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Amplus · Nov 29, 2005, 02:32 PM

New Mac user here

Im used to having multiple partitions on my drive. One for the OS and applications and atleast one other for data storage. I tried using the Tiger utility for this last night and couldn't get anywhere. Problem lies between the keyboard and chair I know, but I'm new and will get over that. My question though is this. I'll only have two major space hogs on this drive in the forseable future; Tiger and WoW. iMac G5 with isight and 150gb hardrive, how much space should I alocate?

This habit comes from re-installing windows cause I fell in love with the performance of a fresh instal and this was the one hd solution to easily doing that. Is this something I will no longer need to do on a Mac?

TETENAL · Nov 29, 2005, 03:12 PM

I suggest not to partition your drive. Partitioning will lead to you having not enough space on one or the other partition eventually and because the volumes are smaller you have less free space on each than you would have if they were combined so the OS has less room to work with which increased disk fragmentation.

The only reason you need partitioning is when you do software development and need to have multiple system versions to test with. Other than for that case don't do it.

If you need to reinstall the OS (which you rarely if ever will have to do) you can do an Archive & Install with reimport of the user folder and settings. You will very very unlikely eve have to reformat your disk drive for a system reinstall. It is much more likely that you will have to reformat because you don't like the partition sizes any more. So I suggest to simply stick with one partition.

Amplus · Nov 29, 2005, 03:22 PM

That archive and instal sounds pretty slick. So it is possible (though I'll rarely have to) reinstal the OS and maintain all my files and settings? I read the link you provided but those always tend to give the rosy side of the picture. Windows claimed to be albe to do this but I found the "fresh" instal to be even more butchered than the one I had been using for the past 3 months.

Now to work on that problem between the keyboard and chair.

TETENAL · Nov 29, 2005, 03:27 PM

Originally Posted by Amplus

So it is possible (though I'll rarely have to) reinstal the OS and maintain all my files and settings?

That's it and it works.

Originally Posted by Amplus

Now to work on that problem between the keyboard and chair.

What was that? If you want to know how to partition your drive: You have to boot from the system CD then select Disk Utility from the menubar (I think it's in the Utilities menu) and there you can partition your drive (select the drive in the panel on the left side, not the volume, or you won't see the Partition tab). This will of course delete all your data so you can then proceed with the system installation. I advise against partitioning.

Chuckit · Nov 29, 2005, 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by Amplus

That archive and instal sounds pretty slick. So it is possible (though I'll rarely have to) reinstal the OS and maintain all my files and settings? I read the link you provided but those always tend to give the rosy side of the picture. Windows claimed to be albe to do this but I found the "fresh" instal to be even more butchered than the one I had been using for the past 3 months.

What Archive-and-Install does is take the files that the system installer is going to replace and put them in a Previous Systems folder where they don't affect anything. You have the option of not moving the Users folder and network settings. So the fresh install will be effectively no different than if you had simply wiped the files and reinstalled them, barring some kind of disk problem.

And like TETENAL said, it's unlikely you will have to reinstall. Your core system files generally won't be changed. There is no Registry or anything like that. Problems are usually user-specific.

Amplus · Nov 29, 2005, 04:34 PM

Thanks for the responses. So it seems I have no issue since I should just leave it be. Liking this new comp already.

MOTHERWELL · Nov 29, 2005, 05:25 PM

Even if my new HD is really big (It's 500GB) I shouldn't worry about partitioning it?

This HD is going to have a lot of large video files moving through it. If a partitional is not benficial, then I am not going to worry about it!

Chuckit · Nov 29, 2005, 06:31 PM

There's no more reason to partition a large drive than a small one.

PubGuy · Nov 29, 2005, 10:19 PM

That's right. Worse Case scenario, later on you can always get an external firewire drive for your iMac and use it exclusively for your video files. Getting a second drive is probably better than bothering with partitioning. I know where your coming from...from my Window's days, I used to partition my drive to try to keep the operating system optimized. With OS X, the OS optimizes itself...the file system takes care of defragging the files on-the-fly. Being Unix-based, the operating system files themselves are protected and owned by "root". The "root" user account is disabled by default so you have to go out of your way to much with the OS files.