The idea is to be able to sync, it's much faster than an ASR restore.
For example, once synced, a sync check on the 10.5.6 DVD takes about 20 seconds. MUCH faster than a restore. And I maintain 1/2 dozen copies of this drive. As for scripting, my restore is fully scripted. I attach both drives and double clicky and go eat lunch and it's done syncing all volumes when I get back. And I don't have to make images. BIG time saver.
No, having multiple drives is not as good of an option. I considered having a PPC and an intel drive at one point but less to carry in the bag and having 6 drives to manage rather than 12 is definitely worth a little research.
I wasn't able to boot off OS 9 when I tested the drive last night. I think it's time to retire the OS 9.2.1 CD and 9.2.2 installed system partitions, I'm running out of fight and don't feel like trying to figure out why it's not working this time. One of these days apple will pull boot-from-APS firmware support, but until then I'm going to keep a jack-of-all-trades drive.
What confuses me is why the 10.6.0 DVD can sync, but not a SL installation?
