Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

jay3ld · Mar 15, 2005, 04:48 PM

im thinking of getting another hd for my other mac. but since i got multi users im not sure how that would run.
What programs do i need?
What applications do i need?
And any other information would be nice.

Thanks. i can post specs of mac if its needed.

cpac · Mar 15, 2005, 05:16 PM

I don't think you've stated a coherent question.

What are you trying to do?

Add an external hard drive for storage?
Add a second hard drive into a tower machine?
Replace the current hard drive with a larger one?

What do you think the difference between an application and a program is, and why do you think you'd need one or the other to add a hard drive?

Why does having multiple users have anything to do with adding a hard drive?

jay3ld · Mar 15, 2005, 05:56 PM

im going to add a second external harddrive to my another mac i got because its running of gbs. but i got multiusers.

so how does this work with multiusers having a second harddriver connected via firewire.

Big Mac · Mar 15, 2005, 06:03 PM

User permissions will function just the same on a second drive, unless you click the check box in Get Info to ignore permissions.

jay3ld · Mar 15, 2005, 06:16 PM

ok just wanted to make sure.
would i have to install panther on it also? or what?

cpac · Mar 15, 2005, 06:43 PM

Originally posted by jay3ld:
ok just wanted to make sure.
would i have to install panther on it also? or what?

Nope.

Just plug it in. Then all the users will see it and be able to save things to it - just like if you connected to a server, or put in a CD.

jay3ld · Mar 15, 2005, 09:37 PM

ok. people will have there user folders right?

and if so can i have it hook to 2 computers 2 it and have it be used by both?

Anubis IV · Mar 15, 2005, 10:43 PM

Yes, people have their user folders, but the user folders don't really have anything to do with the external hard drive.

Basically all the external hard drive will be initially is a giant empty space with no folders, no users, no anything. Unless you want to be able to boot from your external hard drive (which it doesn't sound like you're trying to do) you don't need to install a system on the drive. As someone else already said, it's just like when you put in a CD...every user on the computer can see it and interact with it and no one user owns the CD.

Anyway, think of it as a giant repository for information that is accessible to everyone and not as an extension of people's user folders. I mean, it can be used for the latter purpose, but most people don't use it that way.

As for hooking up two computers to one hard drive...ya know, I'm actually curious about that myself. I have an external drive, and whenever I tried to hook up to it via USB and Firewire at the same time with two different machines it didn't work, but I really don't know.

Big Mac · Mar 15, 2005, 11:12 PM

Note that if you do not see the drive after installing it you may need to initialize it with Disk Utility (located in the Utilities folder).

Boondoggle · Mar 16, 2005, 02:49 AM

Originally posted by Anubis IV:

As for hooking up two computers to one hard drive...ya know, I'm actually curious about that myself. I have an external drive, and whenever I tried to hook up to it via USB and Firewire at the same time with two different machines it didn't work, but I really don't know.

No Worky.

Randman · Mar 16, 2005, 03:20 AM

By multi-users, I'm assuming you mean more than one profile. For an external, try Carbon Copy Cloner. Make the external bootable, give permissions to all users to access the files. Works like a champ.

Millennium · Mar 16, 2005, 11:56 AM

Originally posted by jay3ld:
and if so can i have it hook to 2 computers 2 it and have it be used by both?

Not directly, no, but that's a limitation of the hardware, not the OS. What you can do is hook it to one computer and use something like SharePoints to share it over a network so that the other computer can access it.

jay3ld · Mar 17, 2005, 07:20 PM

ok.

so if i want to keep it so users still have there own file areas and cant just save save save to the external hd i would have to get an internal hard drive?

Anubis IV · Mar 17, 2005, 10:03 PM

No, you could do something simple like make x folders at the root level of the hard drive (where x is the number of users you have), then set the permissions on those folders (use Get Info and then change the permissions...you need to be using an admin account to do it) to match the x users. That should do the trick, I should think.