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Partition - Swap - Spit Shine

B

blackpeter

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 14, 2001
922
5
So I'm going to try a new partitioning scheme. 5 partitions:

1. (650MB) Swap

2. (2GB) OS 9

3. (2GB) OS X

4. (10GB) Apps

5. (25GB) Data

...so I'm just looking for feedback. Is this a good allocation of HD space for these purposes?
 
Ugh...

IMHO, you don't need that many! I just have one for X, and one for Classic.

Also, unless you have a slow machine, I wouldn't bother with the swap partition. I used to use one, but after 10.1 came out I couldn't tell the difference (even with a stopwatch). I was using a G4 400.

If you do decide to use a swap partition, you don't need one that big. Mine only ever used less than 70 MB, so I'd suggest by using 650 MB, you'd be wasting half a gig.
 
i just go for a 3 partition scheme

2 GB for OS 9
2.7 GB for OS X
the rest (15 GB) for files

Keeps things running reasonably well, although i could really do with upgrading this hard drive a little!
 
One thing you need to remember is that if you get your partition sizes wrong, you have to wipe the whole drive and start again. Not fun. Unless you're very strange. And I mean really, really strange. :D
 
If you are going to use a swap file, make it at least as big in MB as the amount of ram you have. I have plenty of HD, so I over sized it by a lot.

My setup

OS X 30 gig
OS 9 8 gig
Backup 5 gig
Swap 1.5 gig
Scratch (photoshop, fcp, illustrator, etc...) 2 gig
mp3 10 gig

-Pete
 
Originally posted by Beej
One thing you need to remember is that if you get your partition sizes wrong, you have to wipe the whole drive and start again. Not fun. Unless you're very strange. And I mean really, really strange. :D
Click to expand...

just how strange are u talking? ;)

anyway....my partition scheme goes like this:

a 30 gig IBM Travelstart in my TiBook...
1) OS 10.1 on 9.76 gig
2) OS 9.2 on 18.17 gig

I know I should have probably switched that around...but I was planning on doing more with OS 9.2 than with X...even though I generally run X....I still boot into 9.2 to do work since I have everything I need to be able to use there...
 
No partitions here. Now I'm thinking I should, but could someone tell me why I'd want to do that? I haven't run into any problems with the setup, so I also thinking I shouldn't fix what's not broke.:)
 
Here's mine...

60GB IBM Travelstar in my TiBook 500MHz (rev. a)...

OS X (10.1.3) 60GB

That's it. With the 1GB of RAM, it SCREAMS!!! I also don't have to worry about filling up one partition and needing to do it all over again (major pain in the a$$). The only version of OS X that needed more then one partition was the public beta. As soon as the full release came out, you didn't need to do that at all. It makes things a hell of a lot easier to have just the one partition. If you are a glutton for punishment/abuse, then go ahead and do up multiple partitions. If you want less pain, and more up time, go with one. Oh yeah, and have a bootable cd for your utilities. Which you should run periodically, depending on how heavy your usage is.
 
Originally posted by dukestreet
No partitions here. Now I'm thinking I should, but could someone tell me why I'd want to do that? I haven't run into any problems with the setup, so I also thinking I shouldn't fix what's not broke.:)
Click to expand...

Amen to that... If it works, don't d*ck around with it, and cause yourself grief.
 
I have a 40 Gig HD and I use two partitions. I have 500 Megs for OS 9 and the rest for X. It is perfect for my needs. Oh, and I agree with everyone who commented before about the swap file partition. If you have any kind of machine and X.1 you will not notice a difference.
 
Originally posted by macstudent
IS there a performance difference using a different HD for swap files opposed to using a seperate partition?
Click to expand...

Absolutely...by using partitions on the same HD, you don't really accomplish much except prevent defragmentation of your swapfile.

If your swapfile is on the same HD as your OS, Apps and Files, the drive head still has to travel all over your drive to access information, resulting in slower access time and a LOT of grinding (that's a technical term BTW).

A dedicated swap drive is much better because you don't commingle all your HD accesses for the OS, Apps, etc.

So then the next best solution is to get a separate HD for files and swap, partition it with the 600 MB to 1 GB for swap and the rest for data...

Or just get a boatload of RAM and forget pageouts ever existed! :D
 
Hmm... and I thought it was better for my drive to partition it for swap.

So you're telling me not to bother unless I'm swapping to another drive altogether?
 
Yep, don't bother unless you have a second drive to put it on. You might get a little bit better performance, but the hassle is not worth it.
 
Back in the days of OS X 10.0, I did some testing with swap partitions on my G4 400 w/ 2HDs.

I tired two different set ups:
1. Swap partition on smae drive (7200rpm)
2. Swap partition on seperate drive (5400rpm)

I found even though the second drive was slower, setup 2 was faster than setup 1 by about 10% or so.

But, like I said above, since 10.1 came out, I can't tell the difference, even with a stopwatch. I don't have a swap partition on my new computer.
 
Originally posted by Rower_CPU
Absolutely...by using partitions on the same HD, you don't really accomplish much except prevent defragmentation of your swapfile.
Click to expand...
And all along I thought it was fragmentation we were trying to prevent, not defragmentation. :)

Does OS X support swap *partitions*? That is, unformatted partitions used as swap space? Swap partitions can be faster than swap files, and with them one has the added benefit of being able to put a swap partition on the high cylinders of the drive, along the outer surface of the platters, where transfer rates are higher.

I agree that having many partitions on the same drive can be cumbersome, but it is a useful scheme to reduce damage in the event of a filesystem being corrupted (which is all too likely in both 9 and X). If I have one big 100GB partition and it goes, then EVERYTHING goes, whereas if I have four 25GB partitions, each containing different types of files, then if one of them goes I still have the others. This is less of an issue with regular backups, but I don't know of anyone who backs up 100GB of data every week or more.

Alex
 
Unless your drive reaches critical mass, or dies completely, you can recover the file system without too much effort. I have done it on a several occasions where the drive wouldn't even show up when I booted off of a cd. I was able to get it back with the trio of utilities that I have (DiskWarrior 2, TechTool Pro 3 and Norton Utilities). Between the threem I have been able to recover the drives, and lose 0 data. Even if the system files go bad on the Mac, you can just install a fresh OS on top of the old one and be back up and running in anywhere from 10-30 minutes (depending on your system). If you are really concerned about system corruption, get an external hard drive, or backup system and do periodic backups. If you have a Superdrive equiped Mac, then just burn a dvd (you can probably get both OS 9 and X onto the same one. I would suggest doing that AFTER running utilities. That way, you know that the system is in good shape. Since OS X is the more complicated, and larger, OS of the two, I would do that one first.

Oh, and if your drive goes, it doesn't matter how many partitions you have, they are toasted. I had an iMac's drive blow it's contoller board (on the hard drive) where everything was lost. That is the ONLY time I have not been able to recover the files. Like I said, if the drive reaches critical mass, you are screwed no matter how you divide the drive.
 
why do I need to write so much there wasn't that much to write about so don't go flapping your gums about something that nobody cares about
 
Originally posted by AlphaTech
Unless your drive reaches critical mass, or dies completely, you can recover the file system without too much effort. I have done it on a several occasions where the drive wouldn't even show up when I booted off of a cd. I was able to get it back with the trio of utilities that I have (DiskWarrior 2, TechTool Pro 3 and Norton Utilities). Between the threem I have been able to recover the drives, and lose 0 data.
Click to expand...
Alpha, I'm curious - how much did you pay for those three disk utilities combined? No offense, but it just seems kind of absurd. I know in another thread that you said that one gets what one pays for, but I find that it's a comparison of apples (so to speak) and oranges since 1) no other filesystems except FAT, VFAT, and FAT32 require expensive third-party utilities for maintenance, and 2) no other filesystems except for those I just mentioned suck as much as HFS+ does. If I even had enough money to pay for all that software, which I don't, I would much rather spend it feeding starving African children or supporting e.g. the EFF than spending it on software that there shouldn't be any need for in the first place.

DiskWarrior 2, TechTool Pro 3, and Norton Utilities: A couple hundred $$?

A decent filesystem and a free fsck: Priceless

Alex
 
Originally posted by mac15
why do I need to write so much there wasn't that much to write about so don't go flapping your gums about something that nobody cares about
Click to expand...
Sorry mate, it's just that insulting you is so much fun because I know that no matter what your response will be, it will have to fit within three lines or less. ;)

Alex
 
Originally posted by alex_ant

Sorry mate, it's just that insulting you is so much fun because I know that no matter what your response will be, it will have to fit within three lines or less. ;)
Click to expand...
LOL :D But I'm going to have to defend mac15 here, being a fellow Aussie, and say that at least he deosn't dribble crap like some people do on these boards...

Short and sweet.
 
AlphaTech...

have u ever made use of one of those companies that resurrects data from crashed hd's??

also...when it comes time for me to reconfigure my system....knowing I find it necessary to have 2 systems independent from each other....what suggestions would u give me? if any??? ;)
 
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