[habibman]

Hello. I was wondering if it possible to partition the powerbook hard drive (the default one called Macintosh HD with the start up files). Disk utility won't let me do it because it says I cannot partition the disk containing start up files, but I have a hard time beliving there is no way to split ou the hard drive.

But perhaps I don't need to?

Here is my concern:

I have an 80 gig hard drive with roughly 25 gigs of music on it. They are all on the same bootable drive as my apps etc. I am wondering if this will slow down the hard drive. I am assuming yes since they are all in the same place, but I don't know, maybe macs are different than windows (well of course). Does it matter if everything is one hard drive? In windows I had to partition and put all my data on one drive to prevent the apps from running slow.

Thanks for all the help. Any info on this matter will be appreciated.


EDIT: OK, I think this is just me being stupid, I am not sure what made me think I could partition it after the disk has already been created (correct?) but how come I never got the option to partition when I booted the computer for the first time? Thanks.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by habibman

Hello. I was wondering if it possible to partition the powerbook hard drive (the default one called Macintosh HD with the start up files). Disk utility won't let me do it because it says I cannot partition the disk containing start up files, but I have a hard time beliving there is no way to split ou the hard drive.

But perhaps I don't need to?

Here is my concern:

I have an 80 gig hard drive with roughly 25 gigs of music on it. They are all on the same bootable drive as my apps etc. I am wondering if this will slow down the hard drive. I am assuming yes since they are all in the same place, but I don't know, maybe macs are different than windows (well of course). Does it matter if everything is one hard drive? In windows I had to partition and put all my data on one drive to prevent the apps from running slow.

Thanks for all the help. Any info on this matter will be appreciated.


EDIT: OK, I think this is just me being stupid, I am not sure what made me think I could partition it after the disk has already been created (correct?) but how come I never got the option to partition when I booted the computer for the first time? Thanks.

You didn't automatically get an option to partition your hard drive when you first booted because at that time, the OS was already installed. If you had so chosen, you could have booted from the software CD that came with your Powerbook, and used Disk Utility to reformat and partition the hard drive. Of course, if you do that now, you will lose all your data.

In any case, for your purposes, you won't see any speed benefit from partitioning your drive, so I wouldn't worry about it.

[robby818]

Having two partitions is a good idea, if only to save your data in the event that you ever have to re-install os x. i have "Macintosh HD A" and "Macintosh HD B" partitions. my A drive contains the OS. my B drive contains data such as photos, itunes music library, word docs, etc.

Once I had to restore my OS from a drive image because a bad printer driver installation caused my OS to become unbootable. Because I keep my data off of the OS partition I was able to boot using an OS X install CD and use Disk Utility to erase Macintosh HD A, then I used Disk Utility to restore HD A from an image I made using SuperDuper (an image which i keep saved on my B partition). If everything had been on one partition restoring that old image would have meant losing any music and photos that i saved after making that image. Two partitions can make life a lot easier if you need to do an emergency recovery.

[habibman]

Huh, I never even thought about that. That is a great reason to have two partitions.

To spacemonkey, i am curious what you meant by "for your purposes." Could you please clarify what you mean by this? Of course I am happy to hear that it won't matter that all my data is on the same drive as my apps and os start up, but I am not sure i understand you. for instance, will final cut run slower? photoshop? will the computer boot up slower? thanks.

[Randman]

There's no need to partition unless you're a developer and need multiple OSes.

If the hard drive fails, you lose everything, so you should get an external hard drive (fast and cheap these days).

Running music or video won't slow your Mac at all (if editing video, get more ram). And once your music collection grows, you can migrate it to the external for more room (then burn the music onto DVDs for another backup method.

[romeosc]

You can repartition dynamically.... useIpartition!

http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iPartition.php

[mduell]

Partitioning should have no effect on speed, with OSX or Windows.
I have a feeling this is a case of everything looking like a nail when all you have is a hammer.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by robby818

Having two partitions is a good idea, if only to save your data in the event that you ever have to re-install os x. i have "Macintosh HD A" and "Macintosh HD B" partitions. my A drive contains the OS. my B drive contains data such as photos, itunes music library, word docs, etc.

You don't need to have a separate partition to do this. Just do an "Archive and Install" installation of Mac OS X.

I strongly urge people not to partition. If you have to ask whether to partition, you definitely don't need to. And if you think you need to, you're probably wrong. Seriously, the only time to do it today is for developers to be able to boot various OSes.

tooki