[kennedy]

[ By "extra OSs" above, I mean OS 9, VPC, Panther betas, a fallback system, etc. ]

Yes, I know... there are lots of threads on partitioning options... but they are all inconclusive... there either is no response to half the questions asked... or they say "do a search"... or a couple people will disagree. I think the last time there was a conclusive answer was in 10.0.x days... and its not clear that's still valid. Especially since many of the thread directly contradict each other.

I'd like to capture the collective intelligence of the board via a poll and a direct discussion of the merits of different options that I have collected out of all those threads... maybe this thread can feed the FAQ... because clearly this question is "frequently asked".

1) A separate partition for swap files. Some have said it speeds up the system. I guess that would be from reduced fragmentation of those big files. But how big do you make this? With a hard limit, don't you risk a crash if you reach that limit?? And do you need to cover the stuff in RAM, or just what overflows? (I have 640MB of RAM, so that makes a big difference.) Others in various threads have said they've done this and not seen any speed improvements and didn't really recommend others do it.

2) A separate partition for just the OS X installed files. To date, I've always done this. It makes it real easy to do a clean install of the next version of the OS... or the current version if it gets corrupted. The only apps you have to reinstall are the Apple ones like Keynote that insist upon being installed in the system Applications directory. However, you need to keep this partition oversized by the size of what you might burn... with a DVD that means keeping 5GB free for burning at all times.

3) A separate partition for OS 9, if you install it at all. Similar logic as #2. But even more reason to be concerned about it becoming problematic independently of OS X, or vice-versa.

4) A separate partition for VPC. I assume same logic as #3. I'd want to keep anything Windoze well-insulated from the rest.

5) A separate partition for installed applications. Not sure I understand the value of this... I just throw them in the same main partition with my data. Anyone want to argue the case for that?

6) A "scratch" partition for temporary stuff. I've never quite understood that except again perhaps to reduce fragmentation. What is the purpose of doing that?

7) Just one big partition. Minimizes space waste, maximizing flexbility. And avoids the catastrophe of under-sizing one or the other and having to re-partition. However, if the OS gets corrupted, the effort to fix things can be a nightmare. Some threads do recommend one big partition. Others imply that 2 or 3 is the accepted right number.

8) It has been suggested that you should install all apps in the system Applications folder, because otherwise if they offer services they won't be picked up. Is that right? I always create a symbolic link called "Additions" in the system Applications folder that points to my additional apps on my main partition. Will services get picked up through a symlink?

9) There are other good reasons for partitions... such as for beta or developer versions of OS X... or for hiding away data that nobody should be accessing (I do this with DBs served by FileMaker Server)... and so on. But my questions are regarding partitions for the normal working system.


Does Apple have a tuning guide hidden somewhere that discusses this stuff. Based on their silence, you'd think one big partition (the default) must be their strong recommendation.

Other partitioning suggestions? Other issues? Have issues gone away with the maturity of 10.2? I have done many clean re-installs of 10.0.x and 10.1.x... but haven't had to do one yet with 10.2.x. Others?


For completeness, here's some threads on this:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...ight=partition

[khufuu]

Kennedy said:

Does Apple have a tuning guide hidden somewhere that discusses this stuff. Based on their silence, you'd think one big partition (the default) must be their strong recommendation.

I say:

Apple keeps quiet about this because they don't want to document this stuff. Their assumption would be that most users would never learn enough (or even want to learn enough) to do this kind of thing.

Not to mention that if they documented and published this, they would be at least somewhat responsible for people screwing it up and they'd have to support it. (That's my guess anyway.)

[wataru]

I used to keep separate partitions for OS X and OS 9, but since I rarely use OS 9 anymore I just threw them together. Now they're all one big happy family.

Regarding a separate swap partition, I thought that recent changes to how OS X handles its VM made that pointless. Maybe I just made that up, though.

Originally posted by kennedy:
4) A separate partition for VPC. I assume same logic as #3. I'd want to keep anything Windoze well-insulated from the rest.

In VPC everything Windoze is insulated, inside the disk image.

[Appleman]

It might be possible I can't read, but to me it looks like I cannot choose for
0. Two parttions: OS X and OS 9

so that's what I have, though I hardly use OS 9.

[wg2499]

I have 3 partitions to pre release Panther and 1 to whatever and my regular 10.2.6 Panther runs really well over firewire!!

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Appleman:
It might be possible I can't read, but to me it looks like I cannot choose for
0. Two parttions: OS X and OS 9

so that's what I have, though I hardly use OS 9.

I said "ignoring other OSs"... as in "ignoring partitions for OS9"...

So, your answer would be that your OS X, apps, and data is all in one big happy partition!

I was afraid that would be unclear... but trying to include all the variations on where people put OS9 and extra Panther betas and so on would have made WAAAYYYYY to many options.

Thanks for responding.

[Angus_D]

The only HD I have partitioned is the 30GB one in my iMac, because the Open Firmware is broken and your boot partition has to be entirely contained within the first 8GB of the disk. I have two drives in my G4, though.

[- - e r i k - -]

I used to be a huge partition-fan*, but on my work and Powerbook 17" I have sticked with one. It does minimize waste of space and problems, and troubleshooting is just a CD-boot away. No need to mess with partitions anymore.

* From back in the classic days, continuing with one partition for OS X one for Classic when I installed OS X.

[benb]

I used to do only one, but in the days of the Panther betas I now have one 10GB partition for music, the same size as my iPod, and 30GB for everything else. Just incase something goes wrong with X, I dont want to re-rip all my CDs. I have no documents I care about that much. Just misc school documents and some web sites I have done.

[Sarc]

HHD 1

partition 1 - 10gig (OS X + Apps)
partition 2 - 20 Gigs ( homes)
partition 3 - 50 gigs (scratch disk for FinalCut, + games, everything that doesn't need organzation)

HDD 2
partition 1 (20 gigs) - experimental OS'es (BeOS, Linux, Panther, etc)

partitio 2 - 20 gigs (look at partition 3 of HDD 1)

[cybergoober]

Disk 1 - 15 GB internal IDE
Partition 1 - ".swap" @ 2 GB
Partition 2 - "Phoenix" @ 12 GB/ Mac OS 9.2.2 & Mac OS X 10.3 7B28 ~~ see also "Panther" below

Disk 2 - 60 GB internal IDE
Single partition - "Macintosh HD"/ Mac OS X 10.2.6

Disk 3 - 60 GB internal IDE
Partition 1 - "Chimera" @ 18.4 GB/ Mac OS X 10.3 7B21 ~~ Currently set as default boot volume
Partition 2 - "Data" @ 18.4 GB/ Misc. Downloaded archives
Partition 3 - "Panther" @ 19 GB/ Mac OS X 10.3 7B28 ~~ Configuring ethernet causes kernel panics

Disk 4 - 40 GB external FireWire
Single partition - "Backup"/ No OS ~~ Used for backing up files etc.

Disk 5 - 60 GB external FireWire
Single Partition - "FireWire" /Mac OS X 10.2.6 ~~ Used with NetRestore to blast pre-configured Mac OS X 10.2.6 disk image onto machines during Mac OS X migration.

[vsurfer]

2 Mac partitions / 3 Linux: Total 5

45 GB OSX
4 GB OS9

3 GB Boot (linux)
512 MB Boot (Linux)
2.5 GB (Linux Swap)

With each new machine I use fewer partitions.

If I ran an OSX only machine I wouldn't bother partitioning any more.

I won't create a bootable OS 9 partition on the next machine, that's for sure!

PB G4 1 Ghz

[Gul Banana]

Well, my machine has four logical drives... but two of them are entire physical drives, and two of them are NFS mounts. So basically, one partition per drive.

[Telusman]

I've got a 20gb Partition for Mac OS X, apps, home etc. i've got a 512mb partition for Swap, and 8gb for mp3's on a separate partion called "mp3'

-Telusman

[bwahahax]

5.4 GB OSX/Apps Partition
3 GB Swap/Downloads Partition
30 GB Music Partition

80 GB Scratch Disk (Seperate Drive)

[TheDisaster]

One partition with 10.2.6 (and OS 9 for classic) and all apps and everything. Another partition for playing with other OSs (Linux and 10.3 builds) and sometimes storing junk. I really don't use my secondary one that much at all.

[eggman]

One partition for X (inc. data, apps, etc.)
One partition for 9.

When my new system arrives (it's supposed to ship next week, or so they say), I'm dropping the partition for 9.

[kennedy]

Several have said they keep their music on a separate partition.

What's the advantage of that?

Separate directory I understand... but OS X makes that automatic with the Music subdir and iTunes design. Why keep them on a separate partition. Partitions are usually employed to control fragmentation or to allow separate disk formatting... neither of which seem at issue with music files.

So, why the separate music partition?

[-Q-]

Originally posted by kennedy:
SNIP...

So, why the separate music partition?

I have to b/c I'm currently using a Beige G3 and had to partition my 40 GB drive in order to install OS X. If I kept my music in my home folder, I'd quickly have run out of space. Plus it's just easier for me to back-up manually - I just grab my music folder and drop it onto my external drive.

As it stands, my partition scheme is like so:

Drive 1

Partition 1: 8 GB - Mac OS X system and applications.
Partition 2: 27 GB - Mac OS X Games and data

Drive 2

Partition 1: 40 GB - Mac OS 9 and DV files

[Mac007]

Two partitions:

OS X on the large partition

OS 9 on the smaller partition

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Mac007:
Two partitions:

OS X on the large partition

OS 9 on the smaller partition

Just to be clear, for the purposes of this poll, that would be "one partition"... partitions for other OS's (like OS9) are being ignored... trying to determine how people setup their OS X environment (OS, apps, data, and swap).


Thanks for all the responses so far!!!

[kennedy]

Given the vast majority are keeping their OS X, apps, and data all in one partition, it makes me wonder how people are doing a variety of things... leading to some follow-up questions...

The first is whether you do a clean or dirty install of new major revisions of OS X? And if clean install, how are you preserving your data files? To make it easy to answer, I've split this question into a separate poll... first follow-up question.

The second is how do you preserve all of the apps you have installed? Or do you just reinstall them all. Again, to make it easy to answer, I made it a poll that you can just click... second follow-up question.

Thanks for participating... allowing us to reveal the collective wisdom of this group!

[Mediaman_12]

I seam to have an unusual set up As I have 2 drives.
One is a 80GB in one partition Used as the boot drive With apps and everything else on it (sort of standard config)
the other drive is a 120GB drive, with 4 partitions. a 30GB partition containing a total OS and apps backup, a 350MB partition for the OS swap file (moving this from the OS drive and to the faster 2nd drive really sped up the OS), a 4.7GB partition as a DVD backup preparation disk, and the remaining space as a scratch disk for iMovie, Photoshop, etc. and other temporary working files.

[OpenStep]

one for /boot, one for /home, one for swap and one for /, Wait, are we talking about OS X? Just one partition on my Mac.