need advice on moving Applications folder

monmeehan

monmeehan

Registered
hi, thought I'd ask for advice/directions BEFORE I did something dumb! :rolleyes:

I'm running a hand-me-down 400 MHz PowerPC G4 / OS X 10.3.9 / 704 MB memory / 10 Gb main hard drive. Because the main HD (let's call it "Fred") was so small, I also went out and bought + installed an extra internal 150 Gb slave drive (his name is "Slave") on the only open ATA slot.

Right now there's only about 400 Mb of free disk space on Fred, and it's causing all kinds of annoying "disk almost full" and "application out of memory" warnings. By far, the largest folder is Applications (3.52 Gb), and I want to know if it's possible/advisable to move all my apps over to Slave, and run them from there.

I work as a freelance graphic designer, so I have the Adobe Creative Suite, hand-me-down copies of Microsoft Office X (don't tell Bill!) and Macromedia MX suite, all the iApps that come with the OS, as well as various other accumulated 3rd party apps and utilities.

Is there an easy... er... well... relatively painless way to do this?

Is this even a good idea, or will I end up spending my entire Thanksgiving weekend troubleshooting? (ha! I've been on Macs since 1989! I already KNOW the answer to that one!) :rolleyes:

Thanks!

_Monica
 
monmeehan said:
hi, thought I'd ask for advice/directions BEFORE I did something dumb! :rolleyes:

I'm running a hand-me-down 400 MHz PowerPC G4 / OS X 10.3.9 / 704 MB memory / 10 Gb main hard drive. Because the main HD (let's call it "Fred") was so small, I also went out and bought + installed an extra internal 150 Gb slave drive (his name is "Slave") on the only open ATA slot.

Right now there's only about 400 Mb of free disk space on Fred, and it's causing all kinds of annoying "disk almost full" and "application out of memory" warnings. By far, the largest folder is Applications (3.52 Gb), and I want to know if it's possible/advisable to move all my apps over to Slave, and run them from there.

I work as a freelance graphic designer, so I have the Adobe Creative Suite, hand-me-down copies of Microsoft Office X (don't tell Bill!) and Macromedia MX suite, all the iApps that come with the OS, as well as various other accumulated 3rd party apps and utilities.

Is there an easy... er... well... relatively painless way to do this?

Is this even a good idea, or will I end up spending my entire Thanksgiving weekend troubleshooting? (ha! I've been on Macs since 1989! I already KNOW the answer to that one!) :rolleyes:

Thanks!

_Monica
Click to expand...

Theoretically, you could probably move the directory and then create a virtual link to point to it, but I've heard that this breaks software update.

Anybody try this?
 
Being as how your new 150GB drive is more then likely faster then the old drive, maybe you should consider downloading "Carbon Copy Cloner" and clone your system drive onto the new 150.
Then select the new drive as your boot drive in System Preferences.
Now just reformat the 10GB and use it for whatever.
 
I'm basically a bit of a goof when it comes to IM&T (and domestic duties according to 'Herself'). However, as you can see from my specs below, I have ample disc space etc.

Despite this, I had a brain wave last night and partioned my External HD. I installed Mac OS 10.3.9 on one half and left the other for simple storage.

it took time mind you (i.e. I had to completely install the whole OS onto the ED), but I now I have all my apps on it and it works a treat.
 
jbarley —

That sounds pretty easy, but doesn't it make a difference where the drives are, physically, along the ATA Bus? According to System Profiler, the mount point for Fred is "/" but the mount point for Slave is "/Volumes/Slave"

_Monica
 
rhisiart —

thanks for the, oops, you just posted agian! ok, jbarley posted before you... aaagh! posting overlap mania!

_Monica
 
Sorry, I did not read your orignal message properly.

Do you have a serial ATA controller card?

P.S. I still want to know who J Barley is.
 
For the most part - about moving third party software from the current hard disk drive's, hdd, '/Applications/' folder to another internal or external hdd, such should be and is possible. Do not copy the '/Applications/' folder from the current boot drive (and never delete it), just create a folder on the 'other' drive - move the third party software over (some may require you to place an alias of them in the current boot hdd's '/Applications/' folder, and then delete them from the current boot drive's '/Applications/' folder).

However, sadly - you have a 400 MHz G4 PowerPC PowerMac, which means the maximum size hdd you can install, internally, is up to (approximately) 130 GB; that is, unless you insert a PCI to ATA card which support hdds greater than 130 GB.
Should you want to keep the 150 GB hdd, you do have an option. Purchase a FireWire enclosure and install the 150 GB hdd in it. The PowerMac will work just fine with the 150 GB hdd via this setup.

If you want to add hdds internally - consider the Western Digital WD1200JB or equivalent hdds.

[
Added 22 Nov. 2005, 17.53

Opps, did not refresh the original post's window - or I would have known others had presented similar information.

New material:
'... but doesn't it make a difference where the drives are, physically, along the ATA Bus?

No.

According to System Profiler, the mount point for Fred is "/" but the mount point for Slave is "/Volumes/Slave"'

Yes; however, if you were to have installed MacOS X on 'Slave' and then rebooted the Mac with 'Slave' as the boot drive - 'System Profiler' will identify 'Slave' as '/', and 'Fred' as '/Volumes/Fred'. This is a UNIX thing.
]
 
barhar —
oop, my bad. Slave is (approxiamtely) 130 GB. It's currently insatlled, formatted as Journaled HFS+ I've been using it for file storage for months w/no problems.

rhisiart —
serial ATA controller card?
and isn't it, like, midnight in Wales? or Wednesday? ;)

_Monica
 
Yes, I just caught that - after updating my original reply.

Glad you were able to use the hard disk drive internally. If you are happy with the 10 GB's installed MacOS X, then surely consider jbarley's 'Carbon Copy Cloner' suggestion. The application is free and just works.
 
Ah, now I know who jbarley is. Sorry, not with it tonight. Confued and dazed. I posted at 10.30 pm. Is that late?
 
monmeehan said:
jbarley —

That sounds pretty easy, but doesn't it make a difference where the drives are, physically, along the ATA Bus? According to System Profiler, the mount point for Fred is "/" but the mount point for Slave is "/Volumes/Slave"

_Monica
Click to expand...

The system drive is always going to be considered '/'. If you cd to /Volumes in terminal and ls the directory, you'll find your system drive there as well.

/Volumes is just a pointer to all mounted volumes on the system. You'll find CDs there, floppy disks, network drives, etc... as long as they're mounted they'll be in /Volumes.
 
"jbarley —

That sounds pretty easy, but doesn't it make a difference where the drives are, physically, along the ATA Bus? According to System Profiler, the mount point for Fred is "/" but the mount point for Slave is "/Volumes/Slave"
"
barhar...
thanks for saving me the time of having to answer the above question,
directed to me!
jb.
 
barhar said:
if you were to have installed MacOS X on 'Slave' and then rebooted the Mac with 'Slave' as the boot drive - 'System Profiler' will identify 'Slave' as '/', and 'Fred' as '/Volumes/Fred'. This is a UNIX thing.
Click to expand...

ah, I see, it's the software, not the hardware — hooray for UNIX things! ...even if I'm still unclear on them. :D (Guess I'm still kind of old-school — does anyone else remember playing stupid hardware tricks with SCSI daisychains and fussy RAM DIMM chips? eeeesh.)

I've downloaded CCC and will run it overnight. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Thanks everyone!

_Monica
 
Monmeehan,

Hope your problem is resolved. Sorry, a bit squiffy last night on account of having nipped into the pub after work - hence the incoherent rambling.

I just couldn't work out why you would only want to move just the Apps over and not the whole OS, i.e. Fred becomes Man Friday and vice versa.

Ricardo
 
like a charm, everyone! (so far, anyway) :D

Thanks again for all your help!

_Monica

oooohhh... "man friday!" i like that! what every girls needs — a man Friday, and a Slave! ;)
 
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