You get home from the computer store, hastily open the box and plastic and endless twistie-ties, and turn on your new computer! Now what?

Well, for me this is a BIG process. I have the Adobe Suite to install, Final Cut Studio, Cinema 4D, and countless other small applications to set up along with updates galore for all! But I get all this done in around 3 hours or less. How do I do it?

The answer is kinda simple and right to the point: an external hard drive.

You may be thinking now about Time Machine or Carbon Copy or some other backup system, but I’m not talking about this at all. Ok, maybe for my user folders and iTunes library and preferences (what DropBox and MobileMe don’t sync) I use Time Machine, but I’m talking about something even bigger! I’m talking about all my applications!

I keep a 500GB hard drive with all my CDs and DVDs as digital images. These are a combination of DMGs, .toast images and .iso images. So the logic behind this crazy theory is just this: I hate optical drives cause they are slow and the media is prone to scratches. So let’s convert them all to images and store them on an external HD.

As a result, the difference in install time from a FireWire 800 connection compared to a CD/DVD drive connection is SEVERAL hours, if not days, when the transfer load is about 200GB.

Details:

• Made DVD/CD images with Roxio Toast
• They mount with Disk Image Mounter if Toast isn’t installed
• I also install Windows 7 on another partition and use the same process to install everything
• On another note, I also partition part of my HD right off with a backup of the operating install disk.