Another exciting edition of..."Ask Biddle!"

In this episode: "Drives: More Than Just Storage".

"Professor Biddle, why do you have so many 250GB drives when you could just use a big ol' 2TB drive?"
Well, I do have a "big ol' 2TB drive", but that is for archive storage. I spin the drive twice a week (as in plug it into my computer and let it run, or "spin") for an hour to keep it moving and happy. Drives that sit too long might never spin again. My smaller drives are for current projects and "associated files". Associated files means I do NOT store the sound files that come with Sound Track, the templates that come with Motion, the media that comes with Photoshop, etc. on my main drive: that's a foolish use for your main drive. I keep the main operating drive on my computers (Mac, PC, laptop, and desktop) as tight and file free as possible. It needs room to breathe. So, keep a drive for associated files.

"I just bought FCP 7, CS4, and Avid 3.6! I can run them at home, but not at UGA!"
So, why haven't you created an operating drive?

"Huh!!??!!!??"
If you own a MAC and you have not explored many of the advanced features of your machine, you're wasting 90% of what you (or your parents) paid for. If you paid $3500 - $5000 just for faster Twitter and Facebook access, ppppllllllleeeeassssseeeee keep reading...

For MANY years now (I can't count that high anymore), I've had a portable drive (it's one of the 250Gb G-Raid drives now) that houses a copy of my MAC operating system and applications. Remember, when you install an operating system (OSX, snow leopard, ocelot, whatever) or an application (FCP, Photoshop, Avid, etc.) it has to live on a drive, yes? Well, instead of praying that I get a MAC with the proper operating system and application, I take mine with me on a small, high-speed drive. Then, by pushing a button on MAC start-up, I can use my portable drive with it's operating system and applications. The MAC simply provides the RAM, the processing, the keyboard & mouse, and the screen(s). It's also a great way to simply reformat your MAC if it goes kah-blooey. Just a simple disk image from your portable "Ops-Drive" and there ya go.

So, do some research on what else you can do with drives instead of just "store stuff".