Working With USB Drives

Well I've just taken delivery of my first Mac, a 20" iMac, and am gobsmacked by it! My first thought was "why didn't I switch earlier!".

The only minor niggles I have are ones I'm sure I'll get used to quickly like:

• The @ sign and " swapping places on the keyboard
• That you don't do Ctrl+C etc but Apple+C
• No right mouse button

Like I say MINOR niggles.

The one thing that I'm a little unsure of is how best to work with USB drives. I spec'd my iMac with the standard 250GB internal hard drive as I also ordered a 640GB USB drive. The intention is to use the system drive for applications and use the USB drive for data.

Complete Newbie Question (apologies if it's really dumb)

What I'm not sure of is how best to do this in regards to Finder. Putting my Windows head on for a second it seems to me that when you double click on a drive Finder opens and you have the equivalent of My Documents, My Pictures, My Music in the left hand column. However, like in Windows, these appear to be directories on the system drive. Therefore if I move all my documents into these folders than they will be copied onto my system drive. If I do that I will run out of drive space very quickly as I already have 200GB of data that I want to move across from my PC.

So what's the best way of doing this? Is it possible to set OSX to move these Documents/Photos/Music directories to a USB drive like you can in Windows or should I just create the relevant directories on my USB drive and just browse through it at drive level if you see what I mean rather than clicking on the Documents/Photos/Music icons in the left column of Finder?

Hmm, does any of that make any sense? lol

Makes perfect sense, only i'm a new switcher too!! lol


In shorter terms....Does anyone know how to change the target destination of those folders to another drive, no?

I'll take a quick peek and reply if no one else gets back to you ^^

Ben.

ok you did lose me a bit there I think...

First off - what is that swapping the @ and " all about? a little strange for sure.
Second - the Apple+C is a bit strange but not hard to get used to.
third - you can use any mouse you want - if it has a right mouse button on it then you can use it as a right mouse button - the same as control+click for single button mice.

Now to the part that might have lost me...

When in finder the folders you see on the left (the original ones) are folders that appear under your user directory - so in Windows this would be the same as
Douments = cdocuments and settings\user name\my docs
Pictures = cdocuments and settings\user name\my docs\my pics
Music = cdocuments and settings\user name\my docs\my music
Movies = cdocuments and settings\user name\my docs\my videos
The above bold folders are directories that appear inside your users directory on the Mac.

You can add folders to the left hand section of the Finder - so on your HUGE USB HDD you can organise your PC content as you want (however there will be formatting issues - i'll try to remember to come back to this point in a minute).

Once you transfer the data from the PC to the USB HDD into the folders you want - hook the USB HDD to the mac OS X will see the HDD and will add it to the top part of the finder window as well as your desktop. Open the USB HDD in Finder and you will see the folders as you set them out in Windows. Now just drag those folders to the bottom part of the finder window (the part that has Applications, Music Movies etc)

The original folders can be removed from the sidebar by control+click on them and select the option to remove from the sidebar.

FORMAT - when you hook the USB HDD to the Windows machine you need to make sure that you format it using FAT32 - if Windows uses NTFS then you'l be unable to write to the drive when it's connected to the Mac.

Hopefully I understood what you wanted - and did not lose you along the way.

If you have an iMac, you can set the right side of the mighty mouse to perform a right click here:

System prefereces-> mouse.

ok, one of the things ive noticed since switching is that google isn't as good a resource for mac as it is for windows lol. There must be a way to change the target of folders, but if no one gets back to you then this is what i would do.

Those icons down the left hand side of finder are just shortcuts (or should i say alias now) of what appears to be the most commonly used folders. Ignore them.

I'd click on you 'home' and move the folders named music, movies etc that you want on your external drive on to that drive. Once they're there, you can then drag them to the finder side bar where they'd place themselves as shortcuts to the rightful destination on your external drive external drive.

Remove the old side bar ones as i'm not sure how mapping works in OS X yet.

Theres gonna be a much easier way i guess..or maybe not! but thats what i'd do if i needed to. Either that or just create new media folders on my external and delete the ones in my home folder.

hope that helps a little!! Ben.

Ahhh it's so simple after all!

Many thanks to LostDog4 and to RNDdave for a perfect explanation - makes total sense to me now.

Aptmunich, you are a life saver! Looking at the Mighty Mouse I had no idea there were in fact 2 buttons on the top - all now working perfectly.

The @ and " thing I was talking about was that on every PC I've used the @ sign is above the , on the keyboard and the " sign is above the number 2 whereas on this keyboard they are swapped over so to get an @ sign you press Shift+2.

Folks, I would be careful about moving these folders to an external drive. LOTS of software assumes that they are on the home drive. I would recommend leaving them where they are and creating extra folders on the external drive to create any extra space you need. You can point programs like iTunes to external drives, but do be careful about removing the main home directory versions - you may find that lots of stuff starts to misbehave.

mac57 said:

Folks, I would be careful about moving these folders to an external drive. LOTS of software assumes that they are on the home drive. I would recommend leaving them where they are and creating extra folders on the external drive to create any extra space you need. You can point programs like iTunes to external drives, but do be careful about removing the main home directory versions - you may find that lots of stuff starts to misbehave.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up. Just to confirm, I'm going to create folders on my USB drive and just add them to the Sidebar in Finder

I think the keyboard issue has something to do with it i being a U.S. keyboard. I think other keyboards (i.e. UK) are arranged differently. Wiki

I'm in UK - and unless they sold me a non UK keyboard I also have the @ and " in different places - this is not a big thing - I got used to it fairly quickly - but is a little strange.

EDIT: Removed this part

1. I have no clue what that 'K' key is.
2. Best I can guess its the alt symbol, its used for further modification of an action. right click on a document then hold the alt key to see it in action. Works in new the menu bar of apps most newer apps.
3. the ~ is called a tilde I think thats what you are referring to. Just one of those seldom used characters. well not so seldom or it wouldn't get a key i suppose.

Aptmunich, you are a life saver! Looking at the Mighty Mouse I had no idea there were in fact 2 buttons on the top - all now working perfectly

Click to expand...

There are actually three on the top and two on the side!!

Press the scroll ball down and you have another button.

The two on the side are a bit stiff and I don't really need more than three, but they're there if you need them.

Use the Expose settings in Preferences to set them up to do various things.