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Macsince84
New Member
Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 12
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 Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 12:06 pm Post subject: Booting from External Drive to Increase Speed |
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I've heard that booting from a external drive such as the 7200rpm variety is a way to improve overall speed. If that is the case; just how does one go about making the external drive the bootable drive. Any help would be appreciated. I am used to running everything pretty much stock.
Bunch of iMacs and Desktops. Soon to be mini owner. |
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homerjatmoes
Senior Member
Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 323
Location: Elmira, NY
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 1:26 pm Post subject: |
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It's quite easy.
Just connect the firewire drive to the mini. OS X will recognize the drive and ask if you want to initialize it. After being initialized you can use CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper! to clone the drive. I have sucessfully used both peices of software, although with Tiger CarbonCopyCloner needs aditional steps to reset permissions, but no big deal.
After the drive is cloned go to System Prefrences and then to Startup Disk and select the external drive. (If it not available then there was a problem with the clone)
Reboot and enjoy the speedy goodness!
One note: You need to make sure the external enclosure is bootable.
_________________
1.42Ghz
1GB RAM
200GB FW HDD (Boot drive)
80GB HDD
External DVD burner
45.23 Xbench 1.2 average
FireWire Boot Guide |
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homerjatmoes
Senior Member
Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 323
Location: Elmira, NY
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 1:32 pm Post subject: |
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I just want to add that this weekend I plan on writing up an in depth HOW-TO on booting with an external drive covering partitions, enclosures, software, benchmarks, and dual booting.
_________________
1.42Ghz
1GB RAM
200GB FW HDD (Boot drive)
80GB HDD
External DVD burner
45.23 Xbench 1.2 average
FireWire Boot Guide |
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fullroast
Junior Member
Joined: 13 Jul 2005
Posts: 40
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 1:36 pm Post subject: |
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Great - I guess I can wait a few more days. Maybe ...  |
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billabong
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Joined: 26 Jan 2005
Posts: 147
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 1:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Do everything homerjatmoes says! I would recommend using SuperDuper over CC. CC is still having some issues with Tiger. |
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Macsince84
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 12
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| Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 2:29 pm Post subject: How to Boot... |
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| homerjatmoes wrote: | | I just want to add that this weekend I plan on writing up an in depth HOW-TO on booting with an external drive covering partitions, enclosures, software, benchmarks, and dual booting. |
Thanks to everyone for great input. I feel more confident about the process; look forward to reading the "how to".  |
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RedTed
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Joined: 29 Jul 2005
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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One thing I would add. Make sure you uncheck the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" option in Energy Saver under System Preferences. If you don't it causes problems with speed and performance on awakening.
At least it does on my mini. 
_________________
Mac Mini 1.42
1GB RAM
Western Digital 160GB External FW Boot
80GB Internal
LaCie d2 DVD-RW Firewire
Western Digital 40GB External USB2 HD
OS X Tiger 10.4.2
iPOD Shuffle 512 MB
1 GHz PowerPC G4 Flat Panel 15"
1 GB DDR SDRAM
200GB ST3200822A HD |
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homerjatmoes
Senior Member
Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 323
Location: Elmira, NY
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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| RedTed wrote: | One thing I would add. Make sure you uncheck the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" option in Energy Saver under System Preferences. If you don't it causes problems with speed and performance on awakening.
At least it does on my mini. |
What brand and model enclosure is it? My enclosure is fine when waking up. Do you have to reboot to get performance back?
_________________
1.42Ghz
1GB RAM
200GB FW HDD (Boot drive)
80GB HDD
External DVD burner
45.23 Xbench 1.2 average
FireWire Boot Guide |
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castaway
Senior Member
Joined: 21 May 2005
Posts: 461
Location: UK
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| Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 11:17 pm Post subject: |
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| RedTed wrote: | One thing I would add. Make sure you uncheck the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" option in Energy Saver under System Preferences. If you don't it causes problems with speed and performance on awakening.
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Can you leave that checked if you're booting from an external drive? |
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homerjatmoes
Senior Member
Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 323
Location: Elmira, NY
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| Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:28 am Post subject: |
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| castaway wrote: | | Can you leave that checked if you're booting from an external drive? |
Yes, it is more than likley his enclosure. I left it checked and I have no problems coming out of sleep mode. Just give it a try, if you have problems disable it the benifits of an external drive are worth it.
_________________
1.42Ghz
1GB RAM
200GB FW HDD (Boot drive)
80GB HDD
External DVD burner
45.23 Xbench 1.2 average
FireWire Boot Guide |
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h4ns
New Member
Joined: 01 Aug 2005
Posts: 12
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 3:55 pm Post subject: Solution for sleep on drives.. |
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I've ordered a mini, and i'm going to boot it from an external LaCie FireWire drive.
Now i'm thinking about the sleep issues. The mini is mostly used as server, and will be on 24/7. The internal 80GB drive will be used for MP3 storage, and letting that drive go to sleep is a big +. The FireWire disk however will be the drive that may *not* go to sleep.
Anybody with an idea how to set this up? I'm thinking about a little background process that will access the FireWire drive every 5 minutes or so? |
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g5g5
Veteran Member
Joined: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 2716
Location: Virginia
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 4:38 pm Post subject: |
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Good question. I wouldn't mind finding out a way to do this myself. You can't control individual drives in Energy Saver (Put the hard disks to sleep when possible). 
_________________
1.25GHz Mac Mini / 1.8GHz iMac G5 / 2.0GHz C2D Mac mini (2009)
4GB iPod mini / 2G iPod shuffle / 16GB iPhone 3G
Apple TV 2
iLife's a Bitch! |
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homerjatmoes
Senior Member
Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 323
Location: Elmira, NY
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 5:20 pm Post subject: Re: Solution for sleep on drives.. |
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| h4ns wrote: | I've ordered a mini, and i'm going to boot it from an external LaCie FireWire drive.
Now i'm thinking about the sleep issues. The mini is mostly used as server, and will be on 24/7. The internal 80GB drive will be used for MP3 storage, and letting that drive go to sleep is a big +. The FireWire disk however will be the drive that may *not* go to sleep.
Anybody with an idea how to set this up? I'm thinking about a little background process that will access the FireWire drive every 5 minutes or so? |
Drives "sleeping" and the mini sleeping are two vastly different things. The drives actually spin down and rest. Restarting my firewire drive from spindown is a lot faster than if the mini is asleep (almost instant)
What kind of server are you talking about?
If you are using it as a file server used in your home it won't matter if the drive spins down. If you you find you need a script put it on the client computer so when it is not accesing the server the drives can spin down.
Set up the Energy Saver panel so you don't allow the mini to go to sleep but check the option to spin down the drives the internal laptop drive needs it's rest..
Make sure you do not put anything that can't be replaced on the internal drive when being used as a server, laptop drives where not meant to be used as a server drive and will more than likley fail.
Make sure the Lacie drive enclosure offers proper cooling and is not just "passive" cooling or the external drive will die sooner. I also noticed that Maxtor drives will sleep on their own regardless of the OS settings. I would check Lacie for that.
_________________
1.42Ghz
1GB RAM
200GB FW HDD (Boot drive)
80GB HDD
External DVD burner
45.23 Xbench 1.2 average
FireWire Boot Guide |
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homerjatmoes
Senior Member
Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 323
Location: Elmira, NY
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h4ns
New Member
Joined: 01 Aug 2005
Posts: 12
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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The mini will function as fileserver, but also as a web/ftp/kdx server so I don't want the external drive to spin up and down all the time.
I have a Cube running 24/7 now, (installed a fan) and have the LaCie connected with a 200GB Maxtor 6B200P0 that never goes to sleep. The Lacie used to have a WDC 120GB drive, and does not have a fan. I'm aware that this is not ideal for the HD, but it has been running fine for over a year now. As far as I know it's also not ideal for a drive if it's spinning up and down every 5 minutes 
I guess what I need now is an enclosure that has some sort of cooling, an try to find something to let the 2,5" drive go to sleep.
If that's not possible maybe I should think about removing the 2,5" drive and go for the external IDE or SATA option? |
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