Zeno's Paradox
July 31, 2003 - Another Reason to Love Macs

I just received a PowerMac G4 yesterday. While moving files and programs over from my PowerBook, I discovered a really cool thing -- Firewire target disk mode.

If you're from a predominately PC world, target disk mode is something you would have never thought of using in a thousand years. Simply put, it allows you to turn off one computer, hook it to another using a Firewire cable, and boot the computer not into an operating system, but into a Firewire-disk state which allows you to access the disk of the target computer as if it were a simple Firewire disk. You can then copy files and such over the speedy Firewire link. The closest thing that you can do under Windows or Linux is to boot both machines, connect them via Ethernet, futz with network servers and shares, and mount the shares, and transfer files over the much slower Ethernet link.

Here's how to setup target disk mode. In this explanation, assume that I'm copying files from a TiBook to a desktop.

1. Unplug all Firewire peripherals from the desktop.

2. Shutdown the TiBook and connect the TiBook to the desktop with a standard six-pin Firewire cable.

3. Boot up the TiBook, holding down the 'T' key as the machine boots. Watch as a Firewire logo appears on the main screen, and the desktop mounts the "drive" on your Mac.

4. Copy files.

5. Unmount the "drive" and shut off the TiBook.

This is probably around four times faster than 100-BaseT Ethernet and hundreds of times faster than AirPort. I used it this morning to copy over the DV clips from my laptop and had no problems in the process. It's attention to details like these that make Macs worth owning.

Posted by br284 at 10:00 AM

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