New Macbook Pro user - what do to with my existing Windows PC

charltonfan1

charltonfan1

charltonfan1

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rMBP just purchased and getting used to it as it is my first Mac

My windows PC will now become a little redundant but given my macbook only has 128GB of space im guessing i can utilise my PC for media storage and Time Machine backups.

How do you suggest i get the best out of this config?

The PC is hardwired to the router which is 802.11n speed

thanks
 
this maybe more suited to the Apple Software forum

My itunes library is on my PC. Shall i create a HFS+ partition and move it to that and then sync back to it rather than creating a new library on my macbook?
 
Shove it behind the TV as a media centre / home server type thing, use the monitor as an external display for your laptop.
 
charltonfan1 said:
While i realise thats the simplest solution i need to keep the PC for the days i work from home (24" monitor rather than 13" etc) so want to get some use out of it
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You know you can use the monitor on your rMBP right (assuming your PC isn't an all-in-one jobby)? you'll most likely need an adapter but that's fine
 
charltonfan1 said:
While i realise thats the simplest solution i need to keep the PC for the days i work from home (24" monitor rather than 13" etc) so want to get some use out of it
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What do you need it for? As cokecan said, you can connect your laptop to the monitor. If it's literally just for that reason, you could sell or repurpose the machine as a server. Personally would sell then buy an external hard drive or a NAS.
 
MagicBoy said:
Not for Time Machine. It requires an AFP share, or an Apple HFS+ formatted drive. Windows NTFS/FAT and SMB won't work.

I'd just buy an external USB drive or two.
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From reading online can I not use Paragon to format a partition as HFS+ that the mac can write to?


Thanks for all the suggestions.
 
charltonfan1 said:
From reading online can I not use Paragon to format a partition as HFS+ that the mac can write to?


Thanks for all the suggestions.
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The file system isn't the problem, as TM uses sparse bundles (a variable size disk image split into 8MiB files) when backing up to network drives as a solution to the file system problem.

The issue is that TM requires an AFP network share as the target. You could provide this by using Netatalk, however this would require Linux (you could create a VM just for this as a last resort). Works well though.
 
lamboman said:
The file system isn't the problem, as TM uses sparse bundles (a variable size disk image split into 8MiB files) when backing up to network drives as a solution to the file system problem.

The issue is that TM requires an AFP network share as the target. You could provide this by using Netatalk, however this would require Linux (you could create a VM just for this as a last resort). Works well though.
Click to expand...

I've always had issues with the sparse bundles throwing inconsistency errors after a few weeks. At which point Time Machine locks the image and refuses to back up to it any longer, the only option being to nuke it and make a new image ... taking your backup history with it.

Worked OK to another Mac, had issues with FreeNAS, linux and a NetGear NAS box. USB just works, so I'm back on that now.
 
MagicBoy said:
I've always had issues with the sparse bundles throwing inconsistency errors after a few weeks. At which point Time Machine locks the image and refuses to back up to it any longer, the only option being to nuke it and make a new image ... taking your backup history with it.

Worked OK to another Mac, had issues with FreeNAS, linux and a NetGear NAS box. USB just works, so I'm back on that now.
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Come to think of it, I did have significant issues with my old AirPort Extreme with a USB drive attached. Mac mini running without Server.app also had problems, yet running with Server.app was fine. So far have only run my OpenMediaVault server as a target machine for a few days, however by this time I'd usually have had issues crop up with the Mac mini. I guess I'll report back if I do end up with any problems.

This said, as myself and others said above, an external USB drive would still be my personal choice purely because it's almost guaranteed to work.
 
lamboman said:
The issue is that TM requires an AFP network share as the target. You could provide this by using Netatalk, however this would require Linux (you could create a VM just for this as a last resort). Works well though.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what i do on my linux based server and it works perfectly and at a fraction of the cost of a Time Capsule. :cool:

(around 1.5 years and no issues with it)
 
Well guess what; the Time Machine backups failed. I try to like TM but the fact is it's complete junk.

On to Crashplan on all my systems I guess.
 
I support apple products every day and a very dap hand at linux, but there are the very odd moments where you need a windows machine simple due to the large amount of software and flexibility of it.

I have an i5 windows laptop which I brought about 4 years ago and it still has the plastics on it but it's a life saver at times. Last time I used it was to debug a 64gb usb pen that stopped working and the time before that was to mess around with the book format of an ISO.

Yeah you can run windows in boot camp or vm, but why bother dirty up your mac when you already have a system to do the job.
 
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