External HDD Partitioning Help

[abhishek]

Hi All,

I've got a Seagate 250 GB exrternal USB2.0 HDD. I've searched out here in the forums for something specific to what I was looking for but couldnt find any that really helped me out. So here goes-

1. What would you guys recommend as a sensible file system for my partitions. I basically want to have 2 partitions - one for the MAC (this will have music, movies, files that i create using MAC apps I use regularly like Ableton, Reason, Logic etc.) and another for both OS X/Windows (for getting stuff off my PC friends like ton loads of movies, music etc.).

2. Also, what would you recommend as sizes for these 2 partitions? I was thinking of 200 for the MAC-only partition and 32 for the OS X/XP one. My 250 shows up as 232 in disk utility and that explains why only 32 for the 2nd partition. Kinda silly question following up ahead - I was thinking that this 2nd partition of mine is basically for transfer of files from the PC to this partition and then I can copy stuff from partition 2 to 1. Is this possible?! Or is it stupid ol' me just getting stupidder?!:o Or does it make more sense to divide to equal partitions, i.e 115-115 GB?

3. For the MAC only partition, should it be MAC OS Extended (journaled) or just Mac OS Extended?

4. In disk Utility-Partition-Options, what do I choose? GUID, Apple Partition or MBR?!

Hope my questions were clear. Really looking forward to hearing from you guys as I cant wait to get started with my ext HDD.

Regards,
Abhi

[yellow]

1. What would you guys recommend as a sensible file system for my partitions. I basically want to have 2 partitions - one for the MAC (this will have music, movies, files that i create using MAC apps I use regularly like Ableton, Reason, Logic etc.) and another for both OS X/Windows (for getting stuff off my PC friends like ton loads of movies, music etc.).

Well HFS+ for the Mac only partition, unless you ever need to use it on a PC, which means you need to make it FAT32 or buy MacDrive for your PC to read the HFS+ partition. Which also answers the question about the 2nd partition.

As for sizes, only you can really answer that one.

3. For the MAC only partition, should it be MAC OS Extended (journaled) or just Mac OS Extended?

Journaled

4. In disk Utility-Partition-Options, what do I choose? GUID, Apple Partition or MBR?!

Well, it depends on what you want to do with it. Each selection has a description of what it's purpose is.

Friendly FYI too.. Mac is an abbreviation of Macintosh, not an acronym, so "MAC" is incorrect.

[abhishek]

lol..danka yellow for the "friendly FYI":D

As for the partitioning goes, Im thinking of making it a 150/100 in favor of Mac. But then Ive heard stuff like FAT32 has problems with partitions > 30 GB or something of that sort. Any idea on that?

Also are you sure bout Journaled? Cos I thought Journalled was only if I wanted to use the HD as a bootable HD. If i wanted it only as a dump for files would I still need Journalled?

Also Im really confused about the Options for Partitioning. its chosen MBR as default. Should I just stick by that? Or now that you know what I intend on doing, would you be able to shed some light on what option I should use?

Thanks Yellow.

Regards,
Abhi

[yellow]

The 32GB partiton is an artificial limitation imposed by Microsoft to "encourage" users to migrate to NTFS. The only real limitation in it (off the top of my head) is that there is a max of 4GB per file.

I'm sure about journaled. It's very useful for file system recovery should the drive become corrupted.

More info on journaled filesystems: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107249

Again, the partition options have detailed information under them.. choose what is right for you. IMO the details are pretty straightforward and clear. If you're trying to make a drive that is FAT32 and compatible with Windows, then you have to choose MBR.

[abhishek]

Hmmmm...will I be able to move stuff from my FAT32 to HFS partition?

[yellow]

By drag & drop? As long as you're on the Mac, I don't see why not. If you're on the PC, then no, as the PC won't see/mount the HFS+ partition without using MacDrive.

[abhishek]

Thanks for all ur help Yellow...Partitioned it as follows -

132 GB HFS+ Partition
100 GB MS DOS FS Partition

Danks!!

Abhi