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cb911

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 12, 2002
4,127
4
BrisVegas, Australia
i just got the latest Dr. Mac OS X tip. it said something about moving all the contents of the 'home' folder to another partition, to leave just OS X stuff on the one partition. that sounds like a good idea, having a system partition, and a 'other stuff' partition.

i was just wondering, if i have a partition are different partitions completely seperate from one another? example: can viruses skip over partitions?

and if i did want to setup a partition, that's all done through Disk Utitlty, right? can you setup a partition while you have files and stuff on your HD, or does it have to be done when you install OS X?
 

Ensign Paris

macrumors 68000
Nov 4, 2001
1,781
0
Europe
I am quite sure that you can't move your home folder, although there might be some kind of terminal thing, depending on how the viruses are written they can and most would do effect files on all of your partitions / hard drives.

To partition a drive you have to wipe the drive and partition while erasing. I so far haven't found a way of partitioning while files are on the machine.

I have an excellent guide about partitioning that is about 460k that I can mail you if you like.

Ensign
 

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Nipsy

macrumors 65816
Jan 19, 2002
1,009
0
Partitioning is an easy way to separate your docs & data from you OS & apps.

For the most part, chances of a virus hitting a second partition are greatly reduced, but the real key is that chances of you losing your data by accident, are almost eliminated.

Partitions are best made from the ground up, so you'll need to back up your data, and start from scratch. 10.2 installation would be a good time to do this.

Also, partitioning is a lot more complex now that we are UNIX users. You should read as much as you can and make WELL INFORMED decisions, before proceeding. Think through your scheme carefully!

I use a 60GB OSX partition, a 166GB data partition a 6 GB partition for maintenace (Spare X, 9, tools), and a 4GB SWAP partition. Before you do some addition and tell me that hard drives don't come that big, it is a 2x120GB ATA133 RAID.


I've been fairly happy with this layout for about 7 months.
 

Nipsy

macrumors 65816
Jan 19, 2002
1,009
0
Originally posted by Ensign Paris
I am quite sure that you can't move your home folder, although there might be some kind of terminal thing

If you move Home, you have to tell NetInfo where to look, but it is very do-able.

Hence all the people carrying their home directories on their iPods.
 

Ensign Paris

macrumors 68000
Nov 4, 2001
1,781
0
Europe
That would be cool, I might do that. Although I will have to no longer keep my music movies in my homes movie folder ;)

It reminds me of something we do at work with some of the OSX machines (we currently have 4 machines running OSX) who look to the central server for the usernames and home folders, should have thought of that :)

Ensign
 

cb911

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 12, 2002
4,127
4
BrisVegas, Australia
you don't actually move the 'home' folder, or delete it or anything. here's the original e-mail i got. this should explain it better:

Dr. Mac's OS X Tip-of-the-Day

August 06, 2002

Dr. Mac Agrees - Home is where you make it.

By Bob LeVitus

Today, I'm happy to announce, we have our first contest winner...

I can't stand that Apple has dictated that we should keep all our pictures,
movies, music, and documents in our "Home." Especially because I try to keep
my OS X partition free of anything else. I often find applications will not
only install into the OS X application folder, but they will also include
lots of user data in the documents folder (like Virtual PC with gigabyte
large drive images).

Also, the custom picture screensaver and iPhoto really like to use the home
folder too.

So, here's my solution (amazingly simple, but works great):

Copy the current home folders to another place on another partition, then
create aliases back to them on the OS X partition in the Home folder. Seems
to cause no conflicts, and my programs work great (and keep away from my OS
X system install!)

-Justin Grant Leader

I chose this tip because I agree completely. I like as much of "my" stuff on
another disk or volume (from the startup volume/disk).

I do it a bit differently (but obtain the same result). You see, I'm a
little leery of moving my Home directory to another volume. I know Justin
says it's OK and it worked for him, but I'm not as confident. So what I've
done instead is to create aliases for Documents, Pictures, Music, and such.
The real folders reside on my second disk; the aliases replace the empty
folders Apple installed in my Home directory.

This technique works beautifully and makes it easier to reinstall OS X.

Before I conclude I have a couple of tips about the contest that will
increase your chance of winning a book or t-shirt...

1. You MUST submit a tip. I received dozens of emails today that said
something like this:

I would like the shirt/I'll take a book.

Steve Dumass
1313 Mockingbird Lane
Munster, IN 13131

I'm sorry but no tip = no chance of winning.

2. You MUST include your shipping address and choice of prize (should you
win). Of the remaining emails I got today (the ones that included a tip), at
least half didn't include a shipping address.

AND THAT INCLUDES YOU, Mr. JUSTIN GRANT LEADER... I can't send you your
prize unless I know where to send it and which you'd prefer - t-shirt or
book...

3. Don't worry about your privacy. If you win, I will use your address to
label your prize, then delete it. in other words, your name, address, or
other info will not leave my Mac.

That's it for today. Let's see some great tips - I've got a lot of shirts
and books to give away!!!!

To discuss this tip (or anything you like) in Dr. Mac's OSXFAQ Forum, click
here:

http://forums.osxfaq.com/viewtopic.php?t=2196

Check Out The OS X News, Forums, Tutorials, Tips, Hints, Dr. Mac & FAQ's
http://www.OSXFAQ.com


so thats the whole thing.
Nipsy, what is the purpose of a SWAP partition?

i'll read up as much as i can about partitions and i'll probably do it as soon as i get 10.2. know any sites with good stuff about partitioning in OS X or with UNIX etc? anything special i should know?
 

mmmdreg

macrumors 65816
Apr 14, 2002
1,393
0
Sydney, Australia
I have my "Users" directory on its own partition which basically means all the users' home directories are there...kung-foo.tv/xtips.php or something tells you how to mount /Volumes/Users at /Users instead so the users folder remains at root level but as a partition. The method of using symbolic links is apparently unreliable and therefore should not be carried out although I saw Macworld doing that in a amagazine once...
 

Beej

macrumors 68020
Jan 6, 2002
2,139
0
I wish we had something like 'Partition Magic' for the Mac. It's a wintel app that lets you resize your partitions without having to wipe the drive.
 

Nipsy

macrumors 65816
Jan 19, 2002
1,009
0
Nowadays you can buy a 60GB drive for the cost of Partition Magic, but I know what you mean!
 

Nipsy

macrumors 65816
Jan 19, 2002
1,009
0
Originally posted by cb911

Nipsy, what is the purpose of a SWAP partition?

i'll read up as much as i can about partitions and i'll probably do it as soon as i get 10.2. know any sites with good stuff about partitioning in OS X or with UNIX etc? anything special i should know?

Swap is a dedicated Virtual Memory partition. I have 1.5GB in my machine, and still get pageouts (VM use), so I created a swap partition (so named because data is being swapped from ram to disk), made it invisible, and forgot about it.

As for partioning in UNIX, there are vast tomes on the subject. Mac OS is a bit simple where partitioning is concerned (UNIX sets up with a minimum of about 7). This has a lot to do with ease of use. For the upmost in reliability and scalablity, a happy medium should be reached.

There are some great guides out there, and a lot of discussion at http://www.macgurus.com.
 
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