Partitioning: Pro's & Con's

Partitions: Yes, No, How?

  • 1 large "main" + 1 small "service"

  • No partitions

  • Other

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Dr. G

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I just got a new iMac, with a 60GB HD. I’m new to OS X. For the past 25 years, I’ve always partitioned my drives into 2 volumes, a large (main) one, containing everything; and a much smaller bootable "service" partition, containing, in addition to a small OS installation, all my repair utilities, plus net access, with e-mail and browser. My reason: it’s easier to do disk maintenance and repair from this service partition than it is to hunt for my often-misplaced original repair utility disks, which I don’t take on trips in any case. The net access has come in handy when I’ve needed some advice about a problem (like from this forum), or to DL software in an emergency (that’s how I got Disk Warrior, which saved me when I needed it).

My intention is to do the same thing now, and put both OS 9 and OS 10 on both partitions, but, with OS 10, I don’t know how big to make the "service" partition (I also don’t know whether OS 10 programs tend to be larger or smaller than their OS 9 counterparts). I don’t want to lop off more than I really need, because even though 60GB seems huge to me right now, my experience over the years has been that you end up never having enough HD space or RAM.

On the other hand, from what I’ve seen on this and other forums, apparently experienced people generally seem to feel that partitioning is unnecessary, except perhaps for some specialized graphics uses.

Any thoughts/ideas would be welcomed.
 
I haven't partitioned any of my Mac OS X systems. I don't think it was designed to run this way.

Apple has created this OS for the average user, not the linux/unix geek, so they want to make it as mac like as possible, and that means one partition.

Mac OS X is designed to work best with one partition. For example, all apps should go in Applications, user folders under Users. If you partition, then you are putting things "out of place" which may cause problems for things like installers and updaters.

I'm sure some will disagree with me, but I think it's best to just use one huge partition to keep everything the way Apple intended it to be and so you can get the best user experience possible.
 
I run 3 partitions.
1. My OS X part, with only OS X apps and system This got 15Gb on my iMac and 10 on my PowerMac
2. My OS 9 part with OS 9 and all its apps, nothing else. This got 5Gb on the iMac and 10Gb on the PowerMac
3. My directory for everything else. All pictures, movies, flashes, app-installers and mp3s go here. This got 40Gb on the iMac and 20Gb on the PowerMac
 
Of course this all relies on the size of your harddisk and on whether you have a second. On my PowerBook G4 I have a 20G harddrive that I have split in 3: Mac OS X (8G), Mac OS 9 (2G), Apps/Data (10G). This allows me to completely clean & reinstall the OSs from time to time. I can also backup the whole Apps/Data partition to my Firewire 40G harddrive via the console application 'ditto'. (Type 'man ditto' in your Terminal. You can 'ditto -rsrc /Volumes/volumename /Volumes/backupvolumename/backupfolder'. Of course this takes a while and your harddrives are quite busy while at it, but you can still browse the web, read mail or work in Photoshop without any problems.) This reminds me that I should backup again. :)
 
When I had the original 6G hard drive in my slot-loading iMac, I had 2 partitions. I replaced it with a 40G Maxtor hd, and split that one into 6 partitions.
But then I'm an obsessive-compulsive personality type. ;)
 
I have 4 partitions:

1. Mac OS X (small)

2. Mac OS 9 (small)

3. VPC Partition (small)

4. Software and Data (ultra-huge)

;)
 
Partitioning has its benefits.

If you have both OS 9 and OS X on one partition, you can't use the Startup Manager (hold option after restarting your computer) to select between the two OSes.

Plus, as many people have pointed out already, it allows you to do repairs and reinstall your OS without having to do a full backup. This is ideal, because I really hate having to backup my whole hard drive.

With that said, this is what I do: I have a 20 GB hard drive, and I've partitioned it into a 17.5 gig and a 2.5 gig hard drive. OS X is installed on my 17.5 gig partition, along with all my apps and documents and movies and pictures and such. On the 2.5 gig partition, I simply have OS 9.2.2 and TechTool 3.0.6 installed. This system also functions as my Classic Environment for that occassional Classic application I need to use (RESEDIT hint hint kilowatt :p).

The reason I don't install X on the second smaller partition (even though I'm sure it would be large enough -- OS X only requires 1.5 gigs) is because most disk utilities are not OS X native. Yes, Drive 10 is already out and Norton Utilities 7 built for OS X is almost done, but the tools that I have only runs in 9.

This, of course, will no doubt change in a few months, but 2.5-3 gigs should still be enough to hold an OS X AND an OS 9 installation together, as long as you keep all of your Classic apps and stuff on your main partition. Currently, my whole OS 9 installation (which includes all the apps and stuff) only takes up 400 MB, and my OS X's Library and System folders (this doesn't include the default applications that are installed) take up about 1440 MB. So you can see that 2.5 GB still gives you plenty of room for all of your diagnostic applications. Of course, since you have a 60 GB hard drive, you might want to make 3 partitions... two 28.5 GB partitions and one 2.5 gig partition, just so that when you want to backup/erase one partition, you have a much easier time because you can backup simply by copying to the other large partition.

The only disadvantage that I've found to having partitions is that you must copy files between the partitions instead of moving them. However, there's a little secret in OS X that I should tell you about. :) If you want to simply move files across partitions in OS X, hold the command key while dragging the file to the other partition. This will basically copy the files to the other partition and then delete it from the original partition. Handy, and it's quite a bit faster.

I hope this helps.
 
Well, simx said it all. Despite that fact I'll give my $0.02 anyway.

Partitions are nice because if something goes wrong it might be limited to just that partition. Also, you can run disk utilities on a partition by parition basis.

The bummer is that when a parition runs out of space you're sad. If you have a single huge partition then you won't run out until the entire drive is full.

Also, it you have more than one drive it's nice to put things that might be accessed at the same time on different drives. That way, you can double the throughput (sort of) of your drives.
 
I have been advised to partition my hard drive into a scratch disk and system disk to avoid system corruption. I think that would be fine except the thing I spend most time installing and removing are Applications, which as test user pointed out, don't move easily. The other think I might think about moving is my documents folder which is in users and is the same deal.

There is one reason I see partitioning being helpful to me and that is storing the 3d rendering clips that I make. They are quite huge and I'm constantly moving them around. But I only have a 6 gig internal hard drive (because Apple bought out the company that made my 30gig external drive and won't update drivers grr!!!!) so I just keep one partition and hope that it or I don't crash it.
 
I've got my 20 GB OS X drive divided into 3 partitions. Both the OS 9 and OS X systems are installed on their own partitions, and I have devoted a third partition to documents and classic applications (OS X native apps work better if installed on the same partition as OS X). The benefits of my set up are that I can entirely reformat and reinstall either OS 9 or OS X without disturbing my documents. Furthermore, since my entire home directory is on a separate partition from the OS X system, I can format and reinstall OS X without losing my preferences. I also have a second 10 GB HD that I use for backing up important data and software installers. The partitions on the 20 GB HD are as follows:

1. 1.5 GB for OS 9.2. This contains a full install of OS 9, with utilities, but no applications or documents.

2. 4.0 GB for OS X. A full install of OS X, including native OS X applications. No documents on this partition.

3. 13.7 GB for applications and documents. OS 9 (classic) applications are on this partition, as well as documents. I moved my OS X home directory to this partition and keep all of my documents within it, even docs from OS 9. This makes backing up the home directory extremely easy, and I can also reformat my OS X drive without disturbing my home directory and it's all important preference files.

To move one's home directory, follow these easy steps (I don't remember where I found this info, so unfortunately I cannot give credit where it is due. Suffice to say I did not think of this myself):

Moving your home directory to a separate parition can be very beneficial: if you ever need to reinstall OS X, you can simply format the OS X partition, reinstall OS X, and be up and running in less than an hour without having to spend time backing up your personal files. This entire task can be done with a few commands in the Terminal, and that is easier than explaining how to do more tasks in the Finder and NetInfo Manager. Type the following into the Terminal, substituting your username for "username" and the name of the other partition for "OtherPartition":

sudo ditto -rsrc /Users /Volumes/OtherPartition/Users

(the next two lines should both go on one line)
sudo niutil -createprop / /users/username home /Volumes/OtherPartition/Users/username

sudo rm -dr /Users
sudo ln -s /Volumes/OtherPartition/Users /Users

Don't use the rm -dr command on the Users directory until you're sure the new one is working OK. You may want to log out/back in to check this.
Click to expand...
 
I have/had only one partition on all the Macs that I have/had since Mac OS X. I agree that Mac OS X isn't built for multi-partition system as all you have to follow is just put all the files into different related folders. On the other hand, I would prefer to have a ext. hard disk for storing documents that not be used for daily like movie trailers, software installers, and works (completed jobs)... And just left all daily use files store in one harddisk partition.

;) please also read my PowerBook 667 vs 550 thread... i need some helps on choosing the right machine.
 
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