Two hard drives with exact same files showing different sizes

I have two WD external drives, one which I'm trying to dedicate solely to Time Machine backups. In transferring data from the one I intend to use for that purpose to the other, I'm finding that all the files transferred but that the folders register as having different sizes (e.g. one video folder has the same number in each, but on the original disk it was 4.43 GB in total and is only 4.26 GB on the new disk).
I've read that there could be hidden system files that didn't move, but if that's the case does it matter? Both drives are the same model but are differently formatted.
Thanks

but are differently formatted.
That could be the cause. Files are not written to a disk in bytes, they are written in blocks that are a minimum size. For instance, if the minimum block size is 1KB, the a 5 byte file will occupy 1KB on the disk. So, depending on the block size of the drive format, you may get different results.

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I have an external hard drive with numerous WMA files that I would like to download to iTunes. How do I do this on my MAC?

I have an external hard drive with numerous WMA files that I would like to download to iTunes. How do I do this on my MAC?

You can't write to it because it's formatted as NTFS which OS X will read but not write to. If you want to continue using the drive with both a PC and OS X you will need to download and install NTFS-3G so you can then write to it from your Mac. You can get NTFS-3G at:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24481/ntfs-3g
If you want to use the drive exclusively with your Mac then move the data off it and reformat it in Disk Utility (Applications - Utilities - Disk Utilities) as Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)

Copying contents between hard drives with the same folder names erases data

I have Final Cut Pro assets stored in two hard drives. I was attempting to consolidate them into a single directory on one of the two hard drives. I did this by dragging and dropping the contents of one folder into the equivalent folder on the destination hard drive, meaning that several folder names were shared between the two directories.
In Windows, the only contents that would be overwritten are files and folders who share the exact same relative name during the copy procedure. However, OS X appears to have erased the entire contents of the destination folder in favor of the contents of the source folder.
Time Machine is not enabled: Not enough hard drive space to store everything twice.
Is this by design? Am I missing something? Is my data recoverable by means that would not cost me several hundreds of dollars? On a scale of 1 to screwed, am I screwed?
Message was edited by: NuclearBastard

Seems like you did not select the content but the folder itself. Let's say you're copying from folder A to B. To only overwrite stuff in folder B with the same name while keeping other files & folders, you need to go inside folder A and select the content. If you do select folder A itself, it will completely replace folder B. This is normal behaviour and I'm sure it's the same with other operating systems like Windows.
This behaviour, of course, applies also to any subfolders within A & B, so you can't just use the Finder for such a +merge operation+. I'm not 100% sure, but since you were overwriting a lot of stuff, I'd say you're screwed and your data is gone, sorry.
To avoid things like that in the future, you might want to use software which has the ability to synchronize file structures. In Terminal you can use ditto for that, but there are several GUI apps out there, too. Just search http://www.versiontracker.com for merge or synchronize and you should find something.
Björn

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.

Using two hard drives with Boot Camp?

Hi,
I have two hard drives in my mac pro. They both show up on the mac side but when I use windows only the one shows up. Is there a way to have access to the second hard drive using windows?

You need to install a product like MacDrive. This will enable Mac OS Extended format support for Windows. Be aware that if you do something like this all of your Mac files and OS will be vulnerable to Windows "issues" such as viruses and spyware etc. It is NOT recommended.

How can I split a backup on two hard drives with Time Machine ?

Back-up of my Imac with time machine is 1,3 TB. I have two 1 TB external hard drives but even if I had both as available in Time machine, it seems it doesn't allow to split the backup between the two hard drives. Any way to resolve this without buying another hard drive with more space?
Thanks in advance

You cannot directly split a backup. Your only option would be to open the TimeMachine preferences from System Prefs. and add things to the exclusion list for one of the backups. Then, when you go to do the other backup you would reverse the process and add everything else to the exclusion list and remove the things you had on there in the first place.
Seems fairly intensive though when you could just go and buy a 2 or 3TB external drive and do it all in one...Black Friday is coming up
Regards,

Two AM's with the same name but different forms causes Deployment problems

Two Masters forms, DOC & PM are cloned except for the "where clause" in the View's query and the titles in their JSP's.
DOC workspace has a BC project and a BC4JSP Project. The BC project comprises of the EO and VO named ComVsStaticValue. In the Edit prop-> query for the VO I have specified the "where clause" as VSSV_VS_CODE='DOCTOR'.
In Java Webserver :-
The JSP's are located in C:\source\Doctor\ .. and the *.xml and *.class files generated by the BC proj is in C:\source\Doctor\pol_ValueSet\..
If I execute Doctor in JWS the records are getting filtered properly.
PM workspace has a BC project and a BC4JSP Project. Again The BC project comprises of the EO and VO named ComVsStaticValue. In the Edit prop-> query for the VO I have specified the "where clause" as VSSV_VS_CODE='PAY_MODE'.
In Java Webserver :-
The JSP's are located in C:\source\PMode\ .. and the *.xml and *.class files generated by the BC proj is in C:\source\PMode\pol_ValueSet\..
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I want to know whether this problem is because both have the same name for the AM and the BC4JSP's property file.
Please clarify.

Deploying two app modules with the same name will definitely cause problems.
The JSPs use the information in the properties file to connect to the application module and get the data they need from the appropriate View Objects in those app modules. If you have two app modules with the same name, when a JSP tries to connect, it has no way of knowing which one of the app modules to connect to if they both have the same name.
You could:
1. Just use one application module that contains all the View Objects you need to access.
or
2. Rename one of the application modules or the package it is located in so the names are distinct. If you choose this method, you will also need to update the JSPs (specifically the 'registerApplicationFrompPopertyFile' method call), and your JSP project's appmodule property file.

Two machines saving the same file as different sizes?

My coworker and I both have the same version of Illustratir (CS6) and both use Lion on iMacs, but today noticed something weird. He saved a file similar to a file I had done before as both an eps and a pdf and his file size was more than twice what my file sizes usually are. I thought it was odd, so I copied everything from his file into a new file (same dimensions) and saved out an eps and pdf (default settings), and like I thought, my files were less than half the size of his.
Why would two machines be saving identical files at different sizes? Is there a setting somewhere I'm missing? Everything in the file is vector, if it matters. There's not even any editable text.

See the mechanism of saving here: http://superuser.com/questions/66825/what-is-the-difference-between-size-and-size-on-disk
The size of the "blocks" depends on the size of the disk and how it's been formatted.

Can i access my library from two hard drives at the same time?

hello!
i have way too much music on my hard drive and would like to move some to my external drive and leave some on my local drive. that way when i'm writing papers at the cafe, i can access some music and when i'm at home, i can get it all. is this possible? if not, how should i deal with a 20 gig music file?
thanks!

The best way to do this is to attach your eHD, then in your iTunes Preferences "Change Location" of your iTunes Music folder to the eHD; from then on all music you add will go to the eHD but what's on your HD will stay there, and iTunes will keep track of what is where.
Two things : when away from home, your eHD tracks will all have ! next to them as iTunes will not "see" them; also when you are at home, make sure the eHD is attached before you launch iTunes.
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Two hard drives with time machine?

I have two external hard drives: one at work, and one at home. Can I have time machine running on both, so that I have a complete backup in both places? If so, how?

Sure. Each will be complete, but independent, if that makes sense.
You will have to tell TM each time you swap them, however, via TM's Preferences > Change Disk.
The first time you do a backup to each, it will be a full one, of everything on your system. When you swap, the next backup on the swapped drive will be lengthy, but contain all the changes since the last backup to that disk.
Do be careful, however, not to go more than about 10 days without a backup to each disk, as TM may do a new, full backup after that long.

Backing up two hard drives with Time Capsule

I plan to install an additional hard drive in my i7 Macbook Pro via OptiBay. Can a Time Capsule back-up both hard drives easily via Time Machine?

As long as it's formatted for a Mac, yes.
Once it's installed, running, and formatted, go to +System Preferences > Time Machine > Options.+ If it's listed in the exclusions box, just select it and click the minus sign at the bottom.
Note that Time Machine usually requires 2-3 times the space of the data it's backing-up, to be able to keep a reasonable "depth" of backups for you.

Same file is different sizes on differently formatted external HDDs

First question: I have two external drives; one is formatted for MS-DOS File System (FAT32) and the other is Mac OS Extended (Journaled). When I copy a folder from the DOS drive to the OS X drive, the folder is a different size on the two drives. Is this normal? Is there any chance that some of the data is missing or corrupted? If it's normal. is there a way to calculate what the difference should be so I can feel comfortable erasing the DOS drive once I've transferred everything off it.
Second (sort-of related) question: if I don't care to use my external drive with a Windows PC, what is the BEST format for the drive? Why? If I do want to use the drive with a Windows PC, what is the best format? Why?
Thanks so much wonderful and helpful other Mac users!

Hello! The different file sizes are normal in my experience. If you want to use it with both MSDOS is the only way but if Mac only the Mac HFS+ JOurnaled is best. Tom

How do you back up an external hard drive with time capsule?

how do you back up an external hard drive with time capsule?

Will time capsule back up the machine and the hard drive that is plugged into the machine?
Yes, if the hard drive with the video files is formatted correctly for Mac
On the Mac with the hard drive connected....click on the Time Machine "clock" icon at the top of the screen
Click Time Machine Preferences
Click Options
Here you will see a list of items that have been excluded from backups
Click the name of the hard drive to highlight it
Click the - (minus) button at the bottom of the list to remove the hard drive from the list of excluded items
The hard drive will now be backed up with your Mac on the next pass that Time Machine makes

Opening 2 PDF's with the same file name

I have someone who has difficulty opening two PDF's with the same file name. They had a file open, then try to open another PDF document with the same file name as the original document, however it will not open (and no error displays) and reverts back to the "old" document. Any ideas?

Are this diferent documents? What version of Adobe Reader?

Installing Lion clean on hard drive with multiple partitions

I have a spring 2008 24" iMac running Snow Leopard.
I am about to put a new 2TB hard drive in it and after I do that I want to do a clean install of Lion on it.
I do not want to upgrade my Snow Leopard install to Lion. I will keep it on my back up drive as a fallback incase of serious workflow incompatiblities with the new OS.
For my workflow I create and use multiple partitions (Mac OS, Windows and multiple HFS+ for data) on my hard drive and I have seen that Lion creates it's own hidden recovery partition as well for the recovery functionality.
My questions are:
1) Will I have issues running Lion on a partition on a hard drive with multiple partitions that have different file systems?
2) If I install Lion into one of these partitions will it create it's recovery partition within the space of the partition it is being installed into?
3) I will be creating a clean install by downloading Lion using the App Store and then burning an installer DVD using instructions I found elsewhere and then using that to do the install on the new drive. Is that the best route to take?
All my current data I will have on a backup external hard drive and after I complete the Lion install on the new larger drive I will manually reinstall all my software and move my data back from my backup drive to the new drive one partition at a time except of course for OS partition. I keep all my real user data outside of that partition anyway.

I believe this article answers most of your questions.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718
or possibly
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4649
You will most likely run into the error message that "Some features of Mac OS X Lion are not supported for the disk" if you have multiple partitions set up, especially if they were not set up using Bootcamp and/or have serveral different file systems.
You can confirm that the Recovery Partition will not be installed by checking Disk Utility for your current partition map scheme.
This is most definitely not the end of the world as it is quite easy to create an external Recovery disk.
1) No, you shouldn't have issues running Lion, but Recovery HD will not be created.
2) No, and in your case it doesn't sound like it will be installed on your internal drive at all.
3) Yes. If you begin with an empty partition, then install Lion that would be considered a clean install.
Hope that helps.
Autumn

Two hard drives with exact same files showing different sizes

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