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silversyren

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 9, 2006
51
0
Is it okay if I work with large photoshop/illustrator/quark files off my external hard drive or should I copy it to my laptop hard drvie and work on the files from there?

could someone tell me the point of partitioning an external hard drive? i've done a search and read previous threads but i'm confused by the whole thing still.

external hard drive is 300 gb and will be used for storing my music/pictures/design projects.. should i partition 80 gb of it for backing up my laptop hard drive? and if i do.. do i use a utility tool or something to copy/backup to the external?
 

Heb1228

macrumors 68020
Feb 3, 2004
2,217
1
Virginia Beach, VA
Yes, you can work on large files from an external drive. You may even find you'll get better performance that way since the transfer speeds will be higher. The only problem you may run into is if you need to take your work on the road. Just take that into consideration when you're figuring out where to save everything... what you need to be portable and what can stay at home.

You named the best reason for partitioning. Drive backup. For example, one of my drives, a 250GB drive, I have partitioned into three sections: a 120GB section (for backing up my PB hard drive), a 40GB (for backing up my iMac HD), and the rest of it for video storage.

Programs like SuperDuper will allow you to make a full drive clone, which is my preferred way of backing up. It copies the entire drive to the external and makes it bootable. That way I have an entire system backup and could be back online in minutes should I have a HD failure.
 

adk

macrumors 68000
Nov 11, 2005
1,937
21
Stuck in the middle with you
I once made a 45 minute imovie project and saved it onto an external FW800 drive. It took about 5 minutes to load when I started up imovie, but other than that it was pretty much ok. A lot of the usability of the drive will depend on connection type.
 

disconap

macrumors 68000
Oct 29, 2005
1,810
3
Portland, OR
Working off an external drive is ok, just don't use the same external for back-ups. Working off externals is, even in the current age of tech, slightly dangerous, though not much more so than working off your main drive. But generally speaking, a back-up drive should be used only for that, it cuts the risk of data loss if the drive is solely used for back-up.
 
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