Help me partition my 500GB external drive

[PellePirat]

Hey guys

Im still new in the mac world, but love it.

I just bought a 500GB WD my book studio drive, but need some help to partition it.

I want 3 partitions.

1: Time Machine (110GB to backup my 100GB OS partition)
2: Misc. partition for videocapturing and stuff
3: Small partition that can be read from my OSX and my Windows Bootcamp

Question is:

1: Is the Time Machine making its own partition or should i partition it manually first? How about the file format, is it fixing that by it self?

2: The misc. partition, what file format should i use? Its just for random files, movies, music, but will also be used as storage for video capturing in games, so it need to be as fast as possible.

3: How do i make a partition that is read/writeable from both windows and OSX? Im thinking 30-50gb since its ONLY for small stuff i might download while in the different os´ and need to transfer them between the 2. FAT32? And can OSX make larger FAT32 partitions than 32GB that is readable in XP? 30GB is more than enough though. And, what is FAT32 in the partition tool?

I know how to use the partition tool, but could use a small guide, since i dont know what the different file formats in the partitioning tool is covering. Im not sure what file format to use for different tasks.

I hope the above makes sense despite my english.

Any other advices in breaking in a new external drive would be appreciated

Thanks in advance
Peter

 

[rrijkers]

1. TM does not make an own partition, with creating this 110 GB partition you limit TM to use of only 110 GB which has its pros and cons. HFS-journaled

2. If is mac only, use HFS-journaled

3. Fat32 is the way to go.

Guys, correct me if i'm wrong.

GL

 

[Cave Man]

1. Plug in your drive to your mac.
2. Launch Disk Utility.
3. Click on the drive, not the partition that is below it and indented.
4. Click on the Partition tab.
5. From the pull-down, choose 3 partitions.
6. Set the top partition as 110 gb, the bottom partition as 32 gb, and whatever's left should be the middle partition.
7. Initialize the top two partitions as HFS+ with Journaling enabled, and the bottom partition as FAT32.

That should do it.

 

[PellePirat]

Awesome guys, thanks a bunch