Backing Up Files to External Drives

[DrRock]

I am near the end of an extensive editing project in FCS 2, and I am having problems with the system hanging up constantly. I have 8gb of ram (the max for my machine), and my main internal drive is a 250 gb HD.

I'm wondering if I can backup & delete files from my main drive to free up space and hopefully improve performance, and if it will cause any problems.

I plan to backup the Soundtrack Pro Loops to an external drive, which will free up about 21gb of space. Is there anything else that's safe to do this with (if this process is safe, that is.)?

Can I also backup the "Previous systems" folder & delete it from my main drive?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Makosuke]

Can I also backup the "Previous systems" folder & delete it from my main drive?

Outside of unusual cases, the "Previous Systems" folder is completely safe to delete straight out.

Basically, when you do either an archive and install or archive and upgrade of the OS, the installer moves all the stuff that isn't being replaced (for example, 3rd party applications) into the new system, then puts all the bits and pieces that are being replaced in that Previous Systems folder.

It's there, for the most part, so if the OS installer failed to move something over, you could go into the Previous Systems folder and move them manually. Even then, 99% of the time you'd want to just reinstall whatever it was from scratch instead of trying to manually move it over.

So basically, the chances of that folder containing anything at all of use are slim at most. I've never even had second thoughts about deleting it outright, but if you're paranoid you could back it up first, I suppose.