Time to upgrade Quicksilver HD & DVR - What? How? Suggestions?

Question

Hi,
I am considering upgrading my internal hard drive and replacing my existing DVR. I hate to mess with things that are not broke, but I am at the point now that I think I need to just go for it! I am not too tech savvy so bear with me. I would appreciate any recommendations and/or suggestions as what to use & how to do it the least painful way.
1. What type of internal HD do I need? Am I limited to the size I use? Can I leave the one I already have in the computer and just add another larger size internal HD - so I could have two? Do they need to be switched around?
2. What kind of DVR would be compatible with my computer and what needs to be done to computer to do the upgrade. (NEC 3550A, or Pioneer 110?)
3. Should I update to 10.3.9 before or after installing new hardware? (I've been scared to update - all works fine now. Anything I should do to avoid problems after updating????)
Here is what I have NOW:
- G4 Quicksilver 2002 (800mhz/768mg)
- Running OS x 10.3.8 & OS9 (even though I do not use OS9 that much anymore)
- Pioneer DVR-105
- 40gb internal HD(only 14gb left available!)
Sorry for all the questions. I have read some of the posts on here and think I have an idea of what I need to do, but just want to make sure and verify.
Thanks in advance,
Leah

Answer 1

Hi! Sounds like you're well on your way!
Any of the approaches you have mentioned should work okay. I would take the easiest approach and clone the startup volume from the 40GB drive to a partition on the 160GB drive, check the cloned volume to insure that all went well, then apply the updates to it from Software Update. When I was certain that the updates went well (no rush, give it some time), I would then clone the newly-cloned volume back to the 40GB drive, which would provide me with a complete and up-to-date backup volume that I knew was fully operational.
You can use Disk Utility's Restore option to create the clone, but I'd recommend Super Duper or CarbonCopyCloner, which are faster and less quirky. The links are below.
As long as you do not choose the option to clone to a disk image, the cloned volume will be bootable (if you make a disk image clone, you can't boot to it because you have to open/expand the image before you can do anything with it). Just clone one volume to another volume and it will be a bootable duplicate of the original volume.
You may boot from either the master or slave drive. It's recommended that the master drive be the startup drive for better efficiency, but it isn't essential. When two drives operate on the same bus, the master drive gets priority from the controller when both drives need to access the CPU at the same time. Since the system drive is the most critical one in relation to data flow with the CPU, it normally is set as master. This only affects your Mac's speed when both drives need access at the same time, though. Otherwise, it makes no difference whether you're booted from the master or the slave.
You can switch the drives around at any time if you wish - just be certain that the jumpers are reset when you change their locations on the ribbon cable.
Concerning "junk", the only time I do a fresh install of the OS is when there's a major upgrade, such as going from Panther to Tiger. That's when all my "junk" that's hidden in various folders all over the place gets thoroughly cleaned out... Installing everything from scratch on an OS update for me just seems to be too much work for the benefit that's gained.
Some third party applications tend to put required files in non-standard locations, which is one reason to be leery of copying apps over, rather than reinstalling them... the supporting files are easy to miss. Unless you have a lot of junk to get rid of, I'd stick with a clone of the whole works, weeding things out bit-by-bit afterwards, if you must. After all, you will then have a bootable clone for backup, if you mistakenly toss the wrong thing and have problems.
You are going to have two drives with a total of three volumes. Particularly as you use the second partition on the 160GB drive, please remain aware that there's no way to backup 160GB to a 40GB drive. As your data storage increases, you might consider budgeting for yet another drive somewhere down the line...
Here's the links I mentioned:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/22126
http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Gary
1GH DP G4 Quicksilver 2002, 400MH B&W rev.2 G3, Mac SE30   Mac OS X (10.4.2)   5G iPod, Epson 2200 & R300 & LW Select 360 Printers, Epson 3200 Scanner