Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

zimv20

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jul 18, 2002
4,402
11
toronto
i have:

a dual 500 g4 w/ 1 gig RAM

i'm adding:

2x 80 gig harddrives

one HD will be for jaguar, os9, apps, user data, etc.

the other HD is for recording music using ProTools LE.

is it worthwhile and/or advantageous to partition the first HD?

i was thinking about 3 partitions: 1 for osx, 1 for os9, and 1 for swap. given an 80 gig drive and 1 gig RAM, any recommendations for partition size?

or is partitioning a waste of time?

i'm planning on using osx principally, but need to boot os9 to run pro tools. also run some os9 adobe apps and office, but i can do that through classic emulation. the size of my os9 apps folder is 2.4 gig.

thanks!
 
I think the whole separate partitions thing for OS 9, X, and swap is totally subjective. Some will argue better performance, but I didn't notice a difference. After 10.2, I wiped my drive and eliminated my partitions. I didn't find them necessary anymore, and quite frankly, having everything on one disk is a refreshing change.
 
I use a partion for 9 and X its really good, and its comes in handy when you need to whipe a partition, you can backup easy
 
I've posted this before and I think its really great advice. Yes you should partition at least to two partitions. Heres why:

I have needed to backup my files on another partition of the SAME hard drive more times than I can count. With my iBook i backed up my necessary files on my 6GB partition, and formatted my 22GB partition completely.

Altho you do have a second hard drive to combat this problem, it has also been my experience that just when you need it, its either full, broken, or I've put it in another machine. Data on the same hard drive, but another partition gives you more freedom with things like that.

Also, its MUCH easier to troubleshoot problems with multiple OS's if they are on different partitions, as when they are on the same you never quite know which one is affecting both. Its just a smart move.

The swap partition is debateable, since benchmarks haven't shown any performance increase since 10.0.x.


anyways thats my $0.02
 
If you asked me there are 2 reasons to partition:
1) The most obvious, organisation.
2) I'm not sure about this for sure (wouldn't really apply if you have a big hd with big files) it makes the minimum file size smaller.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

As for the whole os 9 and os X on the same partition, no prob.
 
disk frag

I have 2 60GB IBM 7200RPM drives. the first drive is just one big one... OS 9/10 Thats where I keep everything. The second drive has 3 partitions. swap, EMT, and projects. Swap.. you know what that is. EMT drive is a 2GB partion with a slim OS on it. I used to use it for making bootable Utility CDs for OS 9 with it. Now I just use it as a back up OS X drive .. in case my primary one wont boot. Projects is my trash partion. I use it to download to, store files, current working projects, and backups, scratch disks for PS and iMove... I abuse that drive a lot. When you move files arround alot your disk can get fragmended badly ... and decreasing proformace. I do all my work on that drive so I can newfs it when ever I want to with not worries... and no fragmentation of my system drive. Aslo.. when you are reading from one drive and writing to another drive, you can do it at the same time... ie... better proformace. Thats why my swap is on a second drive.. as well as my scratch disk.

evildead
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.