Question about external hard drives.

[88888888]

I currently have a mbp and I'm running bootcamp on it.
160 gig on mac hd and 40 gigs on windows hd.
I'm running out of memory and considering getting an external hard drive.
Would I be able to back up both my mac and windows partition on the same external hd? Also Is it possible to install programs on the external hd (For ex. installing games on external hd and running it from the external?)
Also my itunes library is on my mac hd. How would i be able to play my itunes library while running bootcamp?

Thanks.

 

[aross99]

You could partition your external drive and keep separate Windows and OS X partitions if you want. You can also install programs on the OS X partition and locate your iTunes library there as well.

Just remember not to Launch iTunes w/o your external drive mounted, or iTunes will create an empty library on your main drive.

 

[winninganthem]

Installing programs on an external harddrive is a bad idea.

You could if you wanted to, but don't go and think that you can connect that external to run the same game on another system . In order to do that, the drive will need to be your system drive.

Anyway, that was a bit off topic but yeah, use your external for putting media files on, and your system drive for all your programs.

Oh, and to access Macintosh HD while in Windows, use MacDrive.

 

[88888888]

Does macdrive cost money?

I want to backup both my mac hd and windows hd on my external hd.

 

[Apple Ink]

Yes MacDrive, an excellent software though, costs $50!

http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

If you have it installed, you could simply drop you iTunes folder in Mac to iTunes in Windows!
Also, format your xHDD as HFS+ and backup both Mac and Win systems!

Programs, specially games and other resource heavy apps, will not run properly through an xHDD except the eSATA interface!

P.S.: MacDrive is the best seamless option for Win to be able to read/write to HFS+ and a must for everybody with NTFS BootCamps or/and a PC(s) to deal with!

 

[aross99]

Installing programs on an external harddrive is a bad idea.

You could if you wanted to, but don't go and think that you can connect that external to run the same game on another system.

This is a very good point. If you are going to use your external drive to move between machines, then it should really be used for backup, not for additional storage for applications, etc.

 

[88888888]

This is a very good point. If you are going to use your external drive to move between machines, then it should really be used for backup, not for additional storage for applications, etc.

what do you mean it cant be used on a different system.
like if i install bf2 on external hd. i can't play it?

 

[Apple Ink]

In general most Win games require certain registry edits and additions! The registry is a component of Windows and the editions/additions are made when the game is being installed!

If you plug the xHDD in another computer (on which you didnt install it), there's a good chance that the game wont run as the registry hasnt been edited on that specific computer!

This is just one point among many that plague the Win world.... you have DLLs which need to be written in the WinSXS and System32 folder, incorrect shortcut formations, Control Panel addition, preference memory, Save Games, etc!

 

[winninganthem]

In general most Win games require certain registry edits and additions! The registry is a component of Windows and the editions/additions are made when the game is being installed!

If you plug the xHDD in another computer (on which you didnt install it), there's a good chance that the game wont run as the registry hasnt been edited on that specific computer!

This is just one point among many that plague the Win world.... you have DLLs which need to be written in the WinSXS and System32 folder, incorrect shortcut formations, Control Panel addition, preference memory, Save Games, etc!

Same thing goes for Mac programs too; when you install a program, OS X writes new information to its libraries and stuff.

what do you mean it cant be used on a different system.
like if i install bf2 on external hd. i can't play it?

You can install a game on any drive you want to (although it is not recommended to run off an external). If you do install BF2 on your external, it will only work on the computer you installed it for. You can't plug the drive into another system that does not have BF2 thinking that it will run.

Another concern about doing this is that data transfer on external HDD's aren't as fast as internal connections (unless you're running FW800 or eSATA or whatever), so performance will be slowed.

Besides, you don't want to lug around an extra thing with your laptop whenever you want to run certain apps: you'll forget which thing is where.

So yeah, don't bother with that.

External = extra storage, back-ups
Internal = applications