Backing Up - Change Raid

[sOwL]

ok heres the situation. Im buying 2 new hdds. One, the small one, is the fastest and i will use it for the system files and applications. Ill then move the home directory to another hdd. My question is, apart from the hdd that im planning to use for system files, how can i change the raid for the other 2 500gb disks, to raid 0, so they appear as one at 1tb? Thats where i want to move my home folder. Also, another question, since ive never rly used time machine for a long time because i didnt own an external hdd, how does it work? Does it just create a folder on ur external disk and start backing up in it or will it need the whole drive space, rendering it useless for anything else? Can it create a bootable image of my internal drive or im staying with superduper? Finally, lets suppose my setup is the one im trying to have: an 150gb hdd for system files, and a virtual 1tb hdd for my home folder. How could i make a bootable image of those? Could i just merge them in one disk, setting the home folder to be where its by default? Should i make a bootable image of the hdd that contains the system files, and then a simple backup of my home folder, and when i boot from that image, re-locate my home folder?

wow this was rly huge, if u bother reading it, thnx a lot 😛

 

[blodwyn]

how can i change the raid for the other 2 500gb disks, to raid 0, so they appear as one at 1tb?

Use Disk Utility to create a RAID0 volume from the 2 drives. You will lose all data on the 2 drives when you do this. Also, if either of the 2 drives fail, you will lose all the data on both of them. Having my home folder on a RAID0 volume would cause me to lose sleep

Also, another question, since ive never rly used time machine for a long time because i didnt own an external hdd, how does it work? Does it just create a folder on ur external disk and start backing up in it or will it need the whole drive space, rendering it useless for anything else?

It creates a folder and uses that. You can use the rest of the space for other purposes, except you want to allow space for the TM backups to grow

Can it create a bootable image of my internal drive or im staying with superduper? P

TM doesn't create a bootable backup, so you're staying with SuperDuper

Finally, lets suppose my setup is the one im trying to have: an 150gb hdd for system files, and a virtual 1tb hdd for my home folder. How could i make a bootable image of those? Could i just merge them in one disk, setting the home folder to be where its by default? Should i make a bootable image of the hdd that contains the system files, and then a simple backup of my home folder, and when i boot from that image, re-locate my home folder?

Good question, I don't have an answer I'm afraid. The simple option is to keep your system files and home folder on one disk, and have all of your data files on another (backed-up) volume

wow this was rly huge, if u bother reading it, thnx a lot 😛

You're welcome

 

[sOwL]

Thanx for your reply

Use Disk Utility to create a RAID0 volume from the 2 drives. You will lose all data on the 2 drives when you do this. Also, if either of the 2 drives fail, you will lose all the data on both of them. Having my home folder on a RAID0 volume would cause me to lose sleep

Im aware of how dangerous will be to use raid 0 for 2 HDDs, but thats why i got backups for 🙂

Good question, I don't have an answer I'm afraid. The simple option is to keep your system files and home folder on one disk, and have all of your data files on another (backed-up) volume

But, "all of my data files" IS my home folder.... Anyway, i think ill just do a bootable image for the HDD with the system files and a normal backup of my home folder. The only problem is that, would the bootable image run without knowing where the home folder is?

 

[blodwyn]

The system maintains a whole bunch of files, associated with your account, in your Home folder - caches, preferences, library files, etc. These need to stay in the Home folder, whereas your data files - Documents, Music, Pictures, Movies, etc, can (usually) be anywhere.

What I was suggesting is you keep your Home folder with all the system files on the same disk as your system, but move all your data files out of your Home folder to another volume. If that's not feasible because of your particular data, then that's a shame, as I think it would simplify the bootable image backup scenario you want to maintain