Hard Drive Rearrangement and File Transfer Options

[ildondeigiocchi]

I’ve recently purchased two Intel X-25M 80GB G2 drives. One will be used as a boot drive for Snow Leopard and the other for Windows 7. I also will have a RAID array of one WD 640GB Caviar Black (on order) and one Hitachi 640GB (stock HDD from Apple) on which I will place my files. In the past I have used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone one HDD onto another. However, this time I have to approach things a bit differently. My current hard drive usage is as follows:

Hitachi 640GB HDD:

Macintosh HD: 250 GB of raw iMovie (1920 by 1080) video files
20 GB of iPhoto files
90 GB of other files (Documents and Music)

Bootcamp: 150 GB of Windows XP Professional 32-bit


Western Digital 150 GB: 40 GB of raw iMovie Video files


My question is the following. I would like to know how to transfer my Apps from my old HDD to my new SSD. I’m not sure on this one but I believe that the Apps themselves do not contain their respective files but rather they are contained in their respective folders found in the HOME FOLDER, if I am not mistaken. If I am correct with regard to this, I would like to know how to transfer all the other files found in the Home Folder (Music, Docs, Movies, Pictures, etc.) onto my RAID array.

I also would like to know whether a RAID array for these files would be more useful than a simple large HDD 1 TB or larger.

Any suggestions are welcome. I really need help with this file transfer. Thanks


*** FORGOT TO MENTION I WILL BE BUYING A 1TB EXTERNAL HDD FOR BACKUP.***

 

[nanofrog]

I’ve recently purchased two Intel X-25M 80GB G2 drives. One will be used as a boot drive for Snow Leopard and the other for Windows 7. I also will have a RAID array of one WD 640GB Caviar Black (on order) and one Hitachi 640GB (stock HDD from Apple) on which I will place my files. In the past I have used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone one HDD onto another. However, this time I have to approach things a bit differently. My current hard drive usage is as follows:

Hitachi 640GB HDD:

Macintosh HD: 250 GB of raw iMovie (1920 by 1080) video files
20 GB of iPhoto files
90 GB of other files (Documents and Music)

Bootcamp: 150 GB of Windows XP Professional 32-bit


Western Digital 150 GB: 40 GB of raw iMovie Video files


My question is the following. I would like to know how to transfer my Apps from my old HDD to my new SSD. I’m not sure on this one but I believe that the Apps themselves do not contain their respective files but rather they are contained in their respective folders found in the HOME FOLDER, if I am not mistaken. If I am correct with regard to this, I would like to know how to transfer all the other files found in the Home Folder (Music, Docs, Movies, Pictures, etc.) onto my RAID array.

I also would like to know whether a RAID array for these files would be more useful than a simple large HDD 1 TB or larger.

Any suggestions are welcome. I really need help with this file transfer. Thanks

What are you going to do for backup?

To get any data on the array, you must first make a backup of it to some other drive. The reason, is once you create the array, they'll be wiped out. Then you load the OS (if it's to serve this purpose, which you won't in this case), and restore the data.

With any drive config, single drive or RAID, you MUST have a backup. RAID 0 is especially so, as there's no redundancy, and the odds for losing the data (array goes kaput) are higher than a single drive. Odds on mechanical failure are increased by n members in the set.

I'd use the 150GB drive for OS backups. But unless you have external drives not listed, you're going to need at least one additional drive (internal or external) to use as a backup for the RAID. You'd also want to have it installed prior to creating it, in order to make a backup of the data on the existing OEM 640GB disk.

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

What are you going to do for backup?

To get any data on the array, you must first make a backup of it to some other drive. The reason, is once you create the array, they'll be wiped out. Then you load the OS (if it's to serve this purpose, which you won't in this case), and restore the data.

With any drive config, single drive or RAID, you MUST have a backup. RAID 0 is especially so, as there's no redundancy, and the odds for losing the data (array goes kaput) are higher than a single drive. Odds on mechanical failure are increased by n members in the set.

I'd use the 150GB drive for OS backups. But unless you have external drives not listed, you're going to need at least one additional drive (internal or external) to use as a backup for the RAID. You'd also want to have it installed prior to creating it, in order to make a backup of the data on the existing OEM 640GB disk.

Woops... my bad Forgot to mention I'm buying a 1TB external drive for Time Machine. Thanks for pointing out that I need to back up the info first. So what exactly should I back up onto the external drive before creating my Raid array?

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

Any ideas?

 

[nanofrog]

Woops... my bad Forgot to mention I'm buying a 1TB external drive for Time Machine. Thanks for pointing out that I need to back up the info first. So what exactly should I back up onto the external drive before creating my Raid array?

Non OS data you want, such as movies, music, photos, documents,... that you mentioned you want to keep.

 

[gugucom]

This is what you should do step by step.

1. Partition your 1 TB drive for HFS+ and some for NTFS
2. Extract all Data from your Windows drive and copy them to the NTFS section
3. Compress the Windows NTFS file system of you Bootcamp drive with the compression tool of Winclone.
4. Make a compressed special format Winclone image ( see preferences) of your Windows installation and store to the HFS+ backup partition.
5. Install SSDs, optionally update firmware to new December 2009 version if applicable.
6. Extract and Backup all Data from OS X drives to HFS+ backup partition.
7. Reinstall Windows system by Winclone to SSD and expand NTFS file system to use total space of SSD
8. Clone remaining OS X minus the extracted Data to the other SSD
9. Install second 650 GB Data drive
10. Stripe the two DATA drives with disk utility
11. Copy all data from backup drive to Data drive

If you are using the ODD Sata port for the Windows SSD you need to install it temporarily in a HDD port first, do the Wincloning and activate AHCI mode.

You are probably aware that your setup would also work with a 2 TB WD Green as internal backup on the fifth port. And it would be much faster than external backup. Also the two disk 1,3 TB RAID0 array will probably not be better than a single 1,5 TB WD black because you will not run a system or apps on it. For archiving the 1,5 TB single disk will also give better reliability and MTBF.

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

This is what you should do step by step.

1. Partition your 1 TB drive for HFS+ and some for NTFS
2. Extract all Data from your Windows drive and copy them to the NTFS section
3. Compress the Windows NTFS file system of you Bootcamp drive with the compression tool of Winclone.
4. Make a compressed special format Winclone image ( see preferences) of your Windows installation and store to the HFS+ backup partition.
5. Install SSDs, optionally update firmware to new December 2009 version if applicable.
6. Extract and Backup all Data from OS X drives to HFS+ backup partition.
7. Reinstall Windows system by Winclone to SSD and expand NTFS file system to use total space of SSD
8. Clone remaining OS X minus the extracted Data to the other SSD
9. Install second 650 GB Data drive
10. Stripe the two DATA drives with disk utility
11. Copy all data from backup drive to Data drive

If you are using the ODD Sata port for the Windows SSD you need to install it temporarily in a HDD port first, do the Wincloning and activate AHCI mode.

You are probably aware that your setup would also work with a 2 TB WD Green as internal backup on the fifth port. And it would be much faster than external backup. Also the two disk 1,3 TB RAID0 array will probably not be better than a single 1,5 TB WD black because you will not run a system or apps on it. For archiving the 1,5 TB single disk will also give better reliability and MTBF.

Thanks gugucom. You're a real champ. With regard to cloning the apps do I use CarbonCopyCloner for this also? When selecting the Source Disk I would just have to checkmark the Applications folder and then set the Target disk as my SSD. Right?

 

[gugucom]

I used disk utility normally but if you are familiar with CCC that should serve you as well. The tricky thing is getting the data separated or at least those which are going to take up much space like video and music collections.

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

Quick Update. I opted for 1.5TB and 2.0TB Western Digital Green Hard Drives. Should I stick the 2.0TB one in the Mac Pro or use it as a Time Machine drive for my external enclosure?

 

[gugucom]

I would use the bigger drive as the backup. Whether you put that in the Mac Pro or outside is really a question of convenience and the desaster prevention. Outside is safer but the backup will be faster with an internal backup.

 

[ildondeigiocchi]

Ok I mounted the Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Green in the external enclosure and everything seems to be working fine. Formatted it in Disk Utility with HFS+ which gave me a total of 1.82TB. The only odd thing I must say is that if the Mac Pro is already turned on and I decide to turn on the drive it will not get recognized. I have to reboot for the Mac Pro to pick it up. Is this normal? I have a NexStar CX 3.5" HDD enclosure.

 

[gugucom]

I don't think that is normal. A USB 2.0 device like your external drive should be hot plug capable. Make sure you test that your content has transferred properly before you erase anything and rely on this drive only. I'm at a loss to explain this. I have never come across such a thing before.

What did you use for partition table? GUID should be appropriate for the Mac. Perhaps you can also add a small NFTS partition in case you want to hold separate Windows data backed up.