# HOT: change partition sizes without erasing disc



## Zammy-Sam (May 26, 2004)

VolumeWorks 1.0 has been released and it's supposed to do what PartitionMagic did in the pc-world. For those ppl who are not familiar with the functionality of PartitionMagic:
You can add, delete partitions without deleting any Data from your disc or formating the disc. You can even increase or decrease the size of certain partitions.
SubRosaSoft developed a similar tool.
Check out here

This is fantastic. Someone gotta try this. I have too many important data to risc checking this tool.. Anyone else?


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## bobw (May 26, 2004)

If they had a Demo, which they don't, I'd try it on one of my drives.

Send me $49.95 and I'll let you know how it works.


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## Zammy-Sam (May 26, 2004)

I wonder if it makes sense to get a demo for this.
Everyone will partition the system the one and only time and skip to buy it..


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## bobw (May 26, 2004)

They could have a Demo that will only partition once so you can see how well it works. I wouldn't use it on my main drive unless I knew for sure it worked ok.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (May 26, 2004)

Or, it could limit the size or number of partitions allowed during the demo.


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## bobw (May 26, 2004)

That's what I mean, just allow one use.


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## Randman (May 26, 2004)

Bah! No sense partitioning for the vast majority of Mac users.


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## bobw (May 26, 2004)

True, but nice to have that option.


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## Zammy-Sam (May 26, 2004)

Most of the macs are not paritioned but preinstalled by default. Supposed one doesn't want to reinstall, it would be great to add another partition just like that. Having at least 2 partitions is very important, if you ask me. But true, I see no point in paying $50 for something I will actually do just once if at all. 
However, I remember a lot of ppl previously asking for such a tool. Now, here it is


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## sjb2016 (May 26, 2004)

Not having an actual income limits my purchasing power, but if I did have $50 I'd pick this up (assuming it works).  I'm a Linux dabbler, but most of the time I stick with good ole OS X.  However, it'd be great to create and blow away partitions on a whim.  As it stands now I need to back up everything, reformat, and then reinstall everything if I get the Linux using bug.  I'll probably buy this when I can afford it.


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## dlloyd (May 26, 2004)

I always wonder, what's the point of partitions? A folder does the same thing and you don't have to reformat the computer to make it...


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## btoneill (May 26, 2004)

The point of partitions is very big. If you want two versions of OS X on the same box, you want them on different partitions. If you use your drive as a file server on your local network, you want the directories that are shared to be on a seperate partition so that a user can't fill up the entire disk with the OS image on it, which can cause issues with the OS running. You may want to keep your /Users folder on a seperate partition, so that when you upgrade the OS, or reinstall the OS, you don't have to worry about bad things happening to your data on it. I can go on and on on reasons why you might want more then one partition.

Brian


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## Randman (May 26, 2004)

And all of those reasons are things the majority of Macs users aren't going to do/need. 
  That said, I hope this software does as it advertises, so PC people can have one more reason to feel better about using Macs.


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## Zammy-Sam (May 26, 2004)

Hehe, good point, Randman


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## dlloyd (May 26, 2004)

Yes, all things that 'most' people don't need .
But I was under the impression that just because you had a drive partitioned didn't mean that changes on one partition kept the other partitions safe...


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## Randman (May 26, 2004)

> I was under the impression that just because you had a drive partitioned didn't mean that changes on one partition kept the other partitions safe...


 Not from a hard drive issue.


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## dlloyd (May 26, 2004)

Exactly


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## fryke (May 26, 2004)

In the 'old' days of Mac OS 9, I was a fan of partitions, because OS 9 didn't care much where you had your apps, documents etc. Mac OS X, however, is different in many aspects. One of those is that if the system's partition is getting low on disk space, the whole machine turns very, very slow. So you'll want as much free space on that partition as possible. Now, what would you use a second partition for? Just a copy of your OS X installation? That'd mean cutting your drive in half. Just to try out beta builds? I recommend an external harddrive for that. An old one will do. Users' folders? You wouldn't want to run out of disk space there, either...

I found that partitions _always_ seemed to have just too little spare space, too. Ever since, I'm a one-partition man. ;-) ...

Yet: This tool would at least enable me to decide forth and back. Tiger betas? Okay, maybe I _do_ want a second partition for those, so I can also use them on the road without having the FW harddrive with me... And when it's stable enough, I have no more use for the second partition... Then I could remove it and reclaim the space for the main partition... Then again: I'd reformat the harddrive for a clean installation by then, anyway.


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## kanecorp (May 26, 2004)

the demo of partition magic lets u tell it what you want to do to your disks..but then when u say GO, it says..opps, you can't actually do anything in the demo.


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## scruffy (May 26, 2004)

Partitioning doesn't save you if there's a physical hard drive crash.  What it does is keep data that could grow to unpredictable sizes from eating up all your hard drive space, and interfering with the working of the OS or the ability of users to make use of the computer.

So, some typical uses of partitioning from the Linux side of things:

- memory swap space goes in a separate partition (you could even use multiple partitions, I think).  So, you can save all the files you want and you won't eat up the swap space your computer will need.  In OS X, swap files live on the regular file system, in /var/vm, so to isolate them you'd need to mount a separate partition at /var/vm.

- /var goes on a partition - /var holds all the stuff that could grow unpredictably; mail queues, log files, and such.  This prevents an attacker from completely filling of the hard drive by, for example, sending hundreds of mail messages with huge attachments, to unreachable addresses, so the computer can't get rid of them.

- /home goes on a partition - this is the equivalent of /Users in OS X.  This way, a user could download umpty gigs of mp3s, and not cause the OS itself to stop working properly.  Other users couldn't save files, but at least the OS would be functional enough that the culprit could log in and delete some mp3s.

- sometimes /tmp goes on a partition - /tmp is writable by everyone, so it makes sense to isolate it.


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## Zammy-Sam (May 27, 2004)

kanecorp said:
			
		

> the demo of partition magic lets u tell it what you want to do to your disks..but then when u say GO, it says..opps, you can't actually do anything in the demo.


And they really called it demo? I think screenshot would fit much better to this


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## Zammy-Sam (May 27, 2004)

The thing with the second partition is - as mentioned before - to have proper os installation which won't mix up when they are on the same partition. It's true an external disc would do much better, but if you already have a huge disc in your mac and don't want to spend another $200, I would rather partition the disc. Also when your system seems pretty much messed and not bootable; when you have 2 partitions and not even any second os installed, you can temporally install macosx on the second partition and check out what's wrong with your previous system (when you are not familiar with the single user commands).
However, in these days disc space seems not to be an issue. I have a 60gb disc in my tibook and I am not even using 40% of it.
Another thing I like to have to partitions: VPC. I dropped the VPC "disc" on my second partition to avoid any kind of messing with my system partition.
Last but not least: in the windows world it was very much recommended to have small partitions since the waste of space was bigger, the bigger the current partition was. I don't know if this one affects HFS as well


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## Randman (May 27, 2004)

Just use the iPod as an external, if you're going to have one already. I have my entire hard drive backed up to my iPod, along with freelance work I've done. I have a 40 and about half of it is filled with music, about 10 for my backups and 10 free.
  I also have a Maxtor external disc where I keep backups of my freelance work, all of it, my video stuff not yet burned to dvd and a copy of my entire music selection in case my iPod is ever lost or stolen (I prefer not to keep the music on the hard drive where it eats space).
  As Zammy said, with space these days, running out of space isn't usually a problem. 
   And finally, I have a backup of library and bookmarks on .Mac and a dvd backup of my hard drive that I keep at the office in case there's ever a fire or the Mac is lost/stolen.


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