Sandbox to 10.4.4, first
 

Being the cautious, conservative, anal-retentive type, I'd like to (combo) upgrade to OSX 10.4.4 on my Sandbox volume first (sitting on ext LaCie FW partition; running OSX 10.4.3; connected to an iBook DualUSB) to try things out.

Some users have reported problems running updates with FW drives connected and thus people like macfixit suggest it better to disconnect externals during major OS upgrades.

so... a slight conflict of interest going on here. as you mention you've been working with 1044 for sometime, i wonder if you would still recommend this tact during major OS upgrades (seems you would, but...) or yet another approach (sorry, no free internal drives here i'm afraid).

i've always thrown caution out and jumped straight in at such times in the past (successfully, thank you), but SuperDuper is so rather, ummm... Super, it's forcing me to change my habits. your thoughts? tks.

george

As long as your drive's firmware is up to date, George, I wouldn't worry about it at present. I've upgraded with FW all the way through to this build, on a Sandbox, with no problem.

dave, that's music to the ears (not to mention, the core nature of your product!!).

as you say, it's those HD firmware upgrades (among others) that create some big roadblocks.

would be nice to have a LaCie etal kiosk at Apple's Genius Bars to do firmware upgrades for us. data integraty could be ensured, hardware verified and it would alleviate us from having to purchase so much new HD space just to keep the drives rotating and uptodate. tks again. george

It's pretty easy to do a Firmware update, fortunately, and it doesn't "Brick" the drives, but I always have "extra" backups, so you're not the only cautious one! :-)