Techsurvivors

Archives => 2007 => Topic started by: Xairbusdriver on December 13, 2007, 05:34:25 PM

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on December 13, 2007, 05:34:25 PM

Have a 1TB external on the way for use with my new Leopard iMac. Haven't even looked at Time Machine yet! But I need to extract backed up data from a 500GB, partitioned external to the new drive. So, here's my plan:

1. Format the new drive with two partitions, one small one (20 GB?) for a clone of the current Leopard install (almost pure as Apple cider). The rest will be for Time machine, I guess. I'm still not sure I want to give up on SuperDuper, but it's not yet ready for the new cat...
2. Transfer my backed up info/data from the old partitions on the 500GB drive to either the new iMac or, more likely, to the 1TB external.
3. Possibly reformat the new iMac with two partitions allowing separate ones for the OS and everything else and maybe even one for my home folder.
4. Reformat the 500GB into a similar small OS clone and the rest as plain data partitions (~13/~480).
5. Re-install Tiger and many apps that will be useful to the new owners but not stuff like X11/BBEdit/Fetch/third-party hacks & perf panels.
6. Test Time Machine for a couple of weeks and try a "time travel" experiment or two.
7. Decide between TM and SD, assuming it will soon be available.

Please point out holes in this 'plan' as well as additional or different methods, especially if they are easy!

I'm also wondering if SD can already be used for standard data backups, even now. I suspect that TM will simply use much more space than is really required as I don't think it can do incremental backups. And I'm uncertain as to what scheduling prefs it has. I will look into those questions soon, anyway.

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on December 14, 2007, 10:33:43 PM

I take the lack of response to mean:

1. I have a perfect plan!
2. My title is/was confusing to non-academics/scientists.
3. No one noticed my request.
4. No one understands my request.
5. No one cares about my request.
6. No one cares about me!
7. No one cares!

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: RHPConsult on December 15, 2007, 01:36:24 AM

Patience, patience . . .

Sitting temporarily in the midst of the blue Pacific, I hasten to observe that it would easier for me understand this "plan", IF you began with your objective (stated in quantitative terms) thereupon followed with phrases or simple (as opposed to compound) sentences, in the order of execution you believe to be required to get from "ground zero"  to culmination of the "plan".

To wit: A followed by B followed by C, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!

Yer obediant savant  

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on December 15, 2007, 05:09:28 PM

What part of "1...2...3...4..." is confusing you? Or is your current location clouding your logic skills?!

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: krissel on December 15, 2007, 11:41:24 PM

The only thing that popped to mind was that 20G may not be enough for a working boot drive if you are going to put a lot of apps on that partition.

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on December 16, 2007, 02:57:04 PM

QUOTE

20G may not be enough for a working boot drive if you are going to put a lot of apps on that partition.

Probably correct, but I might just get all my app disks collected and burn a CD or two with all the downloaded ones. The 20GB partition would really only have the OS and TT4, DU and maybe a browser/email app. Just enough to get on line rather than create a whole new install. After all, Time Machine is supposed to provide that sort of thing, isn't it?

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: krissel on December 16, 2007, 09:35:43 PM

Guess so.  
I'm just new to Tiger so Leopard and its features will be out of reach for me.

I'll let you pioneers deal with the arrows.

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on December 24, 2007, 10:40:19 AM

Got the monster drive into a very nice box and took a look at it via Disk Utility. Playing with the partition settings revealed that the smallest one would still be more than 110GB! A little more than needed for a bare-bones System install. May need to re-think what gets put into that partition, if there is no reasonable way to reduce its size.

"No one should ever need more than 640KB" Riiite.
"That's too much space! I need less!"

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: krissel on December 24, 2007, 02:10:47 PM

Dragging the partition settings sometimes sets an artificially large volume. Try typing in the size you want for the partitions.

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on December 24, 2007, 02:17:20 PM

Of course, now that I've actually started using it, I'll probably need to Erase it first...DU didn't want to make anything possible while it's currently 'alive and well.' But you've given me a clue as to why my car won't start half the time, seems that lever thing has to be pointing at "P" or "N."

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: Paddy on December 24, 2007, 08:41:21 PM

Jim, you do realize that Time Machine and Super Duper do very different things? Time Machine is not a clone - you cannot boot off it. Me? I'll maintain a complete backup (or two, as I do now) and let Time Machine do it's thing on a separate partition. Time Machine is useful for going back and retrieving earlier versions of things; something you cannot do with SD. My backups saved me yet again this past week when my power supply in the G5 died; I could boot from my backup and be up and running seamlessly on my MacBook. Can't do that with TimeMachine.

I expect they'll have the Leopard version of SuperDuper out the door very soon.

As for Time Machine's settings - you don't get any choices other than on and backing up every hour, or off. That's it, right now.

I've long since stopped partitioning everything - it always seems to cause me headaches later. But that may be just me.

Title: Call for papers.
Post by: Xairbusdriver on December 25, 2007, 03:56:22 PM

I understand that Time Machine isn't bootable. That's the primary reason for the second, small partition. It has a complete install of Leopard and actually many apps, including TTP. There is actually a third even smaller partition that was/is mainly for storing stuff on the external while TM is ON. As you say, TM has few controls, namely the only one is a 'switch' for ON/OFF ( apparently Apple feels a check box is too old hat!). And I'm told that when TM is ON, it 'assumes' control of the whole partition it has been assigned and will not allow anything else to use that space. Thus, if the HD is on and TM is also, I still have a partition that can server as a place to dump stuff I want off the  internal.

On the good side, TM does not waste as much space as we might think, so I'm comfortable with using more of the 1TB space.

I plan on using SD also, when it becomes available, just to not keep all my water in the same bucket, or all my jewels in the same box, or whatever that saying is...