using an external drive with OS X because I am low on space

ok, bought a Mini. For my work I have to run windows for certain software so I use bootcamp, made a partition, etc. Works fine with windows and when I switch over to mac. Everything is good.

Thought I'd use windows less but its a hassle to switch to the mac software just to play around so I find myself always stuck on windows. Basically I have a windows mini !

So now that I have time I am looking into iphoto, imovie, final cut express, etc and really spending more time on the mac side of things. I really do like it, own a iphone, love that.

My problem is when I did the partition I made the windows one huge because I knew I would need space and seems I only have about 20 gb free when I switch to the mac OS. I am thinking of getting an external drive (1TB) but here is my problem.

Say I use itunes or imovie and it imports all the files. It won't know to use the external drive. How do I force it to??
Can I just drag imovie folder over to the external drive and then it will do everything from there?

I'm not sure about your imovie questions since i'm a recent switcher also, but you should try VMware or Parallels. You can move between OSX and Windows easily. With "unity" in VMware it's as if you have the windows application open in OSX

What kind of work do you do?

Yeah I have parallels but that doesn't help me in this case. I am trying to edit movies, manage photos, etc strictly from the mac.

By the way, VMware or Parallels is ok but there is nothing like just booting up in the OS you need. Running two OS systems at once just makes things slow and the resolution isn't right.

Since you already have everything setup for dual booting and a rather large partition for Windows, it's probably best to look for another solution rather than switch to using a VM. While Fusion and Parallels do work well neither will run 3D or graphic intensive application efficiently.

You have several choices: You can resize your Windows partition allowing more room for OS X, or swap out the current drive for a larger one. The idea of an external drive is OK for data, videos, iTunes library, movies, etc. However, new programs that you acquire will have to be installed on the internal drive to work correctly.

Here's the link to Apple's instructions on how to move your iTunes library. I don't know too much about iMovie but I imagine the instructions should be similar.

Regards.

ok, thats what I figured.

I read I can't change the windows partition now unless I completely redo it all (format, etc) which I'm not about to do.

I have 23GB of free space on OS X so I have plenty of room to install new programs but as long as I can tell the space hungry ones (photo, itunes, imovie) to get the data from the external drive them I'm ok.

My other option is to go get a new iMac and get rid of one of my PCs. But thats a $1200 alternative.

You have a Mini so it's not a portable, right? You won't be moving it around so that external drive is always connected to that Mini. My solution would be to attach the external drive, format it with Disk Utility to be an Apple file system, copy your Music and Movies (the big space offenders) over to the external (when plugged in it'll show up as a portable drive icon) then delete Music and Movies off your internal drive (probably Macintosh HD if you haven't renamed it.) Place an alias in their place which points to the folders on the other drives. Under UNIX this would be known as a symlink, but Apple calls them aliases. iMovie and iTunes should not care that they are aliases and simply load up your music and you'll be playing/editing movies that iMovie and iTunes think are on the internal drive, but really they'll be on the external.

I was able to get iTunes to use an external drive just fine with this method back in those days but now that I have a portable I don't always have the external available so instead I just get a big drive for the internal and I use Parallels to do the VM thing instead of boot camp. Parallels will happily use an external to build a virtual machine on keeping those big honking files off the internal.

Also you'll want to do a backup of your internal drive before you shuffle all this around. I would suggest getting one of those 1TB disks (I have one right here, and they're fairly cheap) and partition some of it for a Time Machine backup drive big enough to do a full backup of your internal, and the rest for all your movies/music/whatever else you'll want to clean space off of.

hey if you have the money get the iMac... I can feel your reluctance though. How much data are we talking about moving to the mac side of things?

iKen99G said:

ok, thats what I figured.

I read I can't change the windows partition now unless I completely redo it all (format, etc) which I'm not about to do.

I have 23GB of free space on OS X so I have plenty of room to install new programs but as long as I can tell the space hungry ones (photo, itunes, imovie) to get the data from the external drive them I'm ok.

My other option is to go get a new iMac and get rid of one of my PCs. But thats a $1200 alternative.

Click to expand...

Yes ...just save the files and data to the external box. You could move other files and data from the OSX partition as well. Just keep the programs in the partition. You may have to help the OS find what you have moved the first time you open a program. Youll have to use the 'save as' menu to tell where to save to the external.