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Zoom · Feb 23, 2006, 04:28 PM

I apologize if this has been covered, but I can't seem to get search to work - I keep getting a blank page (no error, just nothing).

I have a PowerMac G5 (1.8DP). I have the stock 80GB drive and a secondary 300GB drive. Now I want to add more room. Apparently, there's no more room for drives internally, which is kinda dumb. I've heard about brackets you can buy, but I'm not really into that, I don't think - way too pricey for just one more drive (they cost more than the drive).

So I'm thinking of upgrading the stock primary drive. Can I do this...

1) Use Carbon Copy Cloner to copy main drive stuff to secondary drive (WITHOUT affecting stuff already on secondary drive)
2) Replace main drive with new, bigger drive.

I think I can make enough space on the secondary drive to fit all the stuff from the primary drive on it. And I can make that drive the primary (to avoid copying it all back to the new drive). But will that work? Or does the target drive need to be empty for CCC?

If it helps, I also have an external 160GB FW drive (that's mostly full). I'm really trying to get rid of THAT and just have two internal drives, with the external drive for backups and transferring large files around.

Big Mac · Feb 23, 2006, 08:49 PM

Yes, in order to clone a drive the destination partition or drive has to be erased.

Zoom · Feb 23, 2006, 08:54 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Yes, in order to clone a drive the destination partition or drive has to be erased.

Hmmm... then about about this for a plan. Remove the secondary (300GB) drive and install the new one. Use CCC to copy the prime/stock (80GB) drive to the new drive. Then replace the 80GB with the removed 300GB drive. Done!

Does that work?

chris v · Feb 24, 2006, 09:04 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Yes, in order to clone a drive the destination partition or drive has to be erased.

No it doesn't.

If there's room, you can add to the destination drive without erasing. Of course, if you've got directories at the root level with the same name, they'll be added to/overwritten (depending whether you want to sync) but other than that, it shouldn't be a problem.

mountainash · Mar 24, 2006, 02:12 PM

Zoom's suggestion is the easiest and most hassle free. It takes less than 5 minutes to install a hard drive in a PMac G5.

The bracket things are perfectly cool as well. Very well designed. These people know how finiky Mac users can be. You will also need a SATA card.

Your other option is an external firewire drive, Firewire 800 if you need it. And there are SATA cards that allow external, hotpluggable SATA drives aswell.

Zoom · Apr 2, 2006, 09:14 PM

Okay. I bought a 500GB SATA drive ($240 after MIR!). Now I'm nervous. I have CCC and I've read about it a bit. Sounds like there may be some issues with the new drive if I don't name it the same thing, for instance.

Anyone have any caveats on this procedure? Is it truly painless? Will I lose anything? How much tweaking will I have to do?

One other option I'm considering:

1) Use CCC to copy my 80GB drive contents to my secondary drive (85GB free).
2) Remove the 80GB stock main drive.
3) Insert new 500GB drive in its place.

Basically, I make the secondary the primary and replace the primary.

Thoughts?

chris v · Apr 3, 2006, 07:42 AM

Originally Posted by Zoom

Okay. I bought a 500GB SATA drive ($240 after MIR!). Now I'm nervous. I have CCC and I've read about it a bit. Sounds like there may be some issues with the new drive if I don't name it the same thing, for instance.

Anyone have any caveats on this procedure? Is it truly painless? Will I lose anything? How much tweaking will I have to do?

One other option I'm considering:

1) Use CCC to copy my 80GB drive contents to my secondary drive (85GB free).
2) Remove the 80GB stock main drive.
3) Insert new 500GB drive in its place.

Basically, I make the secondary the primary and replace the primary.

Thoughts?

Just do it in a different order. Take out the secondary drive, and install the new one. Clone 1-->3 then pull 1 & put 2 back in in its place.

Edit: that may not be what you're after as far as where you want the data, but CCC won't over-write unless you've got folders with the same name on the destination, and you tell it to synch. It DOES NOT wipe the destination drive. You'd have to do that manually before cloning. CCC merely runs 'ditto' which is a UNIX command-line copy function, and it retains permissions. There's no wiping involved.

If you've got a folder named "data" on the destination drive, and you tell CCC to copy a folder named "System" to it from the target drive, when you're done, both "Data" & "System" will be on the destination drive. I've used it this way for years, and if you need further reassurance, go here:

http://forums.bombich.com/

Zoom · Apr 3, 2006, 08:45 AM

Okay, thanks!

So, let me ask this. The main reason I need the big drives is for iMovies and iDVD stuff. I've got probably a dozen or more home movie projects in the works (annual footage doing way back). Is it better (for performance) to have those projects on the same drive as the app or on different drives?

Big Mac · Apr 3, 2006, 09:19 AM

Originally Posted by Zoom

Is it better (for performance) to have those projects on the same drive as the app or on different drives?

It's definitely better to have the video files on a separate hard drive, erased occasionally in order to maintain its performance.

MRTrauffer · Apr 3, 2006, 01:19 PM

Just so you know, some large capacity SATA drives don't interface well with the built in controller on G5's. I had to get a PCI SATA controller for a 400GB drive.

When it comes to scratch disks and video editing, it's not recommended to use your system drive to capture to. I've always used an extra internal or a firewire drive.

Just some food for thought.

Zoom · Apr 3, 2006, 03:18 PM

Elaborate on "don't interface well".

G5man · Apr 3, 2006, 03:33 PM

It is a bit simpler than that, how do you get the contents on the 85 GB to the 500 GB? On my mini, all I did was copy all the contents from my internal drive to my external drive without doing anything special.

MRTrauffer · Apr 3, 2006, 03:36 PM

This article will explain better than I can:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/...5problems.html

While your drive may work fine, my Western Digital needed an extra controller card.

hookem2oo7 · Apr 3, 2006, 04:10 PM

I've always used disk utility to make a compressed image...

mountainash · Apr 5, 2006, 12:20 PM

Originally Posted by MRTrauffer

This article will explain better than I can:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/...5problems.html

While your drive may work fine, my Western Digital needed an extra controller card.

This issue seems to be specific to SATA-2 compatible Western Digital drives (KD series). So, if you avoid this drive, you should have no problems. Unless you are unlucky to get one of the Seagate 400GB+ drives which had problems with the G5. But that issue is resolvable if you have access to a SATA equipped Wintel Box.

Lesson is, buy it from a place that allows returns. A friendly local store, or a big chain with generous return policy.

MRTrauffer · Apr 5, 2006, 11:57 PM

I had purchased the WD mainly for its specs and price. Instead of returning the drive, i just got a controller card, now it works like a charm.

tooki · Apr 6, 2006, 02:00 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Yes, in order to clone a drive the destination partition or drive has to be erased.

Just confirming that the above is indeed incorrect. You can clone (using Disk Utility, CCC, or a number of other utilities) as an overlay to the existing data on the destination disk.

tooki

Zoom · Apr 15, 2006, 08:43 AM

Originally Posted by G5man

It is a bit simpler than that, how do you get the contents on the 85 GB to the 500 GB? On my mini, all I did was copy all the contents from my internal drive to my external drive without doing anything special.

I'm going to do this (finally) this weekend, probably tomorrow or Monday (took the day off). I've been crazy busy the last 2-3 weeks.

I intend to use CCC for this. I'm assuming it's somehow better than just copying the files directly. Can anyone tell me why, though? What does CCC do (really) in this situation other than just copy the files?

Zoom · Apr 15, 2006, 12:55 PM

DONE!! That was pretty much just as easy as advertised! I use CCC to move my stock 80GB drive data to my secondard 250GB internal drive. Worked flawlessly! Set it at my startup disk, rebooted, and it was just like I never left. :-) It remains to be seen if there are any quirks with individual applications, though.

Then I removed the stock 80GB drive. This caused me some consternation because it appeared that you couldn't remove the stock drive - it kept hitting the top edge of the opening. But I soon realized that I just needed to also remove the secondary drive - once that was out of the way, I could see the sheer genius behind the drive bracket. It was a second channel in the middle for slipping in the top drive! Too cool.

I put the 250GB drive in the top slot and the new 500GB drive in the second slot, removing the stock drive entirely. I rebooted again. It asked me to initialize the drive. It was only 465GB, though... seems a good bit less than 500GB. Ah, well. Good enough.

Then I used CCC to move the contents of my external 160GB FW drive to the new 500GB drive.

DONE!!