[JaneC]

Hi. What actually the role of external HD? should i get one?
My imac with 48GB free and 800MHZ and 384RAM.
When ever I use itune together with my other applications like illustrator9/photoshop6 or even freehand the song/music played out will suddenly stop for 1 to 2 secs and then continue. How to prevent it? Is the HD not enough or the RAM not enough?
And should I get a external HD and store all my itune music/song files and others file on it. And my original iMAC HD use it for application processing/reading only?
What/how to set up if I want to attach a external HD?
Greatly appreciate anyone can help and guide me.

[Grant_G]

Hi again Jane,
More RAM certainly wouldn't hurt. 384 is marginal these days, even in OS 9, definitely a hindrance in OS X. Which version of iTunes are you using, i.e., the OS 9 version? If so you can increase its RAM allocation in its Get Info window (just increase the "preferred" amount by 10 MB or so). It might help. If you're using the OS X version then you can't do anything about RAM allocation except add more.
You're in no hurry to replace your hard drive when you still have 48 GB free on the current one, but an external for backups (as we discussed elsewhere) is nice.
G

[MacMan3]

remember ....
Hard Drive = Storage
RAM = Memory
Getting a bit more memory should do the job !
What you are saying to do is what I have done .... Although my PowerMac has an 80 GB HD, I went out and bought an external 200 GB HD to store all my iTunes music. Although 200 GB is ALOT of storage space, you probably don`t need anything near that ! I am currently ripping my 2000-3000 cd collection onto it.

[JaneC]

Wow that's very BIG HD you got MacMan3.
Ya. I am thinking of doing somethings like yours, to keep all songs in an external HD and I can put in lots of it and then I can play it on my Imac itunes3 with great speaker and long lists of songs from there. It going to be a great collection of songs. haha.
If so, I have to get a external HD for that right?

[Seele]

Jane,
For what it's worth, I have a suspicion that you have not partitioned your hard drive, in addition to having Virtual Memory turned on.
When you are using your computer, files are read from and written on the hard drive. If you have created a folder for your music, and keep adding and deleting files, the actual data of the music will spread all over the hard drive area, so the head of the hard drive has to run all over the place looking for the next couple of bars.
I am a committed partitioner, and will indeed be inclined to create a partition in the hard drive for sound files only; nothing else. But if you prefer to play music as you work with Illustrator etc., the hard drive head still has to read the sound files from that partition, and at the same time read and write on your other partition as you do your work, and that is the reason why I also advocate multiple drives. As your computer runs on the MacOS and applications on one hard drive, another drive can concentrate on spinning your tunes.
This might be a little too pedantic for most, there are countless who are living happily with just a single drive. It comes down to how mission-critical your Mac is to you; mine is, so every one of my G3 Macs has three internal drives, appropriately partitioned as well for different purposes.
If I were you, I would keep a lookout for good bargain deals on RAM; it allows you to do more work simutaneously with Virtual Memory off, which speeds things up quite a lot too. And if you are comfortable with some do-it-yourself assembly work, you can get a good FireWire external enclosure for 3.5" hard drives for a moderate sum, and then bolt in a spacious hard drive, when the need arises.

[Azzgunther]

Part of that lag might be your hard drive spinning up after being off.
Go into the Apple Menu in upper left, System Preferences, Energy Saver, and turn off the "spin down hard drive when not in use" option. This might help you.

[JaneC]

/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gifWow... thanks for your reply, sorry I don't quite understand. Its seem the Mac is too deep for me to understand what is 'read from here, write from there,partition HD' and also why the Virtual memory can't turn on? Some game require to turn it on. What is the purpose on Virtual memory? /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
"And if you are comfortable with some do-it-yourself assembly work, you can get a good FireWire external enclosure for 3.5" hard drives for a moderate sum, and then bolt in a spacious hard drive, when the need arises. "
??? 3.5" HD?? /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[Seele]

Jane,
A "Volume" is an independent storage unit; when you put a disc of some sort into the machine its icon appears on the desktop, so it is recognised by the MacOS, so we say this volume is "mounted".
A CD can be a volume, so can a Zip disc, floppy disc, hard drive, etc. However, we can have a hard drive divided in such a way that the MacOS considers it as more than one volume; this is what we call "partitioning". Say, when you have your Mac started up, you can have two hard drive icons mounted but they both live in the same physical hard drive itself. For me, this G3 tower has three physical hard drives but I have partitioned them in such a way that the MacOS considers them as nine volumes.
By default, Virtual Memory is turned on, and it works like this: when the Mac starts up, it allocates a certain portion of a nominated volume as virtual memory, that is, instead of just reading from and writing to the RAM, it also reads from and writes to that chunk of hard drive space as well. Since it involves physical disc access, performace with many applications with virtual memory switched on is often slower than having it disabled altogether, as long as you have enough real RAM for it to work that is. For many high end applications such as Final Cut Pro it is necessary to have heaps of real RAM and with virtual memory off.

[Grant_G]

Seele,
While I agree with most of what you're saying, and your reasons, you're generally referring to running OS 9 or earlier. Jane C is running X 10.1.2 and will soon be upgrading to 10.1.5 so she can install QT 6. This is in another of Jane's threads. As far as I've been able to determine in our posts back and forth, she uses OS 9 only in Classic mode.
Your virtual memory comments therefore are confusing her, since they don't apply to OS X which uses its own system of memory management. Her best bet for now is to add more RAM to her Mac and get an external hard drive both for music storage and backups. She can learn about partitioning and the like as she becomes more comfortable using her Mac.
G

[Seele]

Grant,
Excellent point indeed; somehow it is not easy for me to talk the same language!
One thing for certain, it is a good idea to get as much RAM into the box as possible, running Classic applications under OS9.2.2 under OSX takes up a lot of RAM.
I started stuffing around with computers back in 1980 with a custom-built Z80 machine and an ICL mainframe, after a succession of platforms, I struggled with Windows for years without getting anywhere, then I got a Mac; two weeks later I figured out everything... even for a muddle-headed klutz like me! Jane is definitely on the right track with help from the Mac fellowship; I feel sure she'll be a whizz in no time at all!

[JaneC]

greatly appreciated for your replies to me. A new mac user like me ready need all experienced Mac user guide and help me along my way to built up more interest and exploring my imac.

First I have to update my OSX to .1.5 and upgrade my RAM to 640RAM. If able to shell out $ try get another external HD. And ofcause, many questions will arise after I update to OSX.1.5 (hope every things goes smoothly, i read alots replies from people said problem occurs when updating of OS.)
Basically, I use OS9 more that OSX(but i ready like the OSX platform) because as a new mac user, I need to know how Mac function and where does all files, folder located at. wherelse in OSX system, I can't get full details to understand Mac.
Sooner or later I will partition my imac, by then lots of questions need your full support to me.

[Azzgunther]

Yeah, forget about partitioning for now. That's like trying to do the breaststroke before you've learned to swim
I would recommend using OSX primarily. If I understand, you're only using OS9 because you're familiar with it? If that's the only reason, then I really think you should just learn OSX now and forget that OS9 ever existed.
Here's a basic outline of the important parts of OSX:
1.) Desktop - Starting point and where you store main folders and temporary files.
2.) Hard Drive Icon - On your desktop you see a hard drive icon. That's your broadest access point into the contents of the computer. You can always use this to get in and find certain folders and applications.
2.1) Hard Drive -->Applications Folder - Here's where you keep all your programs at. If you look around, you'll notice that no personal files are here. Only programs.
2.2) Hard Drive -->Users Folder - Here's where your files are kept. If you click on the users folder you'll see a list of all the users that have accounts on your computer. Maybe right now you're the only one, but later you might make an account for a spouse. Click on YOUR user folder and now you'll see where all of your personal files are. This is where your movies, songs, games, documents, and everything else is base from, and where you should save things to from now on.
I hope this very basic outline helps you want to use OSX more exclusively, because I believe that if you do life will be much easier

[JaneC]

Thanks Assgunther for your guide. OK. I try to get use OSX platform and 'kick' away the OS9. Hope everything work well and sweet.
Few questions abt OS9 and OSX
(1) In OS9/OSX when ever I install new software or game it will straight away ask to install on Mac Hard Drive. How to choose to install in 'Users folder'?
(2) From what your reply to me, now I knew that all my personal files/folder/game has been install in wrong area (should be as what you said in my 'users folder') so how to move it?
(3) I am thinking of reformat my OS9 & OSX (i have the disk with me)fully clear it and from there I try to maintane and start all over to learn the correct way to work with Mac machine. Do you think I should do that?
(4) And my imac has a few applications software was preinstalled by my reseller, so I don't have the installation disk with me. But I knew from my friends that for application software that used for Mac, I don't need to have the installation disk or even the installation password, I just need to copy my current application folder to a disk and then after I formatted my OS I just need to move all the folder into my Mac HD and this will work and my application can be use as usual. Is this true?
Whoops! again so many questions. haha. Please don't ignore me I appreciate your reply .

[Azzgunther]

Never been called Assgunther by anybody who wasn't mad at me
1.) Like I posted, think of your Hard Drive is the soil. From there there are two "trees" that grow from it that you need to pay attention to: Tree 1 is the Applications folder and Tree 2 is the Users folder. Therefore, when installing programs in OS9/OSX feel free to install onto the hard drive -->applications folder.
2.) Just drag any of your movies into the "movies" folder, music into "music" etc...
Remember, games can be installed into the Applications folder along with your programs. They're not personal files, they are applications. I made a folder called "Games" in my "Applications" folder into which I install all games. The installers that come with programs give you an option to choose where you want to install to.
3.) Yes, but only if you accept that everything that's on the hard drive that you'll reformat will be lost. You'll have to back anything up that you want to retain.
4.) For some applications, you can simply drag them to another folder and they'll still work. Others won't because you'll lose registration information. If you still have that information I'd say that you can drag the applications over, re-register the programs that might need (shouldn't be many) and they'll work fine.
Happy to help