Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Should I partition my 2TB hard drive? Will it affect my speed?
- Thread starter seasurfer
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Not at all. All partitions are on the same physical disk. The data is read from the same physical disk. Zero difference in performance.
Do you know what partitioning is and how it works?
Is there some reason you think you need to partition? What are you hoping to gain by partitioning?
Is there some reason you think you need to partition? What are you hoping to gain by partitioning?
That's not true. You don't have to be a "power user" to have a need for partitioning a drive. For example, one partition can be a backup drive used for Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. Another partition could be formatted NTFS, for sharing with a Windows PC. Another partition could be music, movies or other data not stored on the internal drive. There are many reasons to partition a drive, without being a "power user" (what is a "power user", anyway?)
with respect, but i wonder if that'd be such a good idea. when the drive fails, the backups are gone along with everything else.
TM, CCC, or SD backups should be done on an external HD.
For backups, I'm talking about an external drive. My point is there are many reasons to partition a drive, internal or external, without being a "power user".
For the record, I keep bootable backups on two external drives, in case one dies.
i might have misinterpreted the OP's initial post. i thought s/he was talking about an internal drive.
absolutely.
You didn't misinterpret. The OP was talking about the internal drive. My post was to point out that there are reasons to partition a drive, internal or external, that have nothing to do with being a "power user", as leman suggested.
well, looking @ the OP's signature, s/he doesn't seem to have a 2TB internal drive.
let's see what transpires here ...
well, looking @ the OP's signature, s/he doesn't seem to have a 2TB internal drive.
let's see what transpires here ...
I just bought my new iMac 27, i have 2TB internal drive....I was thinking if I should partition it.
The impact on speed depends upon the access rate to the three partitions. If pretty much all accesses in a given period of time go to just one of the three, then the speed impact wouldn't be noticeable.
However, you may notice a slowdown if there is concurrent activity to more than one partition. Reason is that the read/write head will have longer distances to move when seeking from one partition to the other. OS X does a good job of bunching all the data together in a partition. If there is only one partition, then all data is bunched into the faster part of the disk platter, the outer cylinders.
If you go multi partition, then the first partition you define will be the fastest.
right.
as has been said, you can partition your drive without needing to worry it will affect speed significantly.
but, if it comes to backups, don't put all eggs in the same basket. use external drive(s) for backups.
happy computing !
Why do you want to partition it? That is the biggest question.
Will it affect your speed? It depends on how and why you partition it. One possible layout could be:
- Assorted low use junk
- Music (iTunes lets you point to a location for iTunes storage, so this is easy.)
- OS and general user data
- Photos
Still, it comes down to can you manage the multiple partitions and why you want to partition the disc. And as others have pointed out, you want your backups going to a different disk, so a disk failure won't wipe out the backups.
Hard Drive Partitioning for 2 OS's
I was thinking of partitioning my MacBook Pro 17" (2006) with OS 10.6.8 so I could put a newer OS on the second partition and test the compatibility of some of my favorite software. Does this sound reasonable/advisable?
I was thinking of partitioning my MacBook Pro 17" (2006) with OS 10.6.8 so I could put a newer OS on the second partition and test the compatibility of some of my favorite software. Does this sound reasonable/advisable?
Doing this completely ridicules the whole point of making a backup
How are you going to store data not stored on the internal drive on another partition of the internal drive?
Agree, it was dumb of me to use that term, I hate it as well. It just seems to convey the point quickly.
