OT: Apple Mac computers

[Andy Hall]

Yes this is all normal good practice but is time consuming for the user, even if they understand what they are reading. Then there are the things that happen by combination of different hardware, other software that may or may not be installed.

I suspect that most users will either not have MS Update turned on at all or will tick all the boxes every time for things to be updated.

Yes, I've done this with Ghost, Acronis and others. Again good practice but very time consuming, even though it is largely unattended while running.

Weellllll.........

Try allowing a partition to become substantially full, or have it containing the paging file using defaults. The paging file will grow and shrink and be spread all over the partition. The MFT gets spread around as well especially where there is software that adds and deletes a lot of temporary files. Now try running a disk defragmenter and observe the performance change. NTFS is better than FAT32, but taking care of itself, not really.

In comparison to trying to make fixes using the repair and the console on Win2K or XP, yes. I've used this a couple of times and it is helpful.

[Rod]

And you had to push a button (real, physical) to remove a floppy from a PC.

[The Medway Handyman]

Wish I'd never started TBH :-) I had no idea....

I'm going to upgrade the memory & see if that helps.

[dennis]

Mine has been nearly full for months.. MFT.. two fragments. The only significant thing is, I run with 3G of RAM so the page file doesn't grow much.

I don't expect any problems at all now as I have just put a new disk in.

[dennis]

Why do you feel the need to evade the question? Either its because its an old version and you don't want to admit Apple is charging £55 for the latest or you don't actually have one AFAICS.

Not if you knew just how reliable USB drives really are. They aren't very robust either despite appearances. The 3.5" desktop drives do not like being knocked at all. The 2.5" laptop drives can take a bigger knock but they are still delicate. Solid state storage is much better, but its not big enough to backup a 320G laptop drive yet.

Do I /have/ to use google to quote what you said?

Its also not suitable for someone that values their data, all it does is make them think they have a working backup solution when they haven't.

>

[dennis]

Like in the user directory on vista?

Have you ever tried that? I have. I used to swap drives between different machines all the time. XP and Vista just boot and work. They may ask for a driver if one of the machines has a newer graphics card (you can get newer graphics cards for Macs?) or sound card but that's about it. Can you take the drive out of a macbook and put it into a desktop and just boot it?

[dennis]

I hadn't noticed apple porting OSX to run on a PC even though it does (I can post the details if you want, however Apple wont give you a license even if you buy OSX).

[Rod]

Rubbish. 1 terabyte is plenty.

Cost? Now that *is* an issue.

[Steve Firth]

I can pick up some old, unloved secondhand Mac cheap if you're playing "how low can you go."

[Cicero]

=================================== Check your motherboard slots before you buy - in the MB manual if you have it. Since you've already got 512MB you might have to lose that to add 2GB as two single sticks.

Cic.

[tony sayer]

It might be of more use if you gave us a detailed description of the actual problems your having which could be software or hardware or both.

Windows can and does work fine for a lot of users everyday so it shouldn't be a problem really..

[Jonathan Campbell]

Good idea. OTOH, depending on spec. of your machine (USB ports, USB

2.0?, memory, processor speed, etc.) be aware that there are some very cheap machines around, e.g.

Dell's factory outlet may match the latter.

Better still, for £300 you can get a very decent machine with 2-GB memory and a big disk and ~ 2-GHz dual-core; and £400 will get you a decent laptop.

As for the change to Mac or Linux, I'd be careful unless you have a tame expert on hand for the first few weeks; and/or the old machine/configuration as a spare so that you can get online to ask questions and search for answers.

Best regards,

Jon C.

[Andy Hall]

Nope. Also including applications

Yes.

If you are lucky. If you are unlucky, different HAL needed or different chipset on the motherboard will cause the registry to be trashed beyond (time) economic repair.

You don't need to do that. There is a proper data migration arrangement from machine to machine that does the job properly.

[Andy Hall]

Pot calling kettle black.

It's the latest version on a recent MBP.

Frankly though, the point is not that interesting because both application sets are worth the money if you have need of them.

I do actually. Not perfect but respectable enough. Besides, the discussion was about having multiple drives.

This all depends on the quality of drive inside the box and is an indicator to get a decent one and not buy on price.

Better yet, select good raw drives, buy the enclosures and make the drives that way rather than buying the pre-packaged ones

It's entirely suitable as long as the recommended procedure of having multiple drives is used. As has been said several times, doing

*some* backup is better than doing nothing because it's too complicated. How would you advocate that a home or SME user should make backups according to your criteria for doing so?

[Andy Hall]

Why on earth would anybody want to port something that works very well on its set of intended hardware onto something that is arbitrary? There's no commercial advantage to Apple to doing so. As it is, they can continue to maintain their high standard of software quality and operability without incurring a lot of extra support hassle.

Yes, I am aware that it's technically possible to get OS/X to run on certain PC hardware that is sufficiently close to what Apple has, but there is no point in doing it.

[Andy Hall]

Thus making the problem go away.

[dennis]

Cost is only an issue if you can't justify it.

I first used a SSD in the eighties, they were ludicrous expensive, used battery backed up DRAM as flash wasn't about much, had SCSI interfaces, full height 5.25" form factor and were about 10 megabytes.

They were quick though.

It was being evaluated as a replacement for the even more exotic bubble memory memory cards we were making. The bubble memories were proving a wee bit unreliable, turns out the sense amps were leaking charge into the substrate.. the result was it stopped working, you returned it for repair and it passed all tests, you sent it back and it would work for a few weeks.. a real nightmare of a fault to find. Once you have tracked that down or the ground bounce in a well used Intel chip you know what fault finding is ( you try phoning Intel up and tell them they have buggered up their design! They did finally admit it and swapped out all the affected systems at a cost of about £1M.

[Rod]

Cost is an issue. At current pricing levels, the alternatives seem very appealing. You could well be able to justify a million *if nothing cheaper is available* - but if the same or equivalent effect can be achieved for, say, thousands, well, I think many people would use an alternative.

But your claim that solid state storage is not big enough has, I believe, fallen.

[dennis]

Its not interesting at all other than the fact that you like to lie about these things. If you want it on a macbook 2.1G core due, 13.3 screen, 2G RAM it costs about £864 and iWork is an addition £55 not free.

Now for an additional £50 or so you can get a nice Tosh, 17" screen, 4G RAM,

500G disk, and some decent graphics.

Or you could buy a £299 laptop and save the £500 extra the macbook costs for nothing extra that the average user needs.

The discussion was about how time machine is not a complete backup solution as you claimed.

The enclosures I have seen offer next to no protection. Don't buy an enclosure and put a drive in and use it for something important, buy a ruggedized drive that may actually have been tested.

8<

By understanding what the problems are and deciding which method he wants to solve them. Its no good imposing a backup mechanism on a user as they wont do it.

[Andy Hall]

MacBook Air being an obvious example.

For some users a very effective profile.