soon to be a first time SD user - partition question

[southside]

Hi,
I have a Powerbook G4 1.25 GHz and running Panther... I have made small backups of various data over the past 3 years or so of owning the notebook. I am getting a LaCie D2 Quadra 500 gb external drive in the mail shortly (hopefully very soon). I plan to use SD on it to create an image backup of the drive. After that I plan to try to update to either TIGER or LEOPARD. I have read horror stories of the LEOPARD upgrade and also understand that the current version of SD is not LEOPARD compatible. What are recommendations of partitioning the new LaCie HD - or not to partition it? We also have an old Dell PC running XP. We put it away, haven't used it in quite awhile. There is a remote possibility that we might want to use it in the future, and if so, might want to backup the latest and greatest from it to the external drive. If we do that, I know I will need at least two partitions - one in the HFS and the other in NTFS (or FAT - for Ghosting). At any rate, would like to hear recommendations on the partioning of the drive. If anybody has LEOPARD running on a Powerbook G4 1.25 GHz notebook (with 1.5 Gigs RAM), would also like to hear if it is best to just stick with what works - PANTHER, rather than upgrade to TIGER or LEOPARD...

thanks in advance!,
southside

[dnanian]

If you're considering creating a bootable copy, you have to use the Apple Partition Map partition scheme with this drive and your mac. As such, you cannot share it with Windows without using special software on the user side.

So -- I'd suggest investing in a different drive for your PC.

[TMay]

southside

On the other issue you raise, upgrading of your current Panther, I guess all things being equal I would first upgrade to to Tiger, take it to its current incarnation (10.4.11) and then go to Leopard after a bit. See if all your important stuff works in Tiger (it should) and then when SD is Leopard compatible and L has a few more bugs removed, go there. (I do think "horror story" is a little strong, but there are some issues for some.)

By "all things being equal" I meant money. Neither of these are free upgrades, as you know. If you have to pay for install disks, then I guess I'd only pay once, go direct to Leopard (but wait a few weeks.) If you have access to a Tiger install disk without needing to purchase new, then I'd do as I first said...start with Tiger.

I am running Tiger on a number of machines, including G4 PB's similar to yours, and it has been a fine release. My sister also has a 17" G4 PB, is running Leopard, and has had no issues....but her usage is basic and simple and her son is a software engineer. (JK, he is, but he hasn't had to advise Mom on Leopard yet.)

[southside]

Thanks David and TMAY... so it is true, that with this software you often get speedy responses from the developer... that is awesome! will leave the drive ASIS and just hook it up FW800 to my relatively old-fashioned PowerBook 1.25GHz and create an image... planning on upgrading to the paid-for version of SD... also, TMAY, thanks for that info... had heard some folks complaining about TIGER on the POWERBOOK G4 models - that the indexing with SPOTLIGHT takes forever, etc... have wanted it since the introduction of widgets, but have been holding off on the upgrade... have heard that some folks do not get the best graphics visuals with LEOPARD on their Powerbook G4s - something to have to do with the higher quality graphics are only available on Intel CPU based Macs... and I know that you will mostly hear about horror stories on discussion boards, since those that do not have problems usually don't need help/assistance/etc... one of the main upgrade problems has already been discovered - it was a piece of software that some 3rd Party programs were using... pretty sure I don't have that on my Powerbook, so that wouldn't be an issue... of course I would loose SD functionality with LEOPARD and that would be a bad thing - would rather have dependable complete/bootable/image backups...

with the SD bootable images - you are still able to restore individual directories/files - right? my drive should be here any day now... I have an APO address (live in Bangkok) and had to use an APO shipping company to get it here (www.apobox.com) - so it has taken longer than I would have thought... CAN'T WAIT!! will feel MUCH better with a complete image backup!!! and I am thinking that doing a clean install of TIGER (or LEOPARD) will be a good thing to do... sorta like giving the POWERBOOK an enema - remove all the nasty bits, reorganize the disk, etc, etc...

later and thanks TONs for your responses!!
southside

[dnanian]

Yes, the storage format for the destination is the same as the source, so you can just navigate, in Finder, to what you want to restore and copy it back.

[TMay]

southside

Yes, the initial Spotlight indexing of your main volume will not be speedy, but once it is done, you should not notice it updating. (In my experience, initial time will vary with volume size, number of files and their composition.)

[southside]

so, I partitioned the 500 GB Lacie D2 Quadra HD (using FW800) into two pieces - one 80 GIG partition for SDing the 80 GIG drive in the Powerbook G4, and the rest I was going to use for stuff that I would offload from my notebook - things like combining my ITUNEs library from the Powerbook and the one on our old Dell PC (running XP)...

but just read on the BLOG that you need to separate SD backups from Leopard TimeMachine backups... OK, can do that with the two partitions... but if I want both of them (in the future - not right now... still running Panther, but am planning on the LEOPARD upgrade) - will I need the 80 GIG partition for the bootable SD image backup, another large chunk for TIMEmachine to do its thing (maybe 150 Gigs or so) - from what I heard TimeMachine files will build and build and build until it uses up a certain amount of disk space, and than old stuff is aged off?... and the rest has to be another partition - for extra stuff like my combined ITUNEs collection?

is that correct about needing 3 partitions in the future if I want to use SD, TimeMachine, and also have space for extra stuff? glad I went with a 500 Gig drive... probably shoulda went with the 1TB drive... never enough, huh?

thanks!!,
southside
Live From Bangkok, Thailand

[dnanian]

It's best to keep Time Machine separate from your SD! backup, but -- once the Leopard version is out -- it's not required. Remember that Time Machine likes as much data as possible.

Also remember that if you put your "stuff" on your backup drive, you're probably not backing it up...

[Milo]

Hi Dave

I too have been planning a disk partition strategy for my move to Leopard and was going to put in place a separate partition for my Super Duper bootable back up. However, having read your post, are you saying that once Super Duper is updated for Leopard partitioning will not be necessary, ie that each new bootable back up will not erase the entire disk? Or have I jumped to the wrong conclusion? I must say that if it becomes unnecessary to put a Super Duper back up on a separate partition that would make life so much easier!

[dnanian]

All I'm saying is that Time Machine and a SuperDuper! copy can share the same partition. But, it's always best to partition, if you can.

[Milo]

So you are saying that a Super Duper back up can theoretically share a partition with a Time Machine back up but not with anything else such as general photo/iTunes storage? If so that suits me fine as I only plan to store Time Machine and Super Duper back ups on my disk and would rather not have to try to guess in advance how much space I should allocate to each with a view to wasting as little hard disk space as possible.

In the new version will it be possible for two Super Duper copies to share the same partition or does the change just relate to partition sharing with Time Machine?

Thanks for replying so promptly and on a Sunday.

[dnanian]

More than theoretically: in v2.5 is can share the folder with Time Machine. But, correct: only Time Machine, and even with that feature I suggest partitioning if practical.

Two copies can't share the same partition unless you use images, as explained in the User's Guide.

[Milo]

Thanks - Looking forward to version 2.5!

[southside]

I upgraded to TIGER this past weekend (from Leopard) on my powerbook 1.25GHz old but still kickn notebook... the downloads to make it up to date took quite awhile on the WIFI network that I am using... proud to report that everything works and I think as I had heard from others that some of the actions (screen draws, etc) seem to be faster (or is it jus mah imagination, runnin awayyyy with me?? Temptations)... so, had a partition for Panther image, and had created two more partitions on my lacie 500 gig D2 quadra external drive (FW800 connection)... used SuperDuper to create a TIGER bootable image... so, now I have two bootable images - TIGER and Panther OSs... and I have another large partition that I plan to use IF I ever byte the bullet and upgrade to the scarey LEOPARD OS... I like the widgets in TIGER quite abit and want to test out automator... seems like quite a few nice features - and spotlight reminds me of a VERY OLD Windows (or maybe it was just DOS) program called Magellan that would index your HD and allow you quick access to files, etc - in a way not totally unlike that of SPOTLIGHT...

thanks Danian for SuperDuper... keep up the great software development work... your company knows how to do it right - great product and even greater customer interaction/support/etc... that is KEY to success and I know, having read your bio that you have tons of experience in this area...

YO ROCKY!!!,
southside live from Bangkok, Thailand