How to size disk partitions w/parallels

[Kentuckienne]

When I got my PowerBook in 2004, it was a snap to set up a couple partitions since it was only 80 GB, and I ran windows in something called "Virtual PC for Mac" from Microsoft. But now I am dragged (and am a willing dragee) into the modern age with a new Mini which I can go fetch next week. So planning. Read up and read up which has now made me even less certain what to do.

It comes with a 1 TB disk, and I figured I'd leave it at that for a while, because the thing will seem so much faster already, and by the time I get impatient SSD prices will have dropped. Although I'll be opening it to put in more RAM right away, so it would be a convenient time to make HDD changes ..

Anyway. I do need to run some Windoze apps that don't have Mac counterparts, and I plan to pick up the latest Parallels, and I have a copy of Windoze 7 from an old machine.

I'm guessing set a boot partition for the OS, and how much room does that take nowadays? I thought I read that some apps want to be on the system partition, so I don't want to make that too small.

Does Parallels need its own partition? Or does it live on a partition with other apps?

Is it better to separate out the applications and the data into separate partitions, or just leave them all together and use the extra space for backups? I have an external TB drive I plan to use for backups as well, but you can't have too many backups.

What would the optimum partition scheme be for a 1 TB disk to run Mavericks, Windows, way too many photos and iTunes songs?

Oh thanks for this place, I love being a beginner but it's so much easier when there is someone to cry to.

 

[glenthompson]

Putting data on two different partitions on the same drive isn't a backup, it's just a copy. If the drive dials, both copies are gone. Backups are separate physical devices.

Parallels can either run off a bootcamp partition or a .pvm file on the Mac partition. I'm not a fan of bootcamp due to the hassles of switching between the two but is better if you game. On my Parallels virtual machines I only keep the OS and applications in the VM and all my data is in the Mac file system. That way I only have to backup the VM when I make application changes. All my files are continually backed up via time machine.

With a 1TB drive you have plenty of space so I would create a reasonably sized Windows vm with plenty of space for all your apps. 60 to 80 GB should be more than enough.

 

[Kentuckienne]

oh yes, I don't consider the same-disk copy as a backup. It's a first level of protection in case I do something I regret. The backups go on an external drive.

For example, when I was cleaning up old files to make space, I deleted some large file which I didn't recognize, thinking it was something corrupt. I was right: it was my Windows VM. I didn't bother to reinstall it. I'm going to make the Windows machine go away soon, so I have to figure it out again.