[DM-MUG] Mac Pro upgrades—hard drive formatting

Mon Nov 30 00:14:25 CST 2009

- I wouldn't worry about using APM, as we are talking about an internal
drive that won't leave the computer (unless for a newer machine.) In fact,
you may find that Apple drops APM support in the future, as the tech is
getting older, and this would be par for the course with Apple. I don't have
inside knowledge, except that I do know that Snow Leopard doesn't run on
PPC, so why make it reverse compatible with booting on a disk format that
isn't used any more?
- The computer does not care where the boot drive is physically located. You
can tell it where to load from temporarily with the option key at boot time,
or permanently with the Startup Disk SysPref.
- It's generally a bad idea to format disks for the Mac with anything other
than Mac OS Extended (Journaled) unless you have a compelling reason to do
so. As Matt said (and I am paraphrasing), the OS allows sharing of any
format disk, as the software translates it into something that the
connecting computer can read. On external disks, you lose the ability to use
Time Machine, as it requires Mac OS X Extended (Journaled.) Fat32 is a
non-journaled filesystem, meaning that disk corruption takes much longer to
recover from.
- What you are probably missing in terms of the sharing is that you need to
add the share point in the File Sharing system preference. If the drive is
not there, it is because the Mac OS does not allow the sharing of FAT32
drives (I don't know, I haven't tried) and you should re-format as Mac OS X
Extended.
-- 
Jon Thompson
Evolve
www.dmevolve.com

On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 9:41 PM, AB <anastasia_prittee at yahoo.com> wrote:

> This topic is a spin off from the Snow Leopard topic from last week.
>
> I was thinking I was safe with the disk space until Jon pointed it out. I
> went by Fry's Electronics, which is like the 2 story, ultimate electronics
> mega super store chain only in the Western part of the US, the size of the
> Wells Fargo Arena or the Iowa Cubs Stadium. They didn't have any 750G
> internal hdd on the shelf, I was annoyed and asked. Found out it's because
> they were in lock up, and the salesperson gave me some paperwork, I go up to
> the check out counter and find out it's on special for $50. which is
> considerably cheaper than the website indicated. I was pleased.
>
> My question is pretty simple: When I use Disk Utility to format the drive,
> according to lowendmac.com I should format it as APM in case I want any
> pre-intel macs to be able to recognize the harddrive? I want to make sure I
> format it correctly so I don't find out the hard way if the situation ever
> presents itself.
>
> Under Disk Utility >>> Restore
> This is where I can 'clone' my harddrive correct? Does my boot drive
> absolutely NEED to be in Bay 1? Or can I 'clone' the drive to the new,
> larger drive in Bay 4 and designate that drive (APM) as my boot drive? If I
> 'clone' it I think the drive is GPT, so am I stuck with GPT when cloned? Is
> there a workaround? Hope all I'm asking makes sense.
>
> Lastly, isn't there a way to share the secondary drives? I have a drive in
> Bay 3 partitioned and formatted as FAT32 since that was supposed to be the
> format both Mac and PC can read/write. I have never been able to share it,
> and thought maybe someone could enlighten me? Windows can access the default
> startup SATA drive, but never has been able to 'see' the secondary drive in
> Bay 3.
>
> Thanks in advance!
> -A.
>
> --- On *Wed, 11/25/09, Jon Thompson <jthompson-lists at dmevolve.com>* wrote:
>
> From: Jon Thompson <jthompson-lists at dmevolve.com>
> Subject: Re: [DM-MUG] Update RE: Pokey Snow Leopard
> To: "Des Moines Mac Users Group" <dmmug at dmmug.org>
> Date: Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 8:25 AM
>
> Anastasia,
> On thing I pointed out last night was that hard drives should not be more
> than 90% full. If your hard drive is, _or ever has been_, more than 90%
> full, you need to use Carbon Copy Cloner, Disk Utility, or SuperDuper to
> clone your drive to a bigger drive.
> Once you get past that 90% threshold, you _must_ do that to maintain
> stability in your Mac. Clearing off space doesn't remedy the fragmenting
> issues that result.
> --
> Jon Thompson
> Evolve
> www.dmevolve.com
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 9:13 AM, AB <anastasia_prittee at yahoo.com<http://mc/compose?to=anastasia_prittee@yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
> I think I'm going to have to call Apple to see if they an help troubleshoot
> Aperture, otherwise I may have to do an exchange at the Apple store or see
> if they can credit a portion for the full version instead of the upgrade.
>
> Spaces and Expose seemed to work better after I did a hard shut down over
> night. I suspect the lagging Snow Leopard and choppy Spaces and Expose lead
> back to iTunes bogging down the system. Adding new internal SATA drive and
> more RAM would likely be a necessary route to reap the full performance
> benefits of using both at the same time. I have more than adequate
> requirements, but my iTunes library consumes the entire partition of half of
> a 750 GB secondary internal SATA drive. I've been wanting to further upgrade
> the RAM in the Mac Pro from 3G RAM. I'm thinking I'll ensure it with
> overkill with a pair of 4G sticks from Crucial.
>
> I'll send a brief outline in another message of how one can configure
> "Spaces" based on function. Basically as workflow management.
>
> Thanks, Victoria for the info about Tidbits Take Control re: Thanksgiving
> Turkey. I'm going to approach it with a sense of adventure! Now it may be I
> have more last minute company, so this has the potential to turn out to be
> quite a series of misadventures with the turkey. Maybe I will prep it the
> night before to do it properly.
>
> -A.
>
> --- On *Tue, 11/24/09, Victoria L. Herring <VLH at HerringLaw.com>* wrote:
>
> From: Victoria L. Herring <VLH at HerringLaw.com>
> Subject: Re: [DM-MUG] Pokey Snow Leopard
> To: "Des Moines Mac Users Group" <dmmug at dmmug.org<http://mc/compose?to=dmmug@dmmug.org>
> >
> Date: Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 12:52 AM
>
> I'm using Aperture 2+ on three SL machines just fine, so it's not
> that = and if you are getting that message ref compatibility, there's
> something else going on.  I don't use Spaces/Expose so can't comment
> on the rest but if you get this worked out I'd love to have you
> explain how Spaces/Expose work for you since I want to use them but
> haven't
>
> --
> Victoria L. Herring, Des Moines, Iowa. Blogs:
> http://blog.JourneyZing.com  [photography];
> http://www.herringlaw.com  [lawfirm];
> http://victorialherring.typepad.com/serendipity/  [personal];
> Twitter: VictoriaJZ
>
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