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Chito · Mar 15, 2005, 06:41 PM

I just put a second 160 GB drive in my dual 2.0 and now sitting here looking at the space I'm wondering what's the best use for it? My original drive is also a 160. Should I clone the entire drive to the new one as a backup or just my user folder? I've also got a 250 GB firewire drive that I use when I'm working with video. Should I look into getting a backup utility to just backup new or changed files? Silverlining? Your thoughts are appreciated.

jamil5454 · Mar 16, 2005, 05:05 PM

I would put them in a RAID mirror and have a backup drive in case one of the drives fails.

bowwowman · Mar 16, 2005, 06:51 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jamil5454:
I would put them in a RAID mirror and have a backup drive in case one of the drives fails. [/QUOTE}

I 2nd that......add some speed & back-up capabilities too
Then take that 250, make a scratch disk/VM partition of say 10-20GB or so, and use the rest for an external back-up !

sniffer · Mar 16, 2005, 08:07 PM

Is it possible to mount the extra drive in your home directory to limit the extra space for your own home account only? (Sorry for the quick off topic question.)

tooki · Mar 16, 2005, 08:39 PM

What with the UNIX core and all, it is possible, but I couldn't tell you how to do it.

That said, why bother? You could achieve the same with permissions, I would think.

tooki

osxisfun · Mar 16, 2005, 08:41 PM

I would do what bowwowman and jamil5454 said. It will give you instant backups and peice of mind....

Short of that, porn. gigs and gigs of porn.

sniffer · Mar 17, 2005, 06:56 AM

Originally posted by tooki:
That said, why bother?

I'd think it would've been great with a obscure large "~/Movies/" directory.

jamil5454 · Mar 17, 2005, 02:08 PM

Originally posted by osxisfun:

Short of that, porn. gigs and gigs of porn.

^Next best option.

crooner · Mar 18, 2005, 01:13 AM

Originally posted by jamil5454:
I would put them in a RAID mirror and have a backup drive in case one of the drives fails.

Yep. Backup, backup, backup! Download and use SuperDuper if you intend to backup manually, otherwise just mirror as others have said.

The thing I stress to anyone is the importance of immediately putting together a reliable backup plan. If a drive goes south on you, you can get up and running without missing a beat. This is MUCH more attractive than spending anywhere from $1500 to $10,000 at DiskSavers.

MORT A POTTY · Mar 18, 2005, 01:43 AM

why the hell would you spend upwards of ten grand on recovering data? jesus! if your data is that critical, you should have two backups under lock and key updated every six hours or less.

but yeah, RAID.

crooner · Mar 18, 2005, 04:32 AM

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
why the hell would you spend upwards of ten grand on recovering data? jesus! if your data is that critical, you should have two backups under lock and key updated every six hours or less.

but yeah, RAID.

Would *I* pay $10K for data recovery? NO! Why? Because I can't afford it and, more importantly, I keep three consistent backups of my boot drive, two backups of my downloads and data drives and extra backup drives for anything I take seriously. That's the way to go. Obsessive-compulsive.

Cool hot-swap enclosures from Granite Digital make this very easy.

However, I once worked for a company that had a freak occurrence that trashed a very large RAID *AND* it's backup drive in one fell swoop. It was an incredible bummer and ended up costing about $6000. That was for about 60% data recovery. If they had been able to recover more the price would have been higher.

C'mon, Mort, I know you�re hip to this stuff.

My point was only that data recovery services cost a fortune because they know of you're looking to them you have exhausted all other options. That said, if you ever do, indeed, need their help, DiskSavers is the best, hands down. Let�s hope none of us needs 'em, though.

MORT A POTTY · Mar 18, 2005, 05:06 AM

I won't need 'em cause I don't have any important data

bowwowman · Mar 18, 2005, 07:15 PM

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
I won't need 'em cause I don't have any important data

go figure

Chito · Mar 18, 2005, 07:17 PM

I liked the RAID suggestion also. I cloned my hard drive to my external, set up the raid and intended to clone my stuff back onto the raid. No go. CCC won't allow me to select my raid array as a target disk. So now I'm in the process of manually copying my user folder back and then I get to reinstall all of my apps. Oh well....I'll just consider it a chance to purge stuff I never used anyway.
Thanx for everyone's input.

crooner · Mar 19, 2005, 01:10 AM

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
I won't need 'em cause I don't have any important data

That solves that.

DeathToWindows · Mar 19, 2005, 01:22 AM

what they said... i'll probably be doing the same come summer (and income)

CatOne · Mar 19, 2005, 01:50 AM

Originally posted by osxisfun:
I would do what bowwowman and jamil5454 said. It will give you instant backups and peice of mind....

Short of that, porn. gigs and gigs of porn.

Note, and say it to yourself multiple times... RAID is NOT a backup.

A mirror does NOTHING to prevent you from the delete key. NOTHING. And human error is the cause of upwards of 40% of all data loss.

Don't mirror the drive. Write a script or use something like ChronoSync or RsyncX to copy over specific files and folders that are updated on a daily basis.

hedgehogfrenzy · Mar 19, 2005, 02:23 AM

Originally posted by CatOne:
Note, and say it to yourself multiple times... RAID is NOT a backup.

A mirror does NOTHING to prevent you from the delete key. NOTHING. And human error is the cause of upwards of 40% of all data loss.

Don't mirror the drive. Write a script or use something like ChronoSync or RsyncX to copy over specific files and folders that are updated on a daily basis.

While technically true, it all depends on what your going for. The RAID in a 1 stripe will provide a mirrored copy of the boot drive, which allows you to boot off the mirror in case the boot drive fails. It's hard to get a more up to date copy of a boot drive than a RAID mirror.

So, if your looking for fire, flood, hurricane and delete key protection, then sure, make a back up and store it off site. But, if your data is that important, then you should probably be doing both of the things mentioned above. There is a reason that every server that I admin has a RAID and backups that are rotated off site...the data is critical.

Then again, you'd hate to loose your iTunes library.....

- David

MORT A POTTY · Mar 19, 2005, 02:29 AM

speaking of RAID, I'll be doing that either saturday or sunday w/ 2 160GB HDs in my Quicksilver. I'll be doing a mirror. it won't recognize all the space on the HDs, so what I'm thinking about is maybe making a different partition for something else. what, I don't know. maybe for scratch? I dunno what I'm gonna do.

any bright ideas?

crooner · Mar 19, 2005, 04:21 AM

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
speaking of RAID, I'll be doing that either saturday or sunday w/ 2 160GB HDs in my Quicksilver. I'll be doing a mirror. it won't recognize all the space on the HDs, so what I'm thinking about is maybe making a different partition for something else. what, I don't know. maybe for scratch? I dunno what I'm gonna do.

any bright ideas?

Mort, what model QuickSilver do you have?

MORT A POTTY · Mar 19, 2005, 06:28 AM

Originally posted by crooner:
Mort, what model QuickSilver do you have?

Quicksilver 2001 (single 867Mhz)

nice ATA/66 controller

I also have an SATA controller and a 200GB HD that will stay even after I take out the 80GB ATA/133 HD on the ATA/66 bus and put on the two 160GB HDs.

the 200GB HD has my Panther system that's actually used for doing stuff, and the 80GB currently is used for TIger and other various experimentations.

chris v · Mar 19, 2005, 10:33 AM

Originally posted by Chito:
CCC won't allow me to select my raid array as a target disk.

This seems odd. I have Quicksilver with two 80 gb drives and a 160 gb drive on an SATA/PCI card. I made a RAID 0 array out of the two 80s and cloned to it from the 160 just fine.

This is a killer set-up, as far as I'm concerned. The RAID 0 boots fast, saves Photoshop files fast, and has given my quicksilver an all-around new lease on life.

My backup scheme: I use CCC to automatically back up Apps & Users to the 160 SATA every Sunday night, and once a month, I take files off site on CD. I back up the OS manually once I'm sure the point-releases are stable and compatible.

MORT A POTTY · Mar 21, 2005, 02:32 AM

my mistake. apparently it can recognize all of the space on both 160GB HDs. so, I decided to just make a striped RAID cause having nearly 300GB with 2x160GB HDs is pretty nice.

osxisfun · Mar 21, 2005, 11:11 AM

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
Quicksilver 2001 (single 867Mhz)

nice ATA/66 controller I also have an SATA controller and a 200GB HD that will stay even after I take out the 80GB ATA/133 HD on the ATA/66 bus and put on the two 160GB HDs.

the 200GB HD has my Panther system that's actually used for doing stuff, and the 80GB currently is used for TIger and other various experimentations.

does your SATA (pci card?) controller "go to sleep" when then machine does?

My HD keeps spinnning on mine so i have to shutdown everyday

But i never upgraded my firmware though.

Tyre MacAdmin · Mar 21, 2005, 11:36 AM

I would create a RAID 0 array with the 2 160's and then back up the array to the firewire drive with CCC and psync at some convent time just incase something goes bad. It is my experience that raid 0 on OS X is very stable and does not fail nearly as much as some of the paranoid would have you think.

chris v · Mar 21, 2005, 12:38 PM

Originally posted by Tyler McAdams:
I would create a RAID 0 array with the 2 160's and then back up the array to the firewire drive with CCC and psync at some convent time just incase something goes bad. It is my experience that raid 0 on OS X is very stable and does not fail nearly as much as some of the paranoid would have you think.

Works for me!

MORT A POTTY · Mar 21, 2005, 04:39 PM

Originally posted by osxisfun:
does your SATA (pci card?) controller "go to sleep" when then machine does?

My HD keeps spinnning on mine so i have to shutdown everyday

But i never upgraded my firmware though.

yeah, I have zero problems with it. it's the Sonnet one (rebranded Firmtek)

and I don't have a FireWire HD, so that's out for me.

osxisfun · Mar 21, 2005, 04:50 PM

thanks.

looks like i bought the wrong brand. maybe i'll try the firmware before i give up but hopefully apple will be releasing new PMs april 15th ish and I won't have to use this G4 much longer...

MORT A POTTY · Mar 21, 2005, 04:53 PM

I'll be using this G4 till at least 2010, so half a terabyte of HD space is pretty darn good... I just need to get a newer optical drive... DVR-109BK would be fantastic...

crooner · Mar 22, 2005, 09:15 AM

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
my mistake. apparently it can recognize all of the space on both 160GB HDs. so, I decided to just make a striped RAID cause having nearly 300GB with 2x160GB HDs is pretty nice.

Cool. I asked about your model as the 2002 QuickSilvers quietly added the ability to recognize large drives. (a fact I'd guess you already knew about)
While yours seems to be a 2001 model it sounds like you got lucky and have the newer controller for drives.

Since discovering this myself I've added three 300GB Seagate drive internally and love 'em. I got great rebate deals on them through my local Fry's.

Your striped RAID sounds sweet. Do you notice any speed difference in booting from it?

MORT A POTTY · Mar 22, 2005, 09:44 AM

Originally posted by crooner:
Cool. I asked about your model as the 2002 QuickSilvers quietly added the ability to recognize large drives. (a fact I'd guess you already knew about)
While yours seems to be a 2001 model it sounds like you got lucky and have the newer controller for drives.

Since discovering this myself I've added three 300GB Seagate drive internally and love 'em. I got great rebate deals on them through my local Fry's.

Your striped RAID sounds sweet. Do you notice any speed difference in booting from it?

i know. they showed up as almost 150GB each and I was like

definitely a nice surprise. and I like the speed of it. and the size is fabulous too. not bad for 80 bucks

chris v · Mar 23, 2005, 12:16 AM

Originally posted by crooner:
Cool. I asked about your model as the 2002 QuickSilvers quietly added the ability to recognize large drives. (a fact I'd guess you already knew about)
While yours seems to be a 2001 model it sounds like you got lucky and have the newer controller for drives.

Since discovering this myself I've added three 300GB Seagate drive internally and love 'em. I got great rebate deals on them through my local Fry's.

Your striped RAID sounds sweet. Do you notice any speed difference in booting from it?

I've seen a noticable speed jump with a RAID 0 on my QS 2002. Used to get 25-30 rotations of the spinny-thingy on boot-- that's down to 10 or 12. Then the welcome screen with the blue progress bar has gone from 20 secs or so to about 5. Not that I boot it much, but it's definitely faster. Also much more responsive is Finder displaying icons in column view, and in the preview column. Apps launch a little quicker, and big files open/save a good bit faster, too. Can't say exactly how much, because I didn't spend hours with a stopwatch, but I'd say .psd and .tif files open in Photoshop 20-30% faster. If you do disk-intensive work, then a RAID 0 array is almost as good as a CPU upgrade as far as cool things you can do to breathe new life into an older machine.

Just so nobody jumps down my throat, make sure you've got an iron-clad backup scheme if you do this. One drive fails in a RAID 0 and all the data on the RAID is hosed.