Mac Mini bootable external drive question
I asked this in another forum and also wrote g-tech but have not gotten an answer yet,
I appreciate anyones opinion on how to configure my system:
Hello, I wanted to ask this question fresh since specs change so much between revisions. I just got a 2.26ghz mac mini "standard configuration". I also ordered a 1 terabyte g-drive from g-technologies and plan to hook it up via fw800.
My question is : should I try to reinstall the entire operating system on to the g drive and boot from and use that as the main drive, or should I just learn how to configure all my programs to save to the g-drive. I have tons of dvds with video and data on them because I ran out of space long ago and so I am finally going to have some space so I am excited about having the g drive.
I ask these questions because I have read in the past that the internal mac mini drives actually slow down the system, however I dont know if this is still true, I know the bus speed is faster etc in the new ones
I appreciate anyones opinion on how to configure my system:
Hello, I wanted to ask this question fresh since specs change so much between revisions. I just got a 2.26ghz mac mini "standard configuration". I also ordered a 1 terabyte g-drive from g-technologies and plan to hook it up via fw800.
My question is : should I try to reinstall the entire operating system on to the g drive and boot from and use that as the main drive, or should I just learn how to configure all my programs to save to the g-drive. I have tons of dvds with video and data on them because I ran out of space long ago and so I am finally going to have some space so I am excited about having the g drive.
I ask these questions because I have read in the past that the internal mac mini drives actually slow down the system, however I dont know if this is still true, I know the bus speed is faster etc in the new ones
Comments
Store all your video and music on the external, and you'll find the internal is probably plenty big for everything else. (Configuring iTunes to use the external is easy.)
Personally, I'd leave the OS on the internal drive... that way the computer can be started even if the external is unavailable for whatever reason. Of course, there's no reason you can't have a bootable OS on BOTH drives.
Store all your video and music on the external, and you'll find the internal is probably plenty big for everything else. (Configuring iTunes to use the external is easy.)
Thank you very much, I am thinking the most important ones will be iphoto, itunes and imovie, if I can easlily configure all those files to be automatically on the gdrive then I should be good.
The only reason I was considering putting the os on it was speed.....kinda curious if you could "feel" the difference between a fw connected 7200 rpm drive vs whatever apple has in there. I can see it being a nightmare if for somereason the mac stopped recognizing the external....this will be my first one so I am guessing about everything
iTunes and iPhoto can be configured to always use the external drive... iMovie probably can too, though I've never tried it.
You just hold down the "option" key while starting the app and it will allow you to select or create a new library in any location you choose. If you already have an iTunes library, you can just drag it to that new location.
You'd better consider 7200 rpm internal drive (although, they are noisy and there's no big deal proposed right now).