Only 5GB left on my system partition... is it enough ?

[Angelo95210]

Hello

I have a 20GB system partition on my imac and with the applications etc there is only 5.2GB left... Do you think this is enough or should I reinstall my imac to get a larger partition ?

 

[spinnerlys]

Definitely make a larger system partition, though 5GB out of 20GB is 25%, more than the 10% to 20% recommended to leave unused on HDDs for proper operation.

Why do you have a 20GB system partition anyway? What HDD size do you have i your Mac?

Btw, if you don't have enough RAM left, the OS is swapping contents of the RAM to the HDD, thus the HDD gets filled quite easily, especially if it wants more than 2GB or 4GB or even more.

 

[gnasher729]

Definitely make a larger system partition, though 5GB out of 20GB is 25%, more than the 10% to 20% recommended to leave unused on HDDs for proper operation.

Why do you have a 20GB system partition anyway? What HDD size do you have i your Mac?

Btw, if you don't have enough RAM left, the OS is swapping contents of the RAM to the HDD, thus the HDD gets filled quite easily, especially if it wants more than 2GB or 4GB or even more.

The "10% to 20%" rule really assumes that you have a decent size hard drive, which would have been at least 60GB in 2006 and other than SSD drives, you don't get less than 250GB now. 5 GB free space is just asking for trouble. And as you note, there is really no point in partitioning a hard drive into a "system partition" and a "whatever else" partition; it can only make things worse. Only partition a drive if you have a real reason, like wanting to run MacOS X, Windows and Linux on the same computer, or having completely separate partitions for home and work.

 

[Angelo95210]

Yes I have a 320GB harddrive on this imac and I created a 20GB system partition but not I am starting to realize it's maybe to small...

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes I have a 320GB harddrive on this imac and I created a 20GB system partition but not I am starting to realize it's maybe to small...

Why do you need a separate partition for Mac OS X? Mac OS X is not Windows, thus even in case of an OS failure, re-installation will preserve your personal data and applications.

I once made two partitions, one for the OS and the other for my Home folder. It did not end well, I couldn't log into my account, cause Mac OS couldn't find it anymore.

 

[Angelo95210]

I did this not to have to copy all my documents if I should restore my system... But yeah this was not the best idea...

 

[spinnerlys]

I did this not to have to copy all my documents if I should restore my system... But yeah this was not the best idea...

If you restore your system, the installation procedure of Mac OS X either lets you keep the data and move it into a "Previous System" folder or with Snow Leopard you can just reinstall Mac OS X and find the system like it is. You can also use Time Machine to backup your data in case of any major frell-up.

 

[Angelo95210]

You are right... damned this is a 10 years old Windows habit !!! B. Gates please stop haunting me !