Power PC Macs: Bootable External Hard Drive Models

[Njord Noatun]

I just purchased the following external HD for my OSX 10.4 Server PowerPC G5 PowerMac:

Western Digital My Book (1 Tb, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, eSATA).

I formatted the HD into (no less than 8) partitions using APM, and used SuperDuper "Smart Update" to copy all files to the partitions according to a certain backup rotation (using FireWire).

However, the computer does not want to boot from (or recognize them from an "Option" restart) the newly created volumes (using FireWire): I can only assume that the WD My Book iTb, and/or its associated firewire chipset, is not fully compatible with PowerPC booting.

Not a big deal - I can just get a new external FW HD - but which one? Does anyone have user experience (or otherwise know of) an ext. HD that would boot a PowerPC G5? Preferably 1Tb, but I guess 500 Gb would suffice, too.

Thanks!

[dnanian]

I'd suggest this LaCie drive, which is at a good price and works well.

[Njord Noatun]

Thanks!

And beyond the fact that I cannot boot from the volume, and as a consequence the longer time it would take to restore service, there are no huge disadvantages in simply restoring the volume from the backup running the destination client off an OSX system disc as per the instructions on p.27 of the manual, right?:

"Restoring when you can’t start up from your backup
If you have a backup image or volume, but can’t start up from it, you can
still restore using your OS X install disc. To do so:
• Start up from the OS X Install disc.
• When the Installer starts, choose “Disk Utility” from its Application
menu.
• Once the Disk Utility starts, select the drive you want to restore to,
and switch to the Restore tab"

.

[dnanian]

Not being able to start up from the volume is a significant downside, Njord... but, yes.

[Njord Noatun]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Not being able to start up from the volume is a significant downside, Njord.

Would you care to elaborate on what those disadvantages are (beyond that it would take longer to get services restored) from a practical, user point of view?

The backup in this case is for a server, and I obviously do not want to compromise on the quality of the backup in any mission-critical way.

Thank you.

[dnanian]

Well, with a directly bootable backup you can recover more quickly because you can simply start up from the backup, with minimal downtime and no need to restore immediately.