Merge boot drive and data drive into single backup?

[billearl]

At the moment, I use SuperDuper! to back up my main HDD to a backup HDD. I can then boot to the backup HDD to run maintenance on the main HDD, or to do throwaway test installs or other experimentation.

I now plan to split my main HDD into two drives, a "boot" SSD for System, Library, and Application folders, and a "data" HDD for the Users folder and anything else.

Is it possible for SuperDuper! to merge these two main drives to a single bootable backup HDD, so I can continue to use my backup HDD as before?

[dnanian]

Not really, no. You'd want to replicate that same setup on your backup drive, with one partition as the "boot" drive and one for your "user" data.

[billearl]

Thanks. That seems reasonable. The only potential problem I can see would be, when booted from the backup, having the backup "boot" partition linked to the backup "user" data partition rather than linked to the main (original) "user" data drive. I don't yet know how much of an issue that might be. Any ideas?

I would expect this this sort of situation to be common with the advent of SSD's as boot drives.

[dnanian]

If you rename the linked drive to match before you boot from the backup you should be fine (depending on what data you want to reference).

[billearl]

After more research, I think I have a good solution for this issue.

One idea is to have a "Users" symbolic link on the "boot" drive (SSD) pointing to the Users folder on the "data" drive (HDD).

If these two drives are backed up to separate partitions (on an external FW HDD), I can simply have SuperDuper! run a shell script at completion of the "boot" drive backup which replaces the "Users" symbolic link on the "boot" backup with one that points to the Users folder on the "data" backup.

An alternative would be to leave the Users folder on the "boot" drive, but replace my home folder with a symbolic link pointing to the actual home folder on the "data" drive, and use a similar backup plan.

[dnanian]

You could certainly do things like that... not sure it's a great idea, but it can be done.

[billearl]

In case anyone is interested, what I ended up doing is simply moving the larger folders (Documents, Music, Mail, etc.) out of my home folder on the "boot" SSD to a separate "data" HDD, replacing them with symlinks on the SSD. That seems to work well.

I have SuperDuper! run a shell script at completion of the "boot" drive backup which replaces the symlinks on the "boot" backup with ones that point to the same folders on the "data" backup. Also seems to work well.

That said, I'm not sure the modest speed gain of the SSD was worth it in a Mac Pro. Probably much better suited for a laptop.

[Gryzor]

Originally Posted by billearl

That said, I'm not sure the modest speed gain of the SSD was worth it in a Mac Pro. Probably much better suited for a laptop.

What SSD drive are you using?

I believe this is better than symlinks.

[billearl]

Originally Posted by Gryzor

What SSD drive are you using?

I believe this is better than symlinks.

Sorry for the delay. I haven't been back here recently.

My SSD is a OCZ Vertex 2 100GB. Works well but appears it's virtually impossible to update its firmware on a Mac, and difficult on a Windows PC.

I'll read the info you've linked, and will report back here if I change anything. Thanks.

[billearl]

Okay, I switched to just one symlink on my boot SSD to the entire Users folder on the HDD. I do like that better, simpler. Actually, I thought I already tried that initially, but ran into problems. Works fine now. Thanks, Gryzor.