HD Partitioning for TiBook

[mmcneil]

I always did partitions previous to OS X, but up to now have found it easier to keep one main partition and a swap partition. However, i have taken the big step and purchased a TiBook with a 60GB 5400 RPM HD.

I'm interested in opinions (well-founded preferably ) on how to partition the HD and what to keep on each partition. My leaning is toward something like:

Swap - 2G (1G RAM)
Systems - 10G (OS X, OS 9, Developer)
Users - 48G (Applications and Users directories)

I await your thoughts

 

[evildead]

thats probably What I wold do...

my only consern is your 10GB for / Do you use Aduio apps? Those requier at times sound banks... and those eat up a lot of space. Games eat up a lot too.. if your into having a lot of games on your drive at any time.

other than that... you should be good

 

[mmcneil]

Audio Apps

Just itunes - have not gotten into anything else although I keep thinking I am going to put my vinyl jazz records on CD some day

 

[beatle888]

Re: HD Partitioning for TiBook

Originally posted by mmcneil


Swap - 2G (1G RAM)
Systems - 10G (OS X, OS 9, Developer)
Users - 48G (Applications and Users directories)

I await your thoughts

what is the SWAP - 2G (1G RAM) for?
is that like a 1gig ram cache? should
i do this to improve performance.
if so will you explain or tell me where
to find the info to create one?

 

[Thirteenva]

I partition my drive similarly...

5gb- OSX, OS 9(severly stripped for classic use only).
*gb- rest of drive for my apps and files.


OS X will store your itunes and itools libraries in your home directory, but you can keep them in your second partition if you put an alias too them in the correct directories. Its seemless.


I keep the small partition with the OS on it so if i have trouble i can just erase that partition and reinstall with out having to back up my documents/files...

I did this once when i had a problem after a mysql installation caused some issues... Alli had to do was reinsall os x and my apps. took about an hour, no biggie when compared to backing up and formatting a drive...which can take days...


I didnt get in involved with doing a swap drive, I heard that the more ram you have the less performance gain you'll see. I have 512mb right now so i don't think its worth the trouble to set one up.

 

[mmcneil]

Swap

Well the theory is that by dedicating a partition for swap space the OS should waste less time finding where the VM files are. OS X uses 80M files and creates them as needed, on-th-fly.

There are a couple of discussions on how best to do this, I will try to find them again. They all involve changes at the root level so there is some risk involved.

Prior to 10.1 the performance improvement was substantial, particularly if you actually had a second disk drive dedicated to swap. Not sure if anyone has done any measurments with 10.2

 

[beatle888]

Re: Swap

Originally posted by mmcneil
Well the theory is that by dedicating a partition for swap space the OS should waste less time finding where the VM files are. OS X uses 80M files and creates them as needed, on-th-fly.

There are a couple of discussions on how best to do this, I will try to find them again. They all involve changes at the root level so there is some risk involved.

Prior to 10.1 the performance improvement was substantial, particularly if you actually had a second disk drive dedicated to swap. Not sure if anyone has done any measurments with 10.2

Ah, it's risky? Damn, well oooh wouldnt it be cool to have a fast firewire drive
for VM and photoshop scratch disk...damn i need a firewire drive for serious work.

 

[mmcneil]

Re: Re: Swap

Originally posted by beatle888


Ah, it's risky? Damn, well oooh wouldnt it be cool to have a fast firewire drive
for VM and photoshop scratch disk...damn i need a firewire drive for serious work.

Well not THAT risky

There are several articles on dedicated swap space at www.xlr8yourmac.com, search for the word swap.

 

[beatle888]

thanks, i appreciate it.

beatle888
long live john lennon



eek.....i just got back from viewing that page...seems
like a little too much for me. maybe someone will make
a control panel hehehe im not the sharpest tool in
the shed.