To partition or not?

No questions, you MUST partition separately for TM. And, naturally, one for HFS+ for OS X use. Your thought for a (small?) partition for Windows FAT32 data transfers sounds reasonable, especially if you're using Windows while booted off it.

But perhaps you might want to save some HD space and use a cheap USB flash stick for the occasional FAT32 file transfer to/from WIndows and OS X. Also, if you're running Windows via Parallels, then you can generally either share data via Parallels' own functionality or via SMB (Samba) file sharing.

Haven't done a whole lot with CCC but it's great stuff.

 

You don't need to have a dedicated partition for Time Machine, though I'd recommend it. The backups are stored in a standard Finder folder. The reason for having it on it's own partition is so it has as much room as possible available for backup. You can store other files on it, but they just reduce the space available for Time Machine.

 

That's certainly true, but given how TM works in its default configuration -- it'll basically expand over time to occupy all free space on the partition it's using until it runs out of room and only then, starts deleting the oldest backups to free up space. Even then, still doesn't leave much room for squirrelling away non-TM data on the same partition.

If you partition TM separately, then you're setting an upper bound for how much space it can consume without any worry of enroaching into amount of data available for non-TM stuff.

 

Yes, but it's not a "must"... Another reason I wanted to clarify it is folks often ask if they can store other files on the same partition as their TM backup. As I mentioned, I do recommend putting it on its own partition [for the reasons given].

 

I'd suggest that you create at least one partition that is 160gig in size or slightly less. You might want to make this the first partition (i.e., the one that is "at the top" of the display in Disk Utility) on the drive.

Then use Carbon Copy Cloner (or SuperDuper) to regularly "dupe" the contents of your internal drive to the "clone partition" on the external.

If you do this, you'll have an instantly-bootable clone of your internal that you can use in emergencies (or just use to boot from as an "alternative startup volume").

You CAN"T boot from a Time Machine backup.

My opinion only, but Time Machine isn't worth the drivespace it eats up. A once-daily (or even once-weekly) dupe of your internal drive to the clone partition will provide you with [pretty much] all the "backup" you need.

Then divide up the rest of the drive as needed by your personal requirements....

- John

 

My opinion is doing both is best.

For my own machine I created two partitions, one identical in size to my iMac's 320GB internal which I use for a Superduper clone. As mentioned, Superduper/Carbon Copy Cloner images are duplicate copies of your internal hard disk which are also fully bootable if your external HD is Firewire.

The remaining 1.2TB of my external hard disk is used for Time Machine as well as random file storage.

TM and SD/CCC serve different purposes entirely in my opinion. It's great to have a snapshot of your recent system in case of a drive failure but it's also great to be able to travel back in time on your machine in case you accidentally deleted a mail message, photo or some other file in error.

If you've got the storage space I see no reason not to do both.