I think I want to partition a 10GB hard drive but I don't know all the advantages and disadvantages of doing so. Could anyone fill me in? If I do partition this HD, what size do I need for the OS? Should I just make 2 partitions, one for OS, and one for everything else? Thanks.

------------------

[Cipher13]

A good thing to do is give the System about 600 megs, if its OS 9 (or about 2 hundred higher than it currently uses), and use the other partitions for everything else.
That way you can easily format the System Drive (as I call it) if something should happen...
What you should really do though is make the desktop file on the 'everything else' partition.
To do that make aliases of the larger partition, and put them in the System Drive replacing its desktop files.
If you really want to, you can have an Applications partition, System and Documents. I wouldn't go that far though...
Do you do a lot of Photoshop work? If so you may want to create a scratch disk too.

Cipher13

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 09-02-2000).]

[DocWest]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
What you should really do though is make the desktop file on the 'everything else' partition.
To do that make aliases of the larger partition, and put them in the System Drive replacing its desktop files.

That's a really good idea, I hadn't thought of doing that. So how exactly do you do that? Do you replace the Desktop DB and DF files? Or the invisible desktop folder on the system partition?
I thought it would be the invisible desktop folder.

[This message has been edited by DocWest (edited 09-03-2000).]

[mac freak]

Also, if you're planning on installing OS X Public Beta, make a 1 GB partition for that system, as well as the 600 MB OS 9 partition and the "everything else" partition.

[Cipher13]

I'm sure I made an alias of the Desktop Folder, but I can't remember whether I made aliases of the DB and DF files - it was ages ago and its on the other comp (so I can't check at the moment )
I'll check when I can.
It just really annoyed me that everything I copied to the desktop and downloaded went to the System Drive, so then I had to copy to the main partition, then move to the desktop, then delete from the system drive...
And you get the idea

Cipher13

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 09-03-2000).]

[Gregory]

Partition order:

System 9.x - room for clean install etc. 800-1200MB
OS X or 8.6 etc. - 1 GB
VM - X requires a dedicated partition. 300 MB?
Scratch - Photoshop, downloads, copy files to defragment - 1 GB
Main - Apps/Doc/Utilities/Installers - 6 GB

Use Drive Setup 1.9.2 or later to do custom HFS+

You can keep a small emergency system or just "clean install" on Scratch or for now X partition. Also consider keeping disk copy of the system folder - if you need to replace one or more files. If you don't compress or make read-only you can still continue to apply Apple updates and keep it current.

Gregory

Thanks, you guys are really helpful, way more than the Mac OS books I've read. I'm not quite sure I understand how to put the desktop file on the main partition...how do the aliases fit in? I'm still learning about the nuances of the Mac OS..I understand the need for a desktop file, but I'm a bit lost when it comes to using them for different partitions.

------------------

[Cipher13]

Aliases are basically pointers to another file. If you double click an alias, it will open whatever that alias points to.
If you move something to an alias of a folder, it will be moved to that folder.
The desktop file on a Mac is like any other folder, except it is shown on the same level as your HD and removable discs (it resides in HD: Desktop Folder [there shouldn't be a space after tha colon - however, if I didn't put it there, it showed a big grin!]).
When you move an item to the desktop, it is moved to the invisible Desktop Folder, which has its contents shown on the 'desktop'.
When you replace the Desktop Folder of a volume with an alias to a different desktop folder, anything put onto the desktop of either of those volumes will go onto the volume with the actual Desktop Folder. Get what I mean?
Where confusion arises is when there is more than one volume - and therefore there is more than one Desktop Folder.
Both show their contents on the shared 'desktop', however, the System Drive is like the 'top layer'. Drag a clipping, and it will go to the Desktop Folder residing on the active system's drive.
If you grab a file on the desktop belonging to the other partition, that desktop folder moves to the top - however, as soon as you do something not directly involving something already on your drive, the system drive's Desktop Folder moves to the top layer and takes the file.
Thats where the aliases come in, so you can sort of 'channel' where the files go.

Cipher13

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 09-03-2000).]

Thanks, Cipher13, that cleared it up for me.



------------------