Can I run everything from an external hard drive?

H

hugh1988

Registered
Hi, my current eMac is really playing up, so I want to get a new mac mini. But the mac mini's biggest hard-disk is only 120GB so I want to get a firewire external drive of 400GB and buy the mac mini with the smallest/cheapest hard-drive. This would mean I do not have enough space on the internal drive for all my music, and photos, which need to be run off the internal drive.

Is there any way in which I can access all my music from iTunes, with it saved to the external drive, as well as importing music to it? I'm not too sure having an alias of the music folder in my users with all the music on the external drive will work.

Basically, knowing how to completely running the computer from the external drive would be perfect.

Would really appreciate any advice. Thanks!
 
Yes, this is very easy. Using an alias for your iTunes Music folder would NOT work, but a symbolic link would. But you don't even need to do that, since you can specify the location of your music folder in iTunes' preferences. No problem at all. I do this myself, actually. I keep very little on my boot drive.

You could also boot straight from the external drive with no problem. Just install OS X onto it from the DVD and set it as the startup disk in the "Startup Disk" section of System Preferences. The Mini's internal SATA drive would be faster than a FireWire drive (I think), so you might want to use it for disk-intensive things like multimedia work.
 
You could install OS X on the external drive, and use the internal drive as a backup system.
 
Others have pointed you to the preference in iTunes for running it from an external drive, so I'll just say that I keep my library on an external FW drive, and I used to keep most everything on that drive, prior to upgrading the drive in my iBook, including iPhoto. Everything runs great, too.

You can still drop aliases to the location on the external drive in your user folder, so it all works logically when you want to get to the exact location of the iTunes folder on the external drive.
 
You could also boot straight from the external drive with no problem
Click to expand...

But the external drive must be firewire or SCSI (if you machine is that old) to boot from the external drive, correct me if I am wrong but I believe macs have never had the ability to boot off of usb (firewire is better anyway in all honesty).
 
Thanks all for the help. Yes the drive is firewire, and I think I will install the OS on it and use it as the start up disk. does this mean all the apps and library etc. will be on the external drive too? I hope this wont be a problem.
 
This being about a brand-new Mac mini (not even bought yet), I think FireWire would be it, then. ;)

And... Yes, if you install OS X on an external drive, it's "considered" as the main drive - and the whole system as well as applications and home folders are located on that drive. Just think "the other way 'round", then. The internal drive actually becomes a secondary drive.
 
Ah thats brilliant, exactly what I need. Is there any way of transferring all of the data from my old eMac to the external/primary drive so the new mac mini will seem exactly like my old eMac? I seem to remember when you 1st turn on a mac it asks you if you want to do this transfer, but i dont know how this would work as I need to make the external drive the primary drive after it asks me to do this transfer.

Is there any way in tricking the computer into thinking it has been turned on for the 1st time, while still using the external drive to run from?

Thanks very much! :D
 
hugh1988 said:
Ah thats brilliant, exactly what I need. Is there any way of transferring all of the data from my old eMac to the external/primary drive so the new mac mini will seem exactly like my old eMac? I seem to remember when you 1st turn on a mac it asks you if you want to do this transfer, but i dont know how this would work as I need to make the external drive the primary drive after it asks me to do this transfer.

Is there any way in tricking the computer into thinking it has been turned on for the 1st time, while still using the external drive to run from?
Click to expand...
I think you should be able to use Apple's migration assistant to transfer your preferences and whatnot, yes. However, cloning your entire eMac system to the Mini wouldn't be possible, since the eMac is PPC and the Mini is Intel, so they use different versions of OS X.

The Migration Assistant is located in /Applications/Utilities, and you can run it any time you want; it doesn't have to be the first time you start up.

You can also transfer an OS from one drive to another using Carbon Copy Cloner. Then you can boot from the external drive and erase the internal.
 
bobw said:
Beginning with the Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) and the iMac (Slot-Loading), two new features to USB are most apparent: support for USB audio devices and booting from USB drive

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58430
Click to expand...

But how do you install OS X on an external USB drive in the first place? Is this possible? I attempted to do so, and the installer told me that "You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. Mac OS X cannot start up from this volume."

So, if I can boot from the USB drive, how can I get the OS installed there in the first place? Thanks!
 
Seems that the Intel Macs can boot from an external USB drive, but not the Power PC Macs, based on what I've been reading since I posted the above question. Is that correct, or am I missing something?
 
hi every1, ive now got my new 1.66ghz mac mini! I tryed to install the OS on the external firewire drive, but it said it could not be installed on this volume. this is not good! i just cloned the mini's internal drive with carbon copy cloner to the external drive and trying to boot from that and the comp wont start up.. its just on the gray screen with the gray apple, and the spinning thing forever! ahh! any1 know what i am doing wrong? i have other files installed on the external drive aswell.. whuld this be a problem?

thanks
 
Two things:
1. Before you cloned the drive, did you partition it via Disk Utility?
Open Disk Utility. Click the drive on the left. Click the Partition tab on the right. Select Mac OS X Extended (Journaled). Choose the number of partitions from the popup menu (1 Partition, if that's all you want). Click the Partition button at the bottom.
Try that first, and then try to install OS X, from the installation disc, directly on the external drive. The installer will tell you if you can boot from the drive, and it will not allow you to install to it if you can't.

2. Some FireWire drives are not bootable. You have to check with the manufacturer. Who is the manufacturer of your drive? This same issue just came up in another discussion on this board. It's not good news, but you might be able to return the drive, if it is not bootable, and get one that is, being that you just purchased it. You have a valid reason, especially if the drive manufacturer either doesn't say it's bootable, or says it should be, and it isn't.
 
ok, I've managed to get the OS installed on the external using Carbon Copy Cloner (Source OS = mac mini). I've selected the external as the startup disk and transfered data from my eMac to it using migration assistant. But when I opened iTunes the screen froze. I restarted the computer and opened iTunes again. I managed to play a track or two, but it froze once again. I restarted the computer and opened microsoft word this time. On opening it froze. Is this to do with the fact that the applications were copied from my eMac which is power pc not intel? Or is something else wrong? Also, I wanted to print a couple of things on appleworks but the printer just printed blank pages with a bit of black ink on the top. I tried printing something with textEdit and it was fine. What is the problem here?
 
So, you are basically running a Power PC version of the OS (that you cloned from a Power PC Mac) on Intel architecture? If I'm reading that right, I'd say that's your problem. If you clone a Power PC installation, and then run it on an Intel-based Mac, I think you are going to have problems. Can you do a fresh install on your new Mac, clone it, and then move over all your large files (iTunes, iPhoto, etc.), when you boot to the external drive? You can get a FireWire cable and plug the old Mac into the new Mac when you want to copy things over manually, or use the Migration thing, but I've never used that. If you can at least get a working copy of the Intel version of the OS on the external drive, then boot to it, migration everything else over, without Carbon Copy Cloner should be easy.

(I've never done this though, so others may immediately shoot me down and give you better advice.)
 
no i am running the Intel version of tiger (on the external drive), and then used migration assistant to copy over apps and users. I have tried running all the apps from the internal hard drive as well, but this makes no difference. What could be the problem?

Thanks
 
hugh1988 said:
no i am running the Intel version of tiger (on the external drive), and then used migration assistant to copy over apps and users. I have tried running all the apps from the internal hard drive as well, but this makes no difference. What could be the problem?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Sorry, misread your post from the other day.

Regarding the problem...I have no idea, but you are getting the external drive to run as the startup volume? If iTunes came from a clone of an Intel disk, it should be fine. Word will run under Rosetta.

The only thing that I can suggest (and others may have much better suggestions), is to clone the Intel Mac again, boot into the clone on the external drive, and reinstall your apps. Move over your documents, pictures, and music (and other files that you need) manually from the eMac after that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top