Almost About To "Do It" - A Few Questions

Hi, i have had to listen to some of friends rant on how "good" Macs are for some time now, and after a lot of research and comparisons i hope to have my first Mac by the weekend.

Just to point out, i was never an apple hater and currently have the latest iphone and ipad.

After a lot of research on the web and other forums, i find the main reason people choose a Mac is because "they just work" and from my research, most Mac owners expressed their frustration using Windows because of the registry build up, numerous updates, lengthy boot up times and crashing... etc.

I have to say, i don't experience any of the above negative points that have been raised about Windows and that is probably down to the set up that i have in place on my system (4 year old Sony Vaio TZ)

I have my laptop partitioned into 5 drives:

Hard Drive 1: Operating System and Programs
Hard Drive 2: My Documents
Hard Drive 3: Work
Hard Drive 4: Multimedia (photo, videos, music etc)
Hard Drive 5: Backup (cloned image of Hard Drive 1)

Hard Drive 1 set up to perfection with all necessary Programs and tweaks made to the OS etc... and then i have it cloned to a single image file which is stored on Hard Drive 5 (Backup). All program files are then stored on the other drives (2, 3 & 4) and are completely independent of the Operating System and Programs drive, so when i re-fresh / re-install the main OS & Programs drive from the clone i have made, only Hard Drive 1 is re-installed and all of the files on the other hard drives (2, 3 & 4) are uninterrupted...

Every 4 weeks or so i re-install the clone of the main hard drive (takes about 10 mins) so my laptop is back to perfection and there is no build up of registry files or program files that are not required. My laptop boots up just as quick as the day i bought it (after i removed all of the unnecessary pre-installed programs)

I know some of you might say "well then stick to Windows" but i am looking forward to changing to a Mac and seeing if it does everything i need it to do and most importantly, more efficiently... time will tell...

Anyway, getting to my point... i have a few questions that i hope some of you experts might be able to help me with:

Questions:
A: how can i manage to keep my mac squeeky clean and speperate files from the OS (like i have done on my Windows setup). Is it possible to create a clone of the OS and Apps when i have it set up to perfection and revert back to that set up from time to time without affecting my document files. Should i partition the hard drive to seperate the OS & Apps from my document files
B: is the 13" Air screen really that much better than the 13" Pro
C: will all files that i have created with programs on my windows platform open up on the mac if i have the mac equivalent version of the source program
D: what is your view on my above windows scenario... do you have anything to add (positive or negative)

Thanks for reading all of this and a bigger thanks if you manage to contribute to the post, much appreciated...

A.) I have never had the need to partition my Mac's hard drive exception would be dual or triple booting.( OSX,Win7 and Ubuntu or your combo)
B.) Better depends on user preference they are both outstanding.
C.)You might get a better answer if you state which programs.
D.)You might want to consider BootCamp or one of the VM's incase you need Windows specific.

I would not recommend partitioning a drive these days. There is really nothing to gain. I would also not, as a best practice kind of thing, ever put a backup on the same physical drive.

So, what I would generally do is this...

Use superduper etc to clone the hdd to an external drive. Do this regularly, why is this good? Because you can boot from it, even if the internal disk fails.

Use Time Machine to do incremental backups to an external drive. This allows for fast retrieval of files, and aids in recovery if you experience a disk failure or need to rebuild for some reason.

Other than that, I'd just run the thing (and I do).

So, if your files were standardized files (.doc, pdf, ppt, gif, jpg, etc, etc, etc) you'll have no problems accessing them on a Mac. You simply will need the appropriate application to deal with them (just like Windows). Where there are sometimes issues are with things like Windows media files (they're not exactly industry standards), but that's easily dealt with using things like flip4mac and perian.

Interestingly, OS X actually operates by default similar to the manner you've described, albeit, not across separate partitions. The standard folder structure is similar to yours and Applications tend to use that structure by default.

Cool, thanks for all the replies guys... very useful...

I think i need to read up on Superduper and Time Capsule and work out a suitable backup mechanism but as you all said, those apps seem to cover what i need, thanks again for your help

Dysfunction said:

I would not recommend partitioning a drive these days. There is really nothing to gain. I would also not, as a best practice kind of thing, ever put a backup on the same physical drive.

So, what I would generally do is this...

Use superduper etc to clone the hdd to an external drive. Do this regularly, why is this good? Because you can boot from it, even if the internal disk fails.

Use Time Machine to do incremental backups to an external drive. This allows for fast retrieval of files, and aids in recovery if you experience a disk failure or need to rebuild for some reason.

Other than that, I'd just run the thing (and I do).

So, if your files were standardized files (.doc, pdf, ppt, gif, jpg, etc, etc, etc) you'll have no problems accessing them on a Mac. You simply will need the appropriate application to deal with them (just like Windows). Where there are sometimes issues are with things like Windows media files (they're not exactly industry standards), but that's easily dealt with using things like flip4mac and perian.

Click to expand...

Listen to this guy.

Ok cool, but can you elaborate on one small thing...

If i make a clone of the system when i have it set up with all my apps, then surely when i restore it i will loose any new personal files on my system since my last backup... that is why i have the OS separated from my personal files on my windows set up.

I don't understand how i can have a "perfect" back up of the OS and Apps and revert back to it from time to time without affecting my personal files...

If i have 500 personal files on my system when i make my first backup clone, then 2 months later or even 2 years later (when i have 1500 personal files) and need to revert back to the backup clone, how do i accomplish this without loosing the 1000 new files since the last backup

This is why you run an incremental backup system. Time Machine, out of the box, updates hourly. At worst case, you'd lose an hour of work.

Ok cool, i understand this but i think it would be better if it was set up so that the OS was separated from personal files

Why? Seriously, what do you gain?

As far as I can tell the only thing you gain is a bin to put things in. If your personal files are in ~/Documents ~/Pictures ~/Movies ~/Music already (which is how MacOS orders things) they're already in individual directories. The OS is already as separated from your files as it is with your windows setup. Since Unix does not abstract volumes into specific drives, all you'd do in this case is create multiple (and superfluous) mount points.

Besides all that, even in Windows having separate 'virtual' drives is an outdated concept.

Ok, thanks, i just like being very organised and i like to be able to revert my OS to a fresh, clean "out of the box" system without it affecting all of my other files...

As time goes on, surely the mac will slow down performance wise and it would be nice to fresh'n it up again without having to worry about your personal files...

Well, here's the thing. You can, although I haven't done this on Lion.. yet, reinstall the OS without effecting your home directory, or the Apps directory at all. Been that way for a long time. Wonderful thing about not having a registry

Also for what it's worth, doing maintenance on a Unix machine will resolve performance issues. Man, it'd suck having to rebuild servers because they've been run a while..

Ok cool, thanks, time capsule and time machine seem to be the way forward

oo7ml said:

Ok, thanks, i just like being very organised and i like to be able to revert my OS to a fresh, clean "out of the box" system without it affecting all of my other files...

As time goes on, surely the mac will slow down performance wise and it would be nice to fresh'n it up again without having to worry about your personal files...

Click to expand...

No, the Mac does not slow down performance wise. In fact, my four-year-old Mac is faster than it's ever been. That's a combination of four things:

1. OS improvements by Apple
2. Keeping lots of hard disk space free
3. Quitting apps when I'm done with them (not just closing them) and
4. Every three months or so a good run with OnyX.

Secondly, while I applaud you for wanting to be organised (it's certainly better than being un-organized) ... have you ever considered the idea that the computer should be doing organizational work FOR you? I mean, you didn't REALLY buy a computer to become its manager, did you?

I know this is an idea that's hard for some Windows switchers to accept, but really it's best if you let the computer do the organizing. In the case of Mac OS X, for example, the system ITSELF separates all the "personal" files into a separate user folder that is ENTIRELY divorced from apps and system. What a good idea, oh wait that's exactly what you are trying to do BY HAND. Who's working for who there?

chas_m said:

I know this is an idea that's hard for some Windows switchers to accept, but really it's best if you let the computer do the organizing. In the case of Mac OS X, for example, the system ITSELF separates all the "personal" files into a separate user folder that is ENTIRELY divorced from apps and system. What a good idea, oh wait that's exactly what you are trying to do BY HAND. Who's working for who there?

Click to expand...

I go back to DOS, (FORTRAN, actually), so I get the passion for separating data from OS, but chas is so right, one beauty of Mac is not having to think about this anymore. I find myself being less aware of the computer and more able to focus on what I am doing, which is very nice.

Cool, thanks guys... i guess IF the OS ever did fail or become slow, i could backup all of my user files, wipe the system and then re-load the files again... but as you all say, i won't find a need to do this

You don't even have to think about backing up your files ... just attach an external drive and let Time Machine do that for your. Pretty painless restores, automatic incremental backups, plus your media purchases backed up in iCloud ...

... like I say, letting the computer do the work changes your focus on the TASKS without having to be the maintenance dept. You'll be surprised how that changes the way you use the computer, including the amount of time you DON'T use the computer.

Cool, thanks to all of you for your input...

I think my only worry now is... Do i get a 13" Pro (500gb)or a 13" Air (256gb) and i am in favour of the Air at the moment as the screen resolution and quality is better and i do a lot of design work...

Either can be attached to an external monitor so both will be fine, I don't recall if the 13" MBP has its own discrete video card or not, if it does Adobe CS suite will like that better.

The 13" does not have the discrete card. Had it done so, I'd have given it serious consideration due to the sheer portability of the thing!

So I got the 15, with the matte panel (really don't like the gloss ones)