iMac G5 Hard Disc upgrade

I am thinking of swapping out my 160GB drive for a larger one.

I would like to ghost the existing drive onto the new one.

What is the best way to do this? I don't really want to have to setup the system up again from scratch.

As the for hard disc itself, is there anything I should be aware of. Is it just a case of swapping new for old? I am thinking about using a 400Gig drive.

Is it worth partitioning a drive of this size? Say a couple of partitions, OS, Documents, Music, Pictures? Or just keep it all on one?

Thanks.

lbodnar said:

You need something to "host" your new drive while you transfer your data with Carbon Copy Cloner http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html.

The ideal solution for you would be to buy external firewire enclosure for Serial ATA drives (e.g. http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/Addonics_AE5SACSUF/AE5SACSUF/E03800/pricegrabber/)
put your old drive in it,
put new one in iMac,
boot off external drive (your old one)
format internal and transfer all your data with CCC
keep external drive for backups

If you want double safety:
put new drive in FW case
format it and CCC data to it
verify you can boot off it
swap drives

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. Once I get the funds I may just do that.

If not, I may just look as a NAS instead once they drop in price.