Filed under: Accessories, Hardware, How-tos, Holidays
So you just got a hard drive -- now what?
All day on December 25, TUAW presents "Now What?" We've got first steps and recommendations for all the Apple gifts you (hopefully!) found under the tree today. Happy holidays!
Some good soul gifted you with a hard drive for the holidays. I can't think of a better gift! There are two ways to use that extra disk space -- the right way, which I'll get to in a moment, and the way many people do it, which is to just expand their disk space because they are running out of room.
I'm here to tell you that is the wrong thing to do with a new hard drive if you don't have a backup strategy already. Let's make a few assumptions here. The new drive has a USB 2.0 interface, or it has a Firewire 400 or 800 interface. It also is at least as large as your primary hard drive. Even better if it is bigger. Use that drive as a backup device, not for more disk space. Old hands around computers already know this, but if you are just getting started, it really is extra important to have all your files duplicated on another drive.
With any computer, stuff happens, like a sudden power surge, a drive failure, or a kid in the house who loves to see how the Mac trash can works. Can you really afford to lose all those pictures, emails, documents and CDs you lovingly ripped to iTunes? I didn't think so.
Getting a heavy duty back up is not too challenging. If you plug a brand new drive in, your Mac (assuming you have Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) will ask you if you'd like to use it as a Time Machine drive. Time Machine is Apple's built-in backup solution, and it is great for people who constantly change or update files and sometimes have a good reason to go back and get the old versions. The larger your extra drive, the further you can 'go back in time'. Time Machine allows you to restore all the data, but it can take several hours and may require your original system DVD if your machine isn't bootable.
Read on for more...
Another method, and the one I think is best is to use utilities like SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner. They will make an exact duplicate of your primary hard drive, and make it bootable so if disaster strikes your primary hard drive you can set the copy to be the startup disk, boot from it and you are good to go. For drive failures (as opposed to accidental file deletions), that is an advantage over Time Machine because a quick reboot and you are back running again. I use SuperDuper! for this backup task, and have it run in the middle of the night 3 times a week. It works really well, and gives me peace of mind.
Of course, no backup is foolproof, and if you are really wanting to make sure your most valuable files are protected it would be a good idea to get yet another hard drive, clone your primary drive again and put this drive in your safe deposit box. Then you should be safe from fire, many biblical plagues, and rising water (that hopefully won't flood your bank too).
Having good backups is like a really smart form of insurance for your treasured documents and memories. Don't be tempted to just throw more stuff on that new hard drive. Put it to work as a defense against disaster. Of course, it might also be smart to consider getting a larger primary drive too. Just make sure your backup is large enough to handle all those extra gigabytes.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
balls said 5:52PM on 12-25-2008
Hey TUAW Staff: thanks for these posts. My GF is sick, so this Xmas has been a little lackluster, so it's nice to have something worthwhile to read.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
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josh said 5:55PM on 12-25-2008
i have that exact hd pictured above.... it died in three months
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Fernando said 6:02PM on 12-25-2008
i have that exact hd pictured above... 3 years and going strong
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Damien K. said 6:10PM on 12-25-2008
Oh. My. Gawd. TUAW please stop. A harddrive? A camera? Whats next? So you just got batteries, now what? Gee I don't fucking know.
Just stop, you're making a fool of this blog.
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Oliver said 7:04PM on 12-25-2008
damn, man, i just got my wisdom teeth pulled out yesterday (on christmas eve no less), and you made me laugh really hard, it hurt.... you're right though... i mean considering this is a freakin' tech blog, shouldn't we already know about all this?
Damien K. said 8:27PM on 12-25-2008
Aha well thank you, I try too hard..
pangelav said 7:01PM on 12-25-2008
Actually, I've sent some of these links to two different switchers today alone. If you don't like an article, nobody's forcing you to read it! We need to not forget there are thousands of switchers this time of year (like grandparents and parents) who need explicit instructions and do not have access to an Apple Store.
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radicaldreamer99 said 7:44PM on 12-25-2008
What kind of dumbass article is this? At least the Mac and iPod ones are informative... if you need this article, you shouldn't have gotten a hard drive in the first place, it was the wrong gift for you.
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Smileypanda said 8:23PM on 12-25-2008
Umm....plug it into your computer maybe?
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AJH said 9:06PM on 12-25-2008
You get a fantastic, shiny new hard drive and you're going to give it the mundane, boring, utilitarian task of sitting around being backup storage? That's like grocery shopping with a Ferrari.
Why can't you get the best of both worlds? Have your cake and eat it, too... whatever metaphor you want to use.
As the owner of a MacBook with a 120GB internal drive, space is at a premium... so when I got an external hard drive, I split it in two by partitioning it. The first partition was for, as they say, just "expanding my disk space" (apparently the wrong thing to do)... it became the place that I store certain large files that aren't immediately necessary (like movies, archived installers and stuff that I'm not going to need all the time). It also acts as occasional "scratch" storage when I'm working.
The second partition, I gave the task of acting as a Time Machine backup.
This allows me to free up space on my internal drive (so far, I tend to hold steady at about 70GB to 75GB free at all times) AND have the security of a backup (though not cloned... I don't much mind if I have to reinstall the OS, as long as I have my files).
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Flyboybob said 11:44PM on 12-25-2008
I had the unfortunate experience of having my internal HD fail while doing a SuperDuper backup. This was in preparation for upgrading my G5 iMac to Leopard so that I could use Time Machine on my new external HD that I had just purchased.
I replaced the internal HD, upgraded to Leopard and was able to connect my old HD to the computer through a USB power adaptor and was able to transfer most of my important files to the new internal drive.
My new external HD is now partitioned for a bootable SuperDuper copy in case the internal HD dies, and partitioned for my Time Machine backup.
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Damien K. said 12:37AM on 12-26-2008
This article would be of actual use had you perhaps added some things like how to make any harddrive off the shelf work nicely with your Mac, or perhaps make that drive easy to use on a Mac AND PC... instead this article is just Use TimeMachine! Backup! Yay!!! If someone gets a harddrive for Christmas is proooobably because they asked for one and knew damn well what theyd be doing with it.
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TheWolfey said 1:54AM on 12-26-2008
Aww, did you not get picked for the new batch of bloggers, and you're sore about it?
Look, Merry Christmas, dude. This is actually fundamental stuff, that while common knowledge via computer buffs and the like, is often overlooked by users who are new, or just casual. Small bits of information like this could be catastrophic to a person's life collection of pictures, and having this sent to them is an amazingly easy way to teach them the right way to do things.
If you're not impressed by the post, then by all means, let me show you a fundamental use of your web browser. There's a bar, usually to the right side of the screen. Grab the little bar within the one that traverses the window, and skip the post. Congratulations, you're using the internet!
KA said 6:39AM on 12-26-2008
My way of making off-the-shelf hard drives work nicely with my Mac is to plug them in.
Eoin said 6:30AM on 12-26-2008
What would be great is a guide for how to upgrade your hard drive when you have a dual-boot setup, using bootcamp/rEFIt.
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stevensnewest said 9:34AM on 12-26-2008
uhh...drag all of your pr0n videos to it? =\
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Graham said 1:42PM on 12-26-2008
What to do with a new HD? Make sure it's not a WD MyBook and if it is, take it back. It will fail, they're absolute junk.
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King Fysel said 2:08PM on 12-26-2008
"gifted you with"?! Ack! Why not try English: 'gave you'.
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babyfett said 4:34PM on 12-26-2008
Don't be a hater. "Gifted you" is perfectly acceptable English and in this particular case, with it being the holidays and all, it's a much more appropriate way to say it.
Snow said 6:03PM on 12-26-2008
"gifted you with" is the exact example used in the dictionary for the verb form of "gift." Please stop nitpicking.