[aquaclear]

I have used linux systems in the past and they benefit from using a dedicated swap partition. I have an ibook with 128 mb of ram. I know getting more ram will improve performance but for the time being let's say I don't have it. I will be running only OSX and do not have OS 9 installed.

Does having a dedicated partition for the swap improve performance and how do I have osx recongnize that partition instead of making another swap file within the main partition.

Also is there a way to create another partition for usr? I like the fact I could reinstall my system but leave files like music, documents and etc. in the user directories intact while the rest of the system gets installed.

Also, does OSX have a system defrag utility?

Thanks

[Rainy Day]

Does having a dedicated partition for the swap improve performance

Not that i've ever noticed. I used to use a separate swap partition, but only because i figured it would help stave off disk fragmentation. I never noticed any speed improvements.

Because MacOS X handles volumes in a somewhat non-traditional way, there is some misinformation on how to best go about setting up a swap partition under MacOS X. And Apple made significant changes in 10.2 which changed the way to go about setting up a swap partition. I managed to get it going under 10.2, however i eventually disabled it and decided just to do it the MacOS X way (i.e. no separate swap partition).

If the truth be told about swap partitions, Apple handles it fairly efficiently. To see any sort of tangible improvement, you'd really need a separate drive for your swap volume. My advice is not to pursue it under MacOS X.

As you already know, more RAM would be the biggest speed bump for you. A faster drive would be the second best speed boost.

Also is there a way to create another partition for usr?

I might be mistaken about this, having never done it under MacOS X, and i know it's more complicated than this for some other UNIX's, but i think it might be as simple as a symbolic link.

But that may be moot as you can reinstall MacOS X and it'll leave your music, accounts, and documents alone. And there's also nothing stopping you from keeping your documents, music, etc on a separate partition and just having a symbolic link to them from your home directory.

[keston]

Swap Cop - Lets you change your osx swap file location. I have a 2gig partition called "temp drive" that i use for my swap file alone.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13514

[GENERAL_SMILEY]

I don't think it will help you to be entirely honest. I run a seperate swap on my b&w g3, but only because I run it on a physically seperate SCSI fast drive - and even then I can't really feel much difference.

[aquaclear]

Thanks for the reply all.

Going by the information I have I will probably not have a separate partition for swap since none have registered any noticable performance. The usr partition though is something I may do however. What is the name that the symbolic link should point to and where should this symbolic link be? I will try and answer my own question by assuming I would create a link called usr and it would be in the / directory and it will point to whatever I call my partition?

Also, I know that OSX is not exactly identical to unix but can I create a separate partition for the *nix equivalent of /var? I want to do this incase some app or email creates an out of control file (var bomb), and so I can contain it within the var partition without it going into / and other places so that it fills up my harddrive with temp files.

[Agent69]

Having a Unix background, I do wish for a swap partition. However, it is probably okay for things to be like they are, especially if you have a lot of RAM.

Personally, I like to use partitions to keep my data separated from OS/Application files. I haven't done this yet in Mac OS X because I can't decide the best way of moving my home directory to another partition.

[Rainy Day]

What is the name that the symbolic link should point to and where should this symbolic link be? I will try and answer my own question by assuming I would create a link called usr and it would be in the / directory and it will point to whatever I call my partition?

That would be how i'd attempt it.

Also, I know that OSX is not exactly identical to unix but can I create a separate partition for the *nix equivalent of /var?

If you look at /, you'll see that several directories are already symbolic links, and /var is among them:

/etc@ -> private/etc
/mach@ -> /mach.sym
/tmp@ -> private/tmp
/var@ -> private/var

So if you want to move /var, you'll probably need to insert your symbolic link at /private/var (and re-link /var for efficiency).

[Taipan]

Originally posted by keston:
Swap Cop - Lets you change your osx swap file location. I have a 2gig partition called "temp drive" that i use for my swap file alone.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/13514

Hi
SwapCop doesn't work correctly with Jaguar, the author says so and many users confirm. There is a newer tool called SwapSwapVM that works with 10.2.

[eyadams]

Personally, I like to use partitions to keep my data separated from OS/Application files. I haven't done this yet in Mac OS X because I can't decide the best way of moving my home directory to another partition.

I currently have all my users' home directories on a separate partition, and I did it without messing around with symbolic links or aliases.

What I did was create the user (in the usual place) and then copied the contents of the user's home directory to the new partition (using the Finder). I then opened up the NetInfo manager and set the user's home directory to the new location. Finally, after logging out and logging back in, I deleted the original location. This setup has been working fine for all 4 users with no problems since OS X came out.

The only cosmetic issue I've seen is that at some point the user directories were re-created in the default location. Nothing is being written there, so I just leave them there.