Time Machine to internal drives (not USB).

[Julien]

LOOOOOG time MS user (DOS 1.1 to Vista 64) seeing the light. Looking at buying a Mac Pro and getting the standard 320GB HD. Then swapping out and installing 2 1TB HD's. First can I remover the standard (A) 320GB HD (are HD's labeled as A:, B:, C:, ....?) with operating system and replace with a 1TB? Also will Time Machine work on an internal HD (2ed (B) 1TB HD)? All Apple documentations says to hook a USB or Firewire for Time Machine. Also should the Time Machine HD be larger or is the same size okay (1TB and 1TB)?

Also can I install my copy of Vista 64 (upgrade not OEM) on the Pro using the same method as on a PC? Would likely use Parallel and not Boot Camp.

 

[Eraserhead]

Time Machine should ideally be twice the size of the drive it is mirroring, though say 1.5 times as large should be OK, 1x won't be good as the drive nears capacity as there won't be enough space for more than 1 copy of a file (which may mean there aren't any copies of a file backed up if the backup is occuring ).

Internet Drives in a Mac Pro can be backed up to.

 

[pprior]

1) Unless you've filled the drive bays, don't replace the 320, just use it for a swap disk

2) You can absolutely use an internal drive for TM. I've got a 1TB drive from my TM and it's backing up a 750gb boot drive and a 500gb RAID1 mirror on which most of my data resides.

3) I would agree yet disagree with the above poster - yes ideally you want more space on the TM drive than on the drive it's backing up. However since there are no current 1+TB drives, you either have to go RAID/Drobo or do with what you have. By the time you fill all that drive, there will likely be larger drives available.

I also began with a PC back in the early 80's, even owned a IBM PC JR as my second computer. I love my mac pro and wish I hadn't spent 20+ years of frustration running PCs

 

[Julien]

1) Unless you've filled the drive bays, don't replace the 320, just use it for a swap disk

2) You can absolutely use an internal drive for TM. I've got a 1TB drive from my TM and it's backing up a 750gb boot drive and a 500gb RAID1 mirror on which most of my data resides.

3) I would agree yet disagree with the above poster - yes ideally you want more space on the TM drive than on the drive it's backing up. However since there are no current 1+TB drives, you either have to go RAID/Drobo or do with what you have. By the time you fill all that drive, there will likely be larger drives available.

I also began with a PC back in the early 80's, even owned a IBM PC JR as my second computer. I love my mac pro and wish I hadn't spent 20+ years of frustration running PCs

1) My iTunes music alone is 400GB and I have almost 200GB in HD video so I need to swap the HD for a 1TB. Is there a problem in reinstalling the OSX to a new HD? I have 4-400GB HDs in my current PC RAID that I could use 2 of them in the open bays.

2) My current C HD is at 870GB so if the Mac Pro's 1TB HD was close to that amount would a 1TB HD be sufficient for Time Machine to work effectively? I could get a 1.5TB USB HD and use it for TM and fill the other bays with 3-400GB HD's.

Also since most of the data is static (other than adding music or video) wouldn't TM be more effective using a 1TB to 1TB ratio HD than if I had lots of dynamic data changing all the time?

 

[Eraserhead]

It depends how much data you have, if you fill a 1GB HD then a 1:1 ratio won't work well, but a 750GB:1GB ratio (of filled data) would be OK if most of it doesn't change.

The worry is that it would delete the last backup to create the next one, which would cause lots of problems.

 

[DeuceDeuce]

1) Is there a problem in reinstalling the OSX to a new HD?

Not a problem at all. I just did the same. Before I even booted my MP I installed a 640GB drive and pulled out the 320GB it came with. When I turned in the machine I had the Install Disc in the DVD drive and held down C when I heard the Apple chime. It booted from the CD and I installed OS X onto my new drive.

 

[benpatient]

to the OP:

leave the 320 in there. Boot from that drive.

Use one of your 1TB drives to store your data (itunes and video and whatever else) and use the other one to back them both up with TM.

If you end up needing to reinstall OS X, you won't have to worry about your data drive or copying that stuff back over from a TM restore, which for 600GB would take quite a while.

And don't let anyone tell you that you'll never need to reinstall OS X. The people who never need to reinstall OS X are the same people who never needed to reinstall Windows 98.

 

[krye]

to the OP:

And don't let anyone tell you that you'll never need to reinstall OS X. The people who never need to reinstall OS X are the same people who never needed to reinstall Windows 98.

Can I get an Amen?

 

[Julien]

to the OP:

leave the 320 in there. Boot from that drive.

Use one of your 1TB drives to store your data (itunes and video and whatever else) and use the other one to back them both up with TM.

If you end up needing to reinstall OS X, you won't have to worry about your data drive or copying that stuff back over from a TM restore, which for 600GB would take quite a while.

And don't let anyone tell you that you'll never need to reinstall OS X. The people who never need to reinstall OS X are the same people who never needed to reinstall Windows 98.

Not very familiar with the Mac file system yet but with Windows if you use a different drive for data it can't be stored in the My Documents folder. This is a slight problem/inconvenience but I don't want a similar problem/inconvenience in setting up my Mac Pro. Does the Mac use a My Documents folder and if so can it be located on a different HD? Also would Time Machine be able to at least backup preferences/settings for OSX while backing up the data located on a different HD?

Are HD labelled C, D, E,... like in Windows?

 

[mgsarch]

1) Unless you've filled the drive bays, don't replace the 320, just use it for a swap disk

2) You can absolutely use an internal drive for TM. I've got a 1TB drive from my TM and it's backing up a 750gb boot drive and a 500gb RAID1 mirror on which most of my data resides.

3) I would agree yet disagree with the above poster - yes ideally you want more space on the TM drive than on the drive it's backing up. However since there are no current 1+TB drives, you either have to go RAID/Drobo or do with what you have. By the time you fill all that drive, there will likely be larger drives available.

I also began with a PC back in the early 80's, even owned a IBM PC JR as my second computer. I love my mac pro and wish I hadn't spent 20+ years of frustration running PCs

That 320 makes for a pretty useless swap disk or boot drive .. mine produced horrible xbench scores and the real world performance was worse than a seagate barracuda sata-V I have that's almost 5 years old. From what I've seen Apple really cheaped out on the stock drives. Garbage across the board. I immediately bought 4 WD640s and put a seagate 7200.11 750 for time machine in the optical bay. I have a crazy RAID config setup but even before I loaded leopard on one of the 640s it was like a different computer. Those 320s are a bottleneck.

I use a internal drive for TM, external bootable clone, and Mozy for off-site time machineness.

Seriously though, those 320s are an embarassment,

 

[OlBlueHair]

Originally Posted by Julien
Not very familiar with the Mac file system yet but with Windows if you use a different drive for data it can't be stored in the My Documents folder. This is a slight problem/inconvenience but I don't want a similar problem/inconvenience in setting up my Mac Pro. Does the Mac use a My Documents folder and if so can it be located on a different HD? Also would Time Machine be able to at least backup preferences/settings for OSX while backing up the data located on a different HD?

Are HD labelled C, D, E,... like in Windows?

ttt...could anyone address the above 2 questions?
Thanks,

1 Does the Mac use a My Documents folder and if so can it be located on a different HD?

It uses a documents folder yes...I have no idea but I don't think it can be on another hard drive. I would guess that it would have to be on the same drive as your OS X installation. That being said, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from making a folder called "My Documents" and putting it on another drive. Or having 10 different "documents" folders on 10 different drives.

Or, perhaps you could put an alias to "my documents" on your external drive in the Documents folder of your main OS X installation.

I guess I don't understand the problem...you can have documents on any drive you want.

2 - Also would Time Machine be able to at least backup preferences/settings for OSX while backing up the data located on a different HD?

Again, I'm not sure I understand the question. Time Machine backs everything up...so that you can click a button and literally go back to, say, May 1st 2008, and every file, setting, etc is just as it was on that day.

3 - No. They can be named anything you want. You just click on the name underneath the drive and change it.

Hope that helps. Perhaps you should look over the features of OS X/Time Machine etc on apple's website.