Partitions and Local Disk

[meshaun]

Hello MacR forum!
First time poster here. First time to the whole Mac world
I've been a Windows user for the past 17 years and making my transfer to the MBA M1 today.

In Windows, we usually Install the Windows OS to the local drive C, and use the other partitions with the files and stuff. It actually makes sense because in case of an OS Crash, I can simply reinstall Windows to C Drive, and keep the other files in place.

For Mac, is it the case too?
I watched a few videos on MacOS Recovery from Apple Support, but didn't see the extended options of Keep files as is, or Install to a different drive.

So my question is, should I partition the Mac SDD (M1) to different partitions and use or should this be of no issue for the MacOS anymore?

TIA!

 

[jz0309]

Hello MacR forum!
First time poster here. First time to the whole Mac world
I've been a Windows user for the past 17 years and making my transfer to the MBA M1 today.

In Windows, we usually Install the Windows OS to the local drive C, and use the other partitions with the files and stuff. It actually makes sense because in case of an OS Crash, I can simply reinstall Windows to C Drive, and keep the other files in place.

For Mac, is it the case too?
I watched a few videos on MacOS Recovery from Apple Support, but didn't see the extended options of Keep files as is, or Install to a different drive.

So my question is, should I partition the Mac SDD (M1) to different partitions and use or should this be of no issue for the MacOS anymore?

TIA!

Don’t bother with partitions, only becomes relevant for specific purposes. never done it except for multi MacOS boot purposes.
I’m not sure why you did that in the Windows world either to be honest, I’ve used DOS and then every version of Windows and never used partitions.

 

[Fishrrman]

"In Windows, we usually Install the Windows OS to the local drive C, and use the other partitions with the files and stuff. It actually makes sense because in case of an OS Crash, I can simply reinstall Windows to C Drive, and keep the other files in place."

Very, very few Mac users do this.
On the Mac, most folks just leave everything on the boot partition.

However...
I'm one of "the few" that DO partition the internal drive.
I've done this since the earliest days of the Mac OS (starting around 1987), and I continue to do so.

I agree with your reasoning above. I deliberately confine my OS onto a "boot partition", and then segregate my personal data according to its nature.

My internal drive is set up:
- Boot -- has OS and apps and accounts (but very little is kept IN the accounts)
- Main -- has my general data files
- Music -- has music-related stuff
- Media -- has photos, videos, etc.

Others will say "you're wasting available space".
But I have no problems.

Indeed, I believe that keeping the data "apart from" the OS has kept my Macs running smooth, fast and trouble-free for the last 34 years...

 

[meshaun]

"In Windows, we usually Install the Windows OS to the local drive C, and use the other partitions with the files and stuff. It actually makes sense because in case of an OS Crash, I can simply reinstall Windows to C Drive, and keep the other files in place."

Very, very few Mac users do this.
On the Mac, most folks just leave everything on the boot partition.

However...
I'm one of "the few" that DO partition the internal drive.
I've done this since the earliest days of the Mac OS (starting around 1987), and I continue to do so.

I agree with your reasoning above. I deliberately confine my OS onto a "boot partition", and then segregate my personal data according to its nature.

My internal drive is set up:
- Boot -- has OS and apps and accounts (but very little is kept IN the accounts)
- Main -- has my general data files
- Music -- has music-related stuff
- Media -- has photos, videos, etc.

Others will say "you're wasting available space".
But I have no problems.

Indeed, I believe that keeping the data "apart from" the OS has kept my Macs running smooth, fast and trouble-free for the last 34 years...

Thanks for the reply.
So, I googled and also tried this forum.
however, I could not find many resources to find how to do this.

When I tried the Disk Utility, and tried to Partition the Main Macintosh HD from the menu, and +1 for the partition, it asks if I want a Partition or a Volume. Any help on this?

I think you understood the question; I want to keep the OS and programs separate, so in case the OS or the computer corrupts, I can reinstall the MacOS into the Boot Partition, and not format the whole HDD. In Windows, we can point to where the OS needs to be installed, is it the same with MacOS also?

I appreciate your support on this.

TIA!

 

[mfram]

On current Macs using SSDs, APFS, and Big Sur this is already happening behind the scenes. APFS has the concept of "Volumes" which share space in the whole APFS storage pool. The operating system is already a separate volume. Not only that, it is marked read-only. So you can't really corrupt the OS volume without doing something really outrageous. In other words, I don't think there's any reason on current Macs to go out of your way to separate storage between the OS and user files because MacOS is already doing that for you.

 

[Fishrrman]

I don't have an m1 Mac, I may not have the following right.

Open disk utility.
VERY important... go to the view menu and choose "show all devices".

I believe you need to go down to the line (on the left) "Macintosh HD Data", and then click the partition button.
It might be "the container" above that in which the partitioning needs to be done.

Again, I have no m1 Mac with which to try this myself.

 

[jz0309]

I don't have an m1 Mac, I may not have the following right.

Open disk utility.
VERY important... go to the view menu and choose "show all devices".

I believe you need to go down to the line (on the left) "Macintosh HD Data", and then click the partition button.
It might be "the container" above that in which the partitioning needs to be done.

Again, I have no m1 Mac with which to try this myself.

Actually, you dont need an M1 Mac, happens on Intel Macs too, definitely on Big Sur, I skipped Catalina…

 

[jz0309]

OP, might want to read this:

Partition a physical disk in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on your Mac, add, delete, erase, or enlarge a partition on a storage device.

support.apple.com

 

[meshaun]

On current Macs using SSDs, APFS, and Big Sur this is already happening behind the scenes. APFS has the concept of "Volumes" which share space in the whole APFS storage pool. The operating system is already a separate volume. Not only that, it is marked read-only. So you can't really corrupt the OS volume without doing something really outrageous. In other words, I don't think there's any reason on current Macs to go out of your way to separate storage between the OS and user files because MacOS is already doing that for you.

Thank you for taking the time to explain this.
So, in case there is any System corruption and I had to reset, do you mean the Documents, Photos, Downloads folders are no longer affected?

I mean, now that I am transferring the files from the Windows PC to the Mac, I was adding the files to the Documents folder. Is this right?