Hard drives and partitions

K

Kris

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It has occured to me that it would be better to have two partitions, one for OS X and one for OS 9, than just one for both. (Yeah.... maybe I should have thought about that before... :))

Anyway. How big should these partitions be if you have a 40GB hard drive?
Would this be ok?
2 GB OS 9
ca. 38 GB OS X (virtual memory and such may take some)


Anyone know why the hard drives in Apple's G4s aren't SCSI?


Kris
 
I've come to the conclution that the ultimate 40Gb drive would be 3 partitions.
OS9: 5Gb(that should give room for all your classic apps)
OSX: 15Gb(and that should make room for all your current and most of your future apps)

Now, you'll have a 3rd drive with 20Gb. That's where to save those pictures, movies, mp3s and such. Also, my 20 gigger holds the install-files for all my apps, but no actual apps.
 
I agree with voice. 5GB = OS 9, 15GB = OS X, 20GB = MP3s, photos, software updater files, miscellaneous stuff.

I've got a 10GB partitioned into 5/5GB, one for OS 9 and one for OS X. For a long time, I had plenty of room on both (about 3GB extra). Well, now, I've got 2.5GB available on the 9 drive, but only 1.5GB on the X drive... I'm going to swap out for a 20GB soon, and do a 5GB/15GB partition scheme. I didn't realize I'd fill up the X drive that quick!

Apple doesn't use SCSI anymore, probably because IDE hard drives are MUCH cheaper, and Apple knows that their machines are already "premium-priced," so that's one good way to lower the cost a bit. You can custom-build a G4 on the online Apple Store with SCSI hard drives, though.
 
I have a Maxtor 40-gig HD divided into 6 partitions, but I'm an obsessive-compulsive personality. ;)
You might want to consider setting aside a smallish partition to use as a dedicated swapfile partition. Or you might not...
 
I have three partitions on a 40G drive.
One for Classic of roughly 1G with almost nothing on it. As a matter of fact I have compressed the system and there is no possible boot in classic when I make some misteke of dble-clicking while in OSX.
One drive for a genuine OS9 and one for OSX (of equal size, i.e. 19.5 G).

Having a genuine OS9 is *really* useful. This afternoon I had to install something in the invisible usr/bin and usr/lib directories. While on OS9 I used the change visibility cmm and I did the whole transfer in seconds (instead of going through terminal and having to type obscure (to me) Unix commands).

Keep in mind that Classic is *not* a bona fide MacOS.

garfildo
 
For me and my 20 gig hard drive, 2 partitions is plentiful.

I just install OS 9 and some OS 9 disk utilities on a 2.5 gig partition (which is excessive even there – I have 2.1 gigs free), and everything else goes on my main 17.5 gig OS X partition. My home folder resides there too. :)

I find this is a pretty optimal setup, except that when I reformat again I will probably choose something like 1.5/18.5.
 
60 = 3x20
30 = 3x10
The 60 gig is: 20 for osx, 20 for os9 and 20 for storage
The 30 gig drive came out of my old beige g3 when retired, never bothered to reformat it, but will soon enough...for DV.
 
Thank you all for your replies! :)

I think 5 GB to OS 9 seems a bit much, but I get the point.

You place the whole OS X system on one partition, right? So you have your home dir at the OS X partition, but all the "heavy" files on the third partition. Correct?

- And the swap partition, does it really speed up OS X?


Kris
 
But why can't I put everything in the same partition?
I have everything in one partition, and works fine.
Though next time, (when installing everything again) I will put 2 partitions, for 2 systems. Just in case
But i think that one partition works just fine!
 
Yes, a dedicated swap file partition (or better yet, disk; still better, separate RAID) WILL speed up any UNIX-based OS. It doesn't need to be bigger than about 1 GB; OS X should have around 5 GB minimum, while OS 9 is perfectly happy with at least 2 GB. If you use Photoshop or any other applications which use their own swap disks, you might want to set aside yet another partition; this one need not be larger than 1 GB, either, with the exception of movie editing software like iMovie, Premiere, or the best in the biz, Final Cut Pro. In this case, all bets are off--talk to a specialist. By the way, I've been researching this a lot for my reformatting project: OS X only. What I've come up with so far is the following: one Sonnet Technologies TempoRAID 133 and four Maxtor UltraATA 133 drives: two as big as possible (but slower) and two as fast as possible (but smaller). Two RAIDS: the big one for OS X, applications, files, EVERYTHING; the little one a dedicated swap file RAID.
 
Charon: I have had my OS9 and OSX systems on the same partition, and you're right; it works fine. - Until you need to re-install one of the systems, or something like that. Then you have to do the whole process all over again, and it takes time...

chenly: does really OS9 need a swap partition? My OS9 is really speedy! :)


Kris
 
What the heck is swap?

I mean, if I use photoshop, should I put the program in different partition or what? I didn't get your point... Would it be much faster?

yikes!. I hope i don't have to reinstall the systems...but i better prepare for that... It happens - i know- sometimes...
 
I hope this helps: :)
Easily exlplained a swap file, or partition, is a part of your hard drive that is used as virtual memory. Your computer then thinks it has more RAM than it actually does. The last recent files in your RAM can be swappet to your hard drive until they are needed again, and new files can be swapped into your RAM.

This article at ResExellence offers a bit more information:
http://www.resexcellence.com/hack_html_01/06-01-01.shtml

And yeah. Sometimes you just need to re-install your system. I hardly used to do that with previous versions of Mac OS, but with OSX I'm always looking for a way to make things even a little bit better. :) And an OSX install is as easy as installing other versions of Mac OS (if not even simpler).


Kris
 
Ok.. Thanks Kris.

So if i put this swap on a different partition, the virtual memory should be quicker? I have noticed that when listening to music (iTunes) and then starting photoshop, the playback will break a couple of times.

Or if you haven't used your computer for a while and it just plays music and you switch to finder the playback starts breakin.
So putting the swap in to different partition, will this "music-breaking" stop? If so, nice to know! I better format this drive tomorrow (3 partitions), it if helps...
 
Charon: with a swap partition your computer will be faster, yes, as chenly said. And if you use heavy programs as Photoshop, a swap may be handy! :)
 
Right! It's easy to change the swap partition for applications like Photoshop and Final Cut Pro; it's right in with the rest of the preferences. UNIX is trickier, but you only have to do it once. Last month's MacAddict had a good set of instructions on how to tell OS X to use a different partition/disk/RAID for the swap files.
 
chenly: (thank you for your help so far, can you help some more? :)) I'm thinking of giving my OSX some GBs as swap (don't bother to give OS9 any). I was thinking about 2-3GB, but you said OSX should have at lest 5GB. My hard drive isn't that big, so I'm not prepared to use too much of it. Would that do?

I have heard that OS X actually makes itself a swap. I have also noticed that some of my HD space already is used as memory. How much RAM does OS X actually need? It looks like the programs uses tons of memory, but isn't the point with Carbon, at least with Cocoa, to make small programs (kinda like Java)?



Kris
 
How big is your hard disk?

The OS 9 partition probably won't grow much over its service life, while the OS X partition may triple in size. A standard OS X installation is, I believe, around 1.5 GB, but my OS X disk with lots of applications is around 7.5 GB, but I save EVERY installer I download, plus OS X archives the packages in /Library/Receipts.
 
My hard drive is 40GB. This is my plan so far:
OS9 - 4GB
OSX - 16 GB
other - 16 GB
swap (OSX) - 4 GB

Good idea, or bad idea? :)



Kris
 
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