warn them, that although using one within iTunes is a great idea, it comes with its issues & can be a step towards a disastrous sequence. In such a scenario, each time iTunes is launched it'll look for the library that resides on the external drive, & if that drive's not connected, iTunes will open with an empty library. You know what's comming next, rite ? An empty iDevice. This happens because 'by default' iTunes is set to Auto-Sync & if you're using an external drive, the potential for a messy problem goes way up. So in short, remember these points. when using an external drive(library).
. Always connect your external drive prior to lauching iTunes.
. Always ensure iTunes sees your external library prior to connecting your iDevice.
. Disable the 'Auto-Sync' feature from within iTunes prior to connecting your iDevice.
. Always wait to connect your iDevice until thee aforementioned points are confirmed.
As stated earlier, using an external drive with iTunes isn't a problem in & by itself. But if the external drive's disconnected & the 'Auto-Sync' feature's left at its default setting(enabled), a family member could loose all their data simply by connecting their iDevice to the PC/Mac. Or be in for a time consuming lesson.
PS: At the very least one should research the topic themselves. http://ipod.about.com/od/advanceditunesuse/a/Itunes-External-Hard-Drive.htm

Running audio from an external drive question

HI there,
i am waiting the delivery of a high quality firewiredrive to run my audio tracks for my g5 imac.
I am a beginner at logic and i have logic express7.0 with logic pro 8 on its way.
In fact am a beginner at computer music. For the last 5 years i have been recording on an akai dps16 so this is a big learning curve right now, thought i have already made my 1st c.d. on logic express. Logic is awesome.
so
i am trying to get my head around running audio from an external drive as everyone recommends and instead of waiting for the new firewire drive to arrive i thought i'll learn this using my 500gig maxtor usb2.0 drive.
i have sussed out the record path business and all seems well. I have created 24 tracks of audio and i can see them in the audio folder in my logic project in my maxtor drive. So (i think) i have learned how to run audio from the maxtor, but what seems a bit odd to me is that when i run the exact same song from the internal drive ( I copied it from the maxtor drive) there doesnt seem to be any increase in the load of the system memory or the cpu as seen on activity monitor or logics audio performance meter.
I would have expected the identical song running from the internal drive to be more taxing on the computer.
Maybe i am doing something wrong but i dont think so.
Any help would be greatfully appreciated
Tom

The problem with internal drive is that is accessed by the OS and by Logic.
With a powerful Mac 24 tracks recorded at 16 bits and a sampling rate of 44100Khz are not n issue but increasing these values or the number of tracks the problem will appear and you will see the disk I/O meter going up very fast.
At that point you will begin to experiment audio hiccups before and a song stop later.
The same problem appears with drivers that have a reduced band (like USB 2.0) while firewire ones are faster, more stable and don't load the CPU.
cheers
rob

HT1660 How do I run itunes from external Hard drive?

How do I run itunes from external hard drive. I only have ssd on PC and media is too large to fit

You do not.
iTunes, like all programs is installed on the C drive.
You can store the media on another drive.
Assuming you are moving an existing library from another computer:
Move or Copy the ENTIRE iTunes folder from the old computer to the new computer and put it where you want it.
Install iTunes using the default options.
Hold <SHIFT> while launching iTunes. It will prompt to create a new library or locate an existing library.
Select the option to locate an existing library.
Point iTunes to the iTunesLibrary.itl file in the iTunes folder that was moved from the old computer.

Is it posable to run iPhoto from a second drive in my computer?

Is it posable to run iPhoto from a second drive in my computer? With all the pictures in it, it's useing alot for space.

Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

Want to run iTunes from an external drive, how?

I want to run iTunes from my external drive, I have already made back ups of my library and media files but I can't figure out how to save iTunes to the external drive? When you download itunes it just automatically downloads to the computer. Can you even do this? If not, how can I use the saved info on my external drive (library and media files) with my itunes on the computer. The problem we are trying to solve is a lack of space on our computer and we want to free as much space as possible. Thanks!

I want to run iTunes from my external drive, I have already made back ups of my library and media files but I can't figure out how to save iTunes to the external drive?
Drag the iTunes library to the external drive, launch iTunes with the Shift key held down, and point it there.
(56927)

MacBook Air Hard Drive too small - can I run applications from an external drive or is there a better solution?

I just got a MacBook Air 11" 10.7.2 2GB/64GB. I love it, but the internal drive is sooo small. Occasionally I need to take projects home from work or travel with my computer. Is there any way to run apps (Final Cut Studio, CS5, Office 10, etc) from an external drive? I am trying to convert over from my Macbook Pro (running Snow Leopard) and I can't seem to find a solution.
Thanks for your time!
Samantha

Samantha,
It's best to keep your applications on the internal drive and consider external storeage for your data.
Your choices are direct attached storeage to the USB port (external portable USB drives), storeage on your home or work network, or cloud-based storeage, like DropBox.
You can also look at slimming down your OSX installation on your MBA by removing unwanted fonts and printer drivers.
Btw, you will struggle to run CS5 and Final Cut Studio on a MBA with 2GB RAM. Only install the applications you really need on your MBA.
Can I ask which model MacBook Pro you are migrating from?

How Do I Run Windows from an External Drive?

Recently my PC with Windows XP crashed- it's old and the motherboard went. I had a full version of Windows XP on there, and I would like to know what I need to do in order to run Windows off of that hard drive (I've taken it out and have it in an enclosure). Ideally, I would like to be able to plug in this external drive, and start a program that will allow me to run Windows off of this drive.
I have downloaded a trial of Parallels Desktop, which seems like it will work, but it needs me to install a transporter on the Windows drive before it can migrate the drive. The problem is, I can't access my drive anymore since my PC is no longer broken.

Then I guess my question is how do I go about transferring my PC data to the external drive without a PC*.
In Parallels, I try this:
Migrate Windows from a PC > External Storage Device > then it says "please install Parallels Transporter Agent on your PC
Since my PC no longer works, I need to find a way to transport the data. As of now, I plug in my Windows drive to my Mac, and it doesn't even show up. I would be OK with running Windows on my Mac via a VM, although it looks like I would need to buy Windows again since it's an OEM copy...
*I found a site where it says it can be done, but I am just having trouble with the transporter program.
https://www.knowhowcompany.com/en/question/14996/Is-it-posible-to-run-windows-Pa rallels-on-Mac-from-an-external-hard-drive.

Run Windows from an external drive......

I want to boot Windows from an external drive. Why would Apple not allow this to be done. It makes no sence to me at all. You would still have to run Windows from the intel-Mac. To make you waste good MacOS space on the internal drive is a shame. I know... I can remove Windows and re-gain my "lost" space. However, my kid needs to run some school programs that are in the Windows format only. I hope that someday Apple will let BootCamp run from an external drive also.
Apple //GS

I run OS X from one drive, have my home account on a second drive and improves performance.
VMware image is on non OS X boot drive which I think helps so there isn't I/O contention.
OS X shouldn't really be doing much paging regardless of what you are running if you have enough memory. A lot of system and application paging 'maps' to VM, and you can't disable or want to with either Windows or OS X. The Windows \C: is going to be wherever the VM client is located.
Now, whether VMware or Parallels running as an application is paging and using OS X swap, that just depends on your system memory, and goes to OS X boot drive like any application.
OS X can run off external and you could install some windows programs to use an external drive (FAT or NTFS partition) to free up space also. Or use Parallels and put the VM there.

Running SL from an external drive on Lion-installed iMac

I recently installed Lion on my iMac with the intention of having Snow Leopard bootable from an external drive when I need to run all my PPC apps etc. Having formatted an external drive, I put in the Mac OSX SL DVD into the Mac to install it on to the external drive, but before I could do this, a message appears:
" You can't use this version of the application Install Mac OS X with this version of Mac OS X.
You have install (sic) Mac OSX 23.1"
Can anyone interpret this message for me please?
Thanks

The SL DVD. If you actually tried it, you'd have found that the blank drive doesn't appear because it doesn't yet contain Mac OS X.
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Is it possible to run iTunes from a flash drive?

Hi Everyone,
I just would like to know if you could run iTunes off a flash drive? It takes up alot of space on my hard drive and was hoping to free some up. I have an 8GB iPod and currently it's filled with 6.08GB of music. I purchased a 16GB flash drive and was thinking I could run it off there. See I don't access iTunes all that often and hopefully won't kill the drive. I guess the next part would be how should I go about it if it's posible?
Thanks so much in advance!

You can certainly put your library on a flash drive, though I'd strongly, strongly recommend that you have another copy of your library elsewhere, as flash drives are easily lost, broken or corrupted. You cannot count on tracks always being available for redownload from the iTunes Store, if you have any such.
The easiest way to move your library is to just drag the entire iTunes folder (the _entire_ folder, _not_ just the iTunes Music folder) to your desired location. Then hold down the Shift key while launching iTunes. You'll be given a dialog box where you can select the iTunes library you want to use. Navigate to and select the iTunes folder in it's new location.
Note that this procedure assumes that all of your tracks are contained in the iTunes folder. If they're scattered around your volumes, moving them becomes much more complex. And don't launch iTunes with the flash drive not mounted or iTunes will default back to the internal drive. If it does, though, just mount the external drive and launch iTunes with the Shift key again.
Don't delete the tracks from the old location until you've confirmed that they're working correctly from the flash drive.
Regards.

Running iTunes from a separate drive

I bought a 300gig external hard drive for my laptop to keep all my tunes on so I would use up my laptop space. I am having trouble getting my itunes to find them. They are on my itunes but they don't play. I get a message saying that it could not find the original file and if I would like for it to find it. When I do say "yes" and follow the steps it doesn't help. How do I direct my itunes to get the tunes from my E drive?

This may have some helpful tips for you: Tips on Using An External Drive to Back Up Music

Running Arch from a live USB with persistence, on an intel Atom tablet

Hello,
I may have bitten off more than I can chew here. I am not a noob to linux, but I am a noob to Arch. I have found a few resources around but none of them quite match with what I want to do, and as such I don't want to overcomplicate what I'm doing by following instructions geared towards other objectives (such as performing a full install on a tablet).
The title I think captures it, but I will just state again what it is I want to do in a little bit more detail. I have a 2-in-1 tablet (an acer switch 10, if anybody cares) with an intel Atom processor which runs windows 8.1. I don't want to install Arch linux to the tablet, but rather have a USB with persistence that I can just plug in when I want to boot into Arch rather than windows. I've done this with several linux distros on my standard laptop, but never with Arch and never to run on a tablet. Unfortunately, I think this is made harder than it needs to be by the fact that I don't have a functioning normal laptop at the moment - if I did I would simply do all of this on there, from a linux distro. But as it happens, I only have this tablet, and it is only running windows.
I created the live USB using the software Rufus, and it boots correctly on my friend's laptop, however I have been having trouble getting it to boot from my tablet. There seem to be several things in the way of this, and I am slowly making my way through them. Firstly, I have disabled secure boot, and placed a UEFI 32-bit bootloader into the appropriate folder on the USB drive. So far this has only allowed me to avoid the automatic boot into windows that I don't experience on a normal laptop, instead taking me to the bootloader, but I don't yet know what to do from there.
So, this probably isn't entirely relevant or specific to Arch, but since I am using Arch I thought I would post this here (since more Arch specific stuff might come up as I get further). If anybody has any insight to help me out, that would be great. Otherwise, I will just continue and post any progress I have made here, and maybe this will help the 5 other people in the world who are trying to install Arch to a live USB, from windows, using only an atom-CPU tablet .
Last edited by phulcq (2014-08-18 17:00:26)

SUCCESS! Just loaded up flash media encoder and connected to
one of my flash streaming servers. The little 9" laptop handled it
beautifully. This is on the battery, wireless internet. I did
notice one thing though, I set the FPS to 30, and the highest it
would go was 15-16. Not sure if its throttling the fps because of
battery power, the ~36mbps wireless connection or what, but I'm
happy with the results! I'll try again on the battery and plugged
into the gigabit eithernet we have here at the office and report
the results. Check out the images.
The specs of the laptop are:
Dell Inspiron 9"
Windows XP Pro SP3
Intel® Atom Processor® N270 (1.6GHz/533Mhz FSB/512K
cache)
1gb ram
16gb solid state drive
1.3mp camera
http://www.bluefocusmedia.com/test_stream/intel_atom_streaming001.jpg
http://www.bluefocusmedia.com/test_stream/intel_atom_streaming002.jpg
http://www.bluefocusmedia.com/test_stream/intel_atom_streaming003.jpg

Reasonable to run Arch from a CF drive?

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