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SSD+HDD and boot camp partition - what's customary?

N

Neon01

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 7, 2011
92
2
Just picked up a 256GB SSD and plan to put it where the 750GB HDD is in my new MBP 15" with an optibay. I also plan on partitioning with Boot Camp to use Win 7, but it got me thinking:

since Win 7 can address the HFS filesystem, should I just leave the HDD as it is and split the SSD between NTFS and HFS? This would leave a boot partition on the SSD for each system, with the entire HFS "media drive" (or other) in the optibay that should be addressable by either OS, right?
 
HFS is not addressable natively by win 7. Bootcamp adds that functionality. Furthermore, bootcamp only adds read-only HFS functionality.

The best way is probably to either do SDD 50/50 HFS/NTFS and HDD 50/50 HFS/NTFS or SDD 100/0 HFS/NTFS and HDD 50/50 HFS/NTFS.
 
Freyqq said:
HFS is not addressable natively by win 7. Bootcamp adds that functionality. Furthermore, bootcamp only adds read-only HFS functionality.

The best way is probably to either do SDD 50/50 HFS/NTFS and HDD 50/50 HFS/NTFS or SDD 100/0 HFS/NTFS and HDD 50/50 HFS/NTFS.
Click to expand...

I appreciate the reply. I realize it's the boot camp drivers that allow it, but the fact is that it can "see" both, which is nice. Didn't realize it was write only though, so thanks for pointing that out.

I like your suggestions, but I don't think the second method will work for me just because then I wouldn't get the benefit of the SSD for the Win 7 OS at all. I think I might just do what you said the first time - 50/50 for both. Can that be done with disk utility?

Thanks!
 
Freyqq said:
The best way is probably to either do SDD 50/50 HFS/NTFS and HDD 50/50 HFS/NTFS or SDD 100/0 HFS/NTFS and HDD 50/50 HFS/NTFS.
Click to expand...
I think that is a quite bad way.
The best way always depends on how much you use either.
Split the SSD in 40-80GB NTFS (depending on how much you need for Windows) and the rest HFS+
Format the entire HDD in exFAT and reference movie folders and such on both OSX and Windows. You work with the same data in both OS.
Alternatively one can make the data partition HFS or NTFS too but you'd need to install a driver that has write capability in Windows for HFS or in OSX for NTFS.
It is ridiculous to split the HDD half half for both OS. The same as it is a waste of money imo if you move the bootcamp partition to the HDD.

BTW leave everything on the OSX partition save Music, Movies and Pictures or Documents that need to be shared.
 
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