Two disk drives to act as one?

Hello,
I know I might get a LMGTFU for this but what I've looked up so far has been pretty technical and was hoping to get a more simplified explanation. I just got a second hard drive and it's faster and larger than the original that came with it. I know that I can spread out files across two disks but was hoping to find a better solution. What I am looking for is: to bridge the two drives together so that they basically behave as one. I looked at LVM but if I'm right this can do it, however has the caveat of being able to only work with the Linux kernel (Vista takes up one partition). Not knowing anything about it, would it be possible to do some type of RAID configuration to get this functionality? Since I don't know anything about it, I'd appreciate any thoughts you might have. Is this possible (if yes a good place to start), or is this so sort of a pipe dream?

Thanks for the responses. Wasn't aware of the need to reformat. Luckily I got an older third drive that I can swap into my PC and save all the data on. I'd prefer the hardware solution anyways (figure it's easier to set up) and have been looking for a RAID-0 controller and found this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6816132001
I only got a PCI slot left, so will this do or am I going to have problems with bottlenecking and such?

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Two Hard Drives on my computer - one totally full the other totally empty - how do I manage this - windows 8

Hi I have two hard drives on my computer running Windows 8. One is called OS (C:) and has 10.2GB free of 186GB, the other is Data (D:) and has 258GB of 258GB free.
I have just tried to update to Windows 8.1 and have had an error message saying there is not enough space on the OS drive to update as it needs 20GB.
What do I do about this? how do I get to use the 258GB of free space on the Data drive?
I'd be grateful for an answer!

Hi,
In addition to the above information,
If your operating system is Windows 2008 and higher(Server) or Windows Vista and higher(Client).
Then you can use the native tool Disk Management to solve your requirement.
For opening Disk Management, Right click -> Computer -> Select Manage -> As result Computer Management console opens -> In the left pane under storage select Disk Management.
In the Disk Management, for extending your C: drive,
- Since your partition layout as, C: drive | D: drive.
- After shrinking D: drive, the layout will be C: drive | D: drive | Unallocated space.
- Since the unallocated space is not contiguous, when you right-click C: drive the "Extend Volume" option will be greyed out.
- So to solve your requirement, you have to backup the data on D: drive -> Delete D: drive -> right-click on the c drive and select "Extend Volume" -> enter the size you want to add
- Finally you can create a new D: drive from the remaining unallocated space and restore the backup data.
Checkout the below thread on similar discussion,
how
to increase space in c drive
Regards,
Gopi
JiJi Technologies

Help! Two hard drives sharing music on one player issue...

Hi! I have media on both ext. hard drive and my laptop - I want to gradually delete all duplicate media saved on my laptop (so that all my music is playing from my ext. drive) - but i can't see where my music is saved unless I go into each file individually - which takes ages when trying to identify over 11000 tracks.
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Hi again zwj,
Simply change the permissions of the iTunes Library file. To achieve this do the following:
1. Quit iTunes.
2. Navigate to where your iTunes folder is (in the Shared folder) and click once on the iTunes Library file to select it.
3. From the menubar select File->Get Info
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5. In the Sharing & Permissions section of the Get Info window click on the disclosure triangle to reveal the options if they are not already displayed.
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Kryten

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I recently bought a new Macbook Pro 13' (mid 2012) and I wonder if I can put inside the hard disk (SSD) from my old Macbook Pro 13' (mid 2010)

The hard drive itself should work. The only thing to be aware of is the operating system on the previous MacBook Pro. If it's older than the version your new MacBook Pro came with it may not run.

Bonding Two Ethernet Ports to act as One

I am having problems bonding two ethernet ports on my G4 Xserver (10.4.4). The Mac OS X Server Command-Line Administration 10.4 manual gives instructions for doing this a number of ways.
I tried <ifconfig en0 bonddev en1>; it did not work.
The manual suggested using the <serversetup> commmand which does not exist on my server.
I eventually used <sudo networksetup -createBond BondedEnet "Built-in Ethernet" "PCI Ethernet Slot 1"> which looked like it was working. However, it seem to lose the bond after a reboot of the server.
Has anyone had any success with bonding and have some instructions on how to initiate it properly?
G4 Xserver Mac OS X (10.4.4)

I've found bonding to be reliable when set via the
GUI, but I've yet to find a stable command line
method.
Note that any ifconfig commands would be transient,
and lost at the next reboot. In any case your syntax
is incorrect. It should be:
ifconfig bond0 bonddev
en1
in other words, add device en1 to the existing bonded
interface bond0. You're passing in a physical
interface as the first parameter instead of the
virtual bonded interface.
The networksetup command should work, and should be
persistent. It's not clear why it isn't working.
If you have ARD or a monitor on this box I'd just go
ahead and do it via the GUI. Maybe not the answer you
wanted, but it works for me.
If I don't have an existing bond0, do I simply use same line above but with en0 to create it.
For example: ifconfig bond0 bonddev en0
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G4 Xserver Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Macintosh HD, two different "Available" numbers given? One full one with plenty of space.

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The second one is correct.

Operating system not found when deploying to machines with two hard drives using MDT 2013.

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The bdd.log file you sent does not show two internal drives, it shows only one.
Console > Please wait while DiskPart scans your configuration... ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:04 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > DiskPart has finished scanning your configuration. ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > DISKPART> ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > -------- ------------- ------- ------- --- --- ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > Disk 0 Online 60 GB 60 GB ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > DISKPART> ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Console > Volume 0 D DVD-ROM 0 B No Media ZTIDiskpart 12/16/2013 9:57:05 AM 0 (0x0000)
Is this the problem?
Keith Garner - keithga.wordpress.com

Choosing one of two optical disk drives?

Dear All,
I am working with a new Mac Pro, Tiger 10.4.10. I have two optical disk drives. Drive number one is not burning properly and I want to choose drive number two to burn a data disk. How can I choose which drive I want to use through disk utility? iDVD or DVDStudio Pro let me choose the burning drive, but I can't seem to find this option when burning through disk utility. Any help out there?
Thanks.
Barbara Smits

Dear All,
Thanks for your replies.
No, disk utility does not recognize either drive unless the drive has a disk in it, but I can't get drive #2 to open unless I open it with a paper clip, etc., etc. Disk Utility only allows me to burn from a disk image, not from a burn folder. Burning through Finder does not give me a drive selection option either, only a burn speed and a nameselection. There must be some way to choose the drive, but nothing seems to come up unless there is a disk already in the drive, and I can't get drive #2 to open.
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Have a LaCie external 2big RAID drive; two 1T drives in RAID 0 configuration (striped). Drive works perfectly as one big 2T external disk but Mac Installer (Lion - App Store download

Have a LaCie external 2big RAID drive; two 1T drives in RAID 0 configuration (striped). Drive works perfectly as one big 2T external disk but Mac Installer (Lion - App Store download & Snow Leopard DVD) refuse to install OS X Lion or OS X Snow Leopard on RAID drive.
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Help!

Keep in mind a RAID 1 only protects you from hardware failure of one of the drives. It does not protect you if the hardware raid/chip set decides to take a vacation. Also, if FCP corrupts a file, it is written as corrupt to both drives.
I'm a big fan of separate but equal. Two drives. One goes to the site, the other remains at the hotel. At night, you back up the site disk to the the hotel disk. If something happens to the computer and the disk at the site the next day, you at least have the material back at the hotel.
eggs. baskets. that sort of thing.
good luck.
x

Two hard drives, two operating systems, one MacBook Pro

Dear community,
     I have a MacBook Pro (mid-2010) with Mac OS Lion. I plan on having this computer all through the rest of college (another two and a half years, hopefully) so I want to upgrade it just a bit. What I would like to do is take out my optical drive, install a second hard drive mount, and put an SSD in that spot. Now, this would be pretty simple if it were just Mac OS Lion that I wanted on it, but here's the catch - I'd like to put my copy of Windows 7 on that drive as well. I currently use one hard drive for Mac/Windows 7 using boot camp, so I figured it'd be possible to do this with 2 hard drives.
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Thanks a lot.
-Grant
*Note- here is the hard drive caddy I'm looking at: http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Unibody-MacBook-SuperDrive-Replacement/dp/B0058AH2US /ref=wl_it_dp_o_npd?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1MJCRJMNCU4QQ&colid=1LV4HAU48M27X

grantmcconnaughey wrote:
Dear community,
     I have a MacBook Pro (mid-2010) with Mac OS Lion. I plan on having this computer all through the rest of college (another two and a half years, hopefully) so I want to upgrade it just a bit. What I would like to do is take out my optical drive, install a second hard drive mount, and put an SSD in that spot. Now, this would be pretty simple if it were just Mac OS Lion that I wanted on it, but here's the catch - I'd like to put my copy of Windows 7 on that drive as well. I currently use one hard drive for Mac/Windows 7 using boot camp, so I figured it'd be possible to do this with 2 hard drives.
     Basically I'd like to put the OSes and a few programs on the SSD, and the files/remaining programs on my big HDD. Is this even possible? Any suggestions?
The SSD should be the boot drive in the present hard drive spot for these reasons.
1: You want the SSD as the boot volume for speed of OS X, Windows and applications (must be on boot drive along with one bare bones user, each OS)
2: You want to inflict as little change to the SSD as possible to make it last longer as they can wear out with a lot of use, thus a boot/app drive is ideal for this.
3: Present hard drive becomes the exFAT formatted drive to use for Windows or Mac file storage use in the optical bay caddy.
Problems:
You can't install Windows from a external optical drive, only the internal one.
You also won't be able to boot off a 10.6 install disk just the same.
However you can option boot off 10.6/10.7 previously installed, or cloned (Carbon Copy Cloner), on a external drive.
Windows in Bootcamp is subject to the same problems requiring reinstall like it is on PC's, which to reinstall would require you to install your internal optical drive each time.
You can't make a bootable clone of Windows on a external drive and use it (because of validation issues with the drive Windows is installed on) or use it to restore Bootcamp (there used to be software that did this for Snow Leopard, but it hasn't been updated anymore)
Also if your 2010 MBP doesn't have SATA 6, your going to be using SATA 3 and not the full speed capability of the SSD.
What you might consider doing instead is getting a 1TB 7,200 RPM boot drive, you get storage size to partition and decent speed, without excessive speed which you might not be able to use it all with your hardware.
Another option, if your using Windows for non-hardware presisng issues (3D games, heavy CPU loads) is to use virtual machine software (VMFusion, Parrallels Desktop etc) and run Windows in a window on OS X. This gives the advantage of Windows running as a file, and you can have earlier "snapshots" in case Windows gets hosed like it does sometimes.
Also Bootcamp restricts you to Windows 7, with virtual machine software you can run any Windows version, even cool Linux distros too (install older versions first then upgrade) Plus you don't have to dual boot or worry about file formatting issues, which both is a pain in the butt.
Lion is a pain to reinstall on a new hard drive directly with older hardware (two steps involved), luckily you've got a older machine and can install 10.6.8 first, then upgrade by holding option key and clicking on Purchases, then apps, then files, then bootcamp or virtual machine software, then Windows.
Should make a copy of that 10.6 disk
http://www.walterjessen.com/make-a-bootable-backup-snow-leopard-install-disc/
So anyway, that's a loadful to think about.
What you should do is join the MacOwnersSupportGroup and ask Bmer how best to go about installing the optical drive kit. I've send all these sort of hardware hacks his way as he has done it himself so he knows.
Apple obviously doesn't support such a thing and nearly none here can offer any support in such a thing.
OtherWorld Computing has a kit as well, gives a enclosure for the Superdrive to use as a external optical drive as well. (just can't boot or install Windows with it.)
As always this is all I know and subjective to change, so ask around further and perhaps you'll find more answers, but likely not here.
See this for fast SSD choices
http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/high_end_drives.html
Good Luck and hope that helps.

How do I set Time Machine to alternate between two attached external drives (so that if one fails I will have a separate backup to use)?

Hi Everyone.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Right off the bat let me say I am using Mavericks 10.9.1 on a 2011 Macbook Pro and using all Lacie external hard drives.
I am trying to get Time Machine to alternate between two attached external hard drives, trying to be safe in case one of the backup drives itself fails.
I have both drives set in Time Machine.
From what I gather Time Machine should by default alternate between drives when backing up (I would assume it does one big initial backup on each then subsequent backups are just changes).
But this is not how it seems to be working and I cannot find a straight answer despite much Googling and Foruming
Unfortunately it seems to only be backing up to "External Hard Drive 1".
There have been 4 backups since I set it up, all on "External Hard Drive 1", even though "External Hard Drive 2" is also attached and set in Time Machine.
I manually clicked "Back Up Now" and it started to work on "External Hard Drive 2" (like I want it to) for a minute but it appears to have stopped and gone back to backing up to "External Hard Drive 1".
Am I missing something? Does Time Machine only move on to another disk when the first one runs out of space? Do I have to turn one off in order to force it to back up to the other drive (that would be less convenient of course)?
I am hoping that I am missing something and that it will just alternate between the two. Otherwise it is not the most comforting and thorough backup system as I had hoped when I purchased the additional external hard drive.
I have a 1TB drive and a 500gig partition on another drive, both dedicated to backups (my Macbook HD is 475gig). It will take awhile for each to fill up and who knows what could happen during that time. Having Time Machine alternate between hard drives would be a nice small bit of security if the worst happened.
I realize that there are tons of other options for backing up but I just want to use Time Machine if I can.
Again thank you for your help!

You cannot use Time Machine in that way. I'm not sure where you heard that Time Machine alternates between drives automatically. What you can do is create a mirrored RAID array for the backup. This automatically duplicates whatever is on one drive onto the other drive.
Both drives must be the same size, and prefereably, exactly the same make and model. RAIDs can be configured using OS X's Disk Utility.
RAID Basics
For basic definitions and discussion of what a RAID is and the different types of RAIDs see RAIDs. Additional discussions plus advantages and disadvantages of RAIDs and different RAID arrays see:
RAID Tutorial;
RAID Array and Server:
Hardware and Service Comparison.
Hardware or Software RAID?
RAID Hardware Vs RAID Software - What is your best option?
RAID is a method of combining multiple disk drives into a single entity in order to improve the overall performance and reliability of your system. The different options for combining the disks are referred to as RAID levels. There are several different levels of RAID available depending on the needs of your system. One of the options available to you is whether you should use a Hardware RAID solution or a Software RAID solution.
RAID Hardware is always a disk controller to which you can cable up the disk drives. RAID Software is a set of kernel modules coupled together with management utilities that implement RAID in Software and require no additional hardware.
Pros and cons
Software RAID is more flexible than Hardware RAID. Software RAID is also considerably less expensive. On the other hand, a Software RAID system requires more CPU cycles and power to run well than a comparable Hardware RAID System. Also, because Software RAID operates on a partition by partition basis where a number of individual disk partitions are grouped together as opposed to Hardware RAID systems which generally group together entire disk drives, Software RAID tends be slightly more complicated to run. This is because it has more available configurations and options. An added benefit to the slightly more expensive Hardware RAID solution is that many Hardware RAID systems incorporate features that are specialized for optimizing the performance of your system.
For more detailed information on the differences between Software RAID and Hardware RAID you may want to read: Hardware RAID vs. Software RAID: Which Implementation is Best for my Application?

Details needed for using two hard drives with one iTunes library

I posted this under the iTunes section but now that I think of it, it's more of an Apple TV question since I'm only concerned about how it affects my 2 ATVs.
I have a MacMini(G4) that acts as a media server for our 2 ATVs. I use one library on the Mini which has been using an external 750GB drive. However, I'm at nearly 95% capacity now and want to invest in another external drive and use both. So the question I posted on the iTunes section was...
"With far too much content in iTunes (mostly for the Apple TVs) and after reading numerous posts about using external hard drives with iTunes I'm convinced that using two external drives is my best solution.
However, I did want to understand a bit more about the details of how iTunes will manage or at least keep track of, the media. Specifically, I'm thinking of the case were I add a movie to iTunes library (of course it will not copy the file into the iTunes folder).
What will occur if I later change any of the tags for the movie (e.g., name, genre, year, etc.). Will iTunes update this information and then update the Apple TVs once they resync with the iTunes library?"
So for the very knowledgeable folks here on the ATV section, what exactly does iTunes do in this case? Will my genres be updated correctly if I change something even though the content is not copied to the iTunes folder?

If you want to use two external drives to store your itunes content, there are a couple of ways you could go about it.
You could choose to have just movies (for example) on one HDD and everything else on the other. You could further choose to have your itunes music folder on one HDD and have all content copied to it by default. When it comes to movies (in this example) you can place these on your second HDD and add them to itunes by using OPT-drag, which will temporarily disable itunes from copying the file to your itunes library.
You could also entirely disable disable itunes copying files to your itunes music folder from the itunes preferences and manually manage all your content.
Personally I'd just buy a 2 TB (for example) drive and ebay your old drive once you have moved everything from it to your new one.

Two hard drive icons on my desktop, would like to have only one...

Hello everyone, I recently got a PowerMac G5 (I think it's a 2.3 GHz). It came with a hard drive inserted 'Untitled', which came from my old 1.6 GHz G5. On the desktop though, I get two hard drive icons, my main start up drive called 'Untitled', and another one called 'Spare'. I was told that my G5 has only one drive inserted 'Untitled', so I'm trying to either get rid of 'Spare', or merge it somehow into 'Untitled'. Under the Volumes folder, I was not really able to get rid of it, is this something to do with Disk Utility?
BDAqua - under Get Info, when I was on Leopard, I tried changing a User Permissions category called 'Everybody' from Read Only to Read and Write. Upon restart two days later, Leopard would not start up (loads of writing on the screen, with the Mac power button, asking me to restart). To cut a long story, I am now back on Tiger lol (Leopard issues for another discussion lol), so now I dare not play with anything which says Read Only, especially when it's probably not even necessary. I am writing this from the library, so don't know what exactly it says in Get Info - User Permissions for either drive at the moment. If this is relevant, I can have a look later and post back, I'll also verify permissions in Disk Utility for both drives, but I think they are fine. Actually, when I was on Leopard, my 'Untitled' drive took ages to verify permissions, and always loads of writing appeared! Now that I'm on Tiger, the other day when I verified Disk Permissions, it was quick and fine!
Thank you
In the screen shots, 'Untitled' is model ST31, 'Spare' is model WDC

Hi BDAqua, sorry I should have just opened it in the first place! I don't know why that man told me there was only one hard drive inside, perhaps a misunderstanding.
It seems that there are actually two hard drives inside, one in A, and one in B (see photo)! So, if this is the case, I don't have a problem with the two hard drive icons.
I guess if a G5 shows two hard drives on the desktop, then there's two hard drives in the machine!
Thanks for helping anyway.

New Mac Mini Server, two Hard drives, Can I install an older Mac OS on the second drive and switch start up disks to run PowerPc applications?

New Mac Mini Server, has two Hard drives, could I install an older Mac OS on the second drive and switch start up disks to run PowerPc applications?

I haven't purchased a Mac Mini at this time and I may not if I can't use it as a non server. I need to update my system I would be better off buying a new Mac with Snow Leopard the last app that will run Rosetta. The Mac Mini Server has a quad 2.0 processor and 4 GB RAM and two internal hard drives and should out perform my dual 1.25 G4. I can run PPC apps on my G4 but it is 8+ years old and seems to be getting noisy. I don't want to tie myself to another old machine. I want a machine that will work with Intel Apps I was hoping that the two hard drives would allow me to boot from the second with Snow Leopard and use Lion on the first drive to be able to keep up to date with all my other universal apps and Mac OS up grades. The application I use the most is my CanvasX app with drawing & vector effects, text & typography, sprite technology, painting, image editing, and multimedia tools are all in this one app but will not be updated to run Intel apps. I am frozen in time because my most valuable Application won't be updated and Apple has cut me off by not supporting PPC in Lion and onward; Apple used to backward support but I guess that they are no longer as user friendly and concerned with a happy user. I have always been a loyal Mac user and I will not migrate to Windows under any circumstance; I hate windows!
Thanks for your prompt response,
Dick Deaton

Two small drive or one large drive

Hi All, this is closely related to the previous question but there were some subtleties I wanted to bring up. i was wondering if i could get your take on whether I should get one large drive or two smaller ones. I'm looking to use the external drive as my startup volume. is it true that using a larger drive can actually lower the performance of your computer? I the G3 500 only has one firewire 400 port but it's about time for me to upgrade anyway. the iomega triple interface (black) drives get pretty good reviews so I'm either gonna go for two 250 GB or one 400GB. for safety reasons, i thought that two drives would be better but it turns out that the 400GB has a 8mb cache while the 250GB has only 2mb of cache. is this going to make much difference to the performance of my computer?
Cheers.

Hi, K.L.T.
• A FireWire drive as a startup disk on a FW 400 port is going to perform slower than your internal hard drive, regardless of the size of the drive. However, you may not notice that much of a difference, other than a slower boot. Cache size will make a bit of difference, but so will rotational speed. You want fast drives (7200 RPM+) and lots of cache (8 MB is nice) for best performance.
• One can find 250 GB FireWire drives with 8 MB cache. I buy all my FireWire drives from Other World Computing (OWC). I've been very happy with the drives and their service. I'd recommend them over Iomega any day of the week.
• One drive vs. two: One drive = all your eggs in one basket. Two FireWire drives gives you the option of having redundant backups on each. Something to consider.
• See also my post here.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

Two disk drives to act as one?

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