What to do with that internal drive

[bankshot]

My 2.6 GHz i7 mini arrives on Halloween morning. I've already ordered the 16 GB memory and 256 GB SSD from Crucial (arrive the day before). I also have a few 3 TB drives coming from Amazon ($120 right now - link) and a RAID-1 USB3 enclosure from OWC. My goal in upgrading is to get something that's as fast as possible compared to my current 1.83 GHz C2D mini. OS and the majority of my files will go on the SSD. Larger files will go on the external RAID.

So, that raises the question: what to do with that internal 1 TB drive? I was originally thinking about keeping both the 1 TB and the SSD internal (with OWC's data doubler), but since I decided to go external RAID, that's not really needed anymore.

• I could sell it, but that could cause problems if I ever need warranty service, since it would be obvious that I'd opened the machine up.
  
  
• I could keep it around, but honestly I don't see myself using it at all, even in an external enclosure. It'll probably be too small to be useful as a Time Machine drive.
  
  
• I could, of course, go ahead with the data doubler and keep it internal, but I just don't see myself using it for anything.
  
  
• I could also stick it in my current mini, which I plan to keep around as a headless home server. But again, not sure what I'd do with all that space in that machine.

Just having a real hard time finding a use for this thing - seems like such a waste to have 1 TB sitting around unused. What would you do?

[simsaladimbamba]

You could use the 1 TB DD internally, partitioned into two partitions, one for a bootable clone, backed up to daily via scheduling, and the other partition as Time Machine backup of the system SSD, in case you ever need to recover something or frelled something up.

[bankshot]

Good suggestion.

I kind of thought about that, but here's the problem: what I'd want to do in this scenario is backup only the SSD to the 1TB Time Machine volume, but backup everything (including external RAID) to my other external TM volume. I know that Mountain Lion allows you to rotate between multiple TM volumes, but I don't think you can have separate exclusions per volume?

That's a good thought, though, and maybe I can figure out how to rotate exclusions using a script or something.

Definitely like the idea of a bootable clone partition, too.

[Toraen]

Originally Posted by simsaladimbamba

You could use the 1 TB DD internally, partitioned into two partitions, one for a bootable clone, backed up to daily via scheduling, and the other partition as Time Machine backup of the system SSD, in case you ever need to recover something or frelled something up.

If you don't mind, what tool would you use to do this?

If you had a 256gb SSD you'd just create a 256gb partition on the physical drive and use some software or a script to keep it cloned/synced?

Special software, or maybe just a scheduled sync? (Not sure if that would even make the second volume bootable?).

[simsaladimbamba]

Originally Posted by Toraen

If you don't mind, what tool would you use to do this?

If you had a 256gb SSD you'd just create a 256gb partition on the physical drive and use some software or a script to keep it cloned/synced?

Special software, or maybe just a scheduled sync? (Not sure if that would even make the second volume bootable?).

I have a 128 GB SSD and a 500 GB HDD in my MacBool Pro, the 128 GB SSD gets backed up to daily via CarbonCopyCloner to a 128 GB partition on the HDD, which is also bootable.
SuperDuper! can do the same.

[Toraen]

Thank you. I looked into CCC and I like what you've setup - just finished putting in my new SSD and waiting for a restore of OSX. I think I'll do a similar setup.

[Toraen]

I have the nightly backup to the internal HDD going with CCC.

Software Update keeps trying to update the software there is there any way to basically make this partition hidden or inactive except when doing the CCC backup?

ex: If an iPhoto update comes out, I update. It updates my running SSD OSX. If I run Software update again the same iPhoto update is there - this time for the HDD OSX (backup).

Not that big a deal... but makes me paranoid that there could be other parts of the system thinking the HDD OSX is "the real one".

[rbrian]

After I'd filled up the 500GB drive in my old MacBook Pro, I fitted a 1TB drive, which I then filled up. I put the 500GB drive back in my Pro, then sold it and bought a mini with a 3TB external drive, and an Air with a 128GB drive. I fitted the 1TB drive in my friend's MacBook Pro.

It seems odd that 1TB is no longer enough, and yet 128GB is...

[bankshot]

Originally Posted by Toraen

I have the nightly backup to the internal HDD going with CCC.

Software Update keeps trying to update the software there is there any way to basically make this partition hidden or inactive except when doing the CCC backup?

I haven't played with CCC yet, but I'm sure there's a way you could mount the HD before it runs, then umount after. A simple AppleScript or Automator workflow ought to be able to do the mounting and unmounting easily. Or maybe CCC is smart enough to recognize that the target disk is unmounted and automatically mount/unmount it before and after the backup? That would be really nice, but I have no idea if it's that smart.

For my part, I've already set my clone partition to be unmounted at bootup, so it normally doesn't show up on the system except in Disk Utility. I basically used the method described here:

http://adam.merrifield.ca/2009/02/12...sks-unmounted/

I haven't setup automatic cloning of the SSD to the HD yet, and I'm not sure if I'll go with CCC or not. I may just do the initial clone using Disk Utility's Restore function, then setup a simple rsync script to run nightly. I believe that's more or less what CCC does under the hood.