[hickey]

So I finally got around to ordering an external drive last night because my internal drive started to click yesterday. But how many of you partition your externals? Mine is a 250Gb, if I do partition it, how many should I make within the drive?

[rozwado1]

I broke mine into 2 partitions - one's the size of the hd and one's for extra

[icruise]

Personally, I think the only reason you should partition is if you want to install an OS on one of the partitions.

[Uisce]

Originally Posted by rozwado1

I broke mine into 2 partitions - one's the size of the hd and one's for extra

I partition to match the size of the internal HD for data backup, but no more than two partitions

[chabig]

I have one small partition on which to put a bootable system plus a few utilities, and the remainder of the space is a large partition for backups.

Chris

[hickey]

So if I do make a partition with an OS to boot off of, would I be able to boot and access all the original data?

[chabig]

Originally Posted by hickey

So if I do make a partition with an OS to boot off of, would I be able to boot and access all the original data?

Yes, absolutely.

Chris

[hickey]

so how big should I make the partition for the OS, and how exactly do I set that up? I know disk utility allows me to partition drives, but is that also where I install the OS?

[chabig]

My external drive is 250GB. I have a boot partition of 5 GB and the remaining space is a partition for backing up data.

Once you create the partitions in Disk Utility, the Mac sees two drives instead of one, and you boot from the OS install CD/DVD to install it onto a partition just like you would install it onto any hard drive.

Chris

[gradient]

Originally Posted by hickey

So if I do make a partition with an OS to boot off of, would I be able to boot and access all the original data?

Not necessarily - some external HD enclosures are not boot capable on a Mac so you'll have to do a little research or (if the unit is already on the way to you) give it a trial run.

Some time ago, I cheaped out and bought a generic external enclosure from a local computer shop thinking that it would do the job for me (it said OSX Compatible) but after installing OSX and rebooting it would just hang at the grey screen. Further research after the fact turned up the information that the enclosure was not boot capable. The next day I went out and bought great (but more expensive) enclosure made by MacAlly and it booted on the first try with the OS I had installed using the previous enclosure. Now THAT is what you call trial and error - lol.

Incidentally, here is the enclosure I ended up getting: http://www.macally.com/spec/firewire...phr_100ac.html. I recommend it 100% - its solid aluminum construction makes me feel like i could throw it across the room (even though i wouldn't - hehe).

Cheers.

[hickey]

this is the enclosure I got, http://www.byteccusa.com/product/enclosure/ME-720.htm but the manufactureres site doesnt say if it's bootable or not. I guess I'll try it tonite and hope it works.

[gradient]

Originally Posted by hickey

this is the enclosure I got, http://www.byteccusa.com/product/enclosure/ME-720.htm but the manufactureres site doesnt say if it's bootable or not. I guess I'll try it tonite and hope it works.

Not that this is definitive, but from everything I've read, enclosures that use the Oxford 911 firewire chipset are OSX bootable, so yours should work. The first enclosure I bought used a Prolific chipset, which as it turns out is shiiite.

[tooki]

As I just said in another thread, very few enclosures don't allow booting, and that's because of faulty design.

tooki

[hickey]

excellent news, thanks to all for the replies.