Its smaller than an optical disc, more reliable, and runs faster.

But what do you do if you misplace the DVD, or it becomes unreadable, or worseyour SuperDrive isnt working Having a backup of your system installer disc could save your bacon.

Instead of simply copying the system installer to another disc, you can create a USB flash drive installer similar to the one provided with the latest MacBook Air.

Youll get an installer that wont scratch, is easier to transport, and considerably faster than an optical disc.

We found the install time decreased by 33 percent when using the flash drive method.

The process of creating a flash drive system installer is simple.

Youll need the original installation disc, a working DVD drive, and a flash drive with a minimum of 8GB of storage capacity for Snow Leopard (or 9GB if using Leopard, since it calculates file sizes differently).

Any data you have on the flash drive will be erased during the process, so back up anything on there thats important to you.

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Note that this article covers versions of Mac OS X Prior to Lion (Mac OS X 10.7).

We also have instructions for creating a Lion-installer drive.

In Disk Utility, highlight the flash drive (not the partition on the flash drive listed beneath it), and select the Partition tab on the right.

This lets the computer boot from the drive, so make sure thats what you pick.

We went with OS X Installer, since thats basically what it will be, and next to Format, pick Mac OS X Extended (Journaled).

Click Apply, select Partition from a drop down window, and wait for the formatting process to finish.

Highlight and drag the install DVD into the Source file path on the right.

Now, highlight the flash drive partition, underneath the name of the actual flash drive, and drag that to the Destination file path.

Just to make sure its bootable, eject the install disc, but leave the flash drive installer plugged in.

Restart your computer while holding down the Option button on your keyboard.

You should see two choices to boot from: the hard drive and the Mac OS X Install disc (the icon will be of a USB device).

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