[Editor's note: this was not written as an article, but as an E-mail addressed to the Journal's Review Editor. The Review Editor asked to reprint it as a Journal article.]
Allow me to preach to the Mac choir and also to some bystanders in the adjacent booth hearing me slurp my soup.
On Friday I performed a Mac server upgrade that went predictably, but is still remarkable when contrasted to the higher hurdles and significantly greater energy and time that a comparable Win server upgrade would have entailed.
Old server: Mac PowerPC 8150 601/110 128 MB RAM
New server: Mac G4/400 192 MB RAM
Here are the ten steps taken to set up the G4, to transfer needed data from the 8150, and to let the G4 be live and available on the network:
1) Removed G4's stock Apple 10 GB drive.
2) Installed Western Digital 45 GB EIDE drive as master, and booted from OS 8.6 CD.
3) Using Apple's Drive Setup, initialized and partitioned the 45 GB, then installed OS 8.6.
4) Shut down, installed a second 45 GB WD drive as slave.
5) Restarted from 45 GB's OS 8.6, initialized second 45 GB and partitioned it identically to #1 45 GB; then copied entirety of first 45 GB to second 45 GB as a preliminary backup.
6) Network capability was now active; accessing our support server, I installed Stuffit Deluxe 5.5, Speed Doubler 8.1.2, added Silverlining Pro 6.1 as a utility (not a CP), and installed Toast 3.5.7; (Without a separate support server, these four utility installations still would have been a breeze using their respective CD's.)
7) Installed the file sharing server software, "AppleShare IP" V.6.2 using the ASIP CD, & updated it to V.6.3.1.
8) Network copied 1 GB of campus graphics file data from 8150 to G4 & also grabbed the 8150's Users & Groups data files, placing them in the G4's Preferences; created a share point in the G4 for the 1 GB of campus data, using the same folder name as before. Because we had copied the 8150's little Users & Groups files and had chosen an identical folder name to share, all Users & Groups as configured previously were available exactly as we had evolved them during the prior 4 years.
9) Backed up everything again to the second 45 GB drive; this took under 30 seconds, because Speed Doubler's smart-copy was activated.
10) Shutdown the 8150 and sent an e-mail to all campus and dept. users who utilize this Mac server, announcing the new machine name, but reassuring them that their prior logins & passwords were still in place.
Elapsed time total: 55 minutes.
The 45 GB WD drives were $189 each via Ingram Micro.