[User2001]

Does partitioning a large HFS+ formatted hard drive offer any real benefits, in terms of accessing data, etc? I'm not planning to install different version of the system software, but instead am thinking about dedicating a partition to media files.

[spicyjeff]

What else would you partition it in HFS? Or UFS with Mac OS X?

HFS+ uses smaller block sizes and has other smaller optimizations HFS does not have. The real question you should be asking is why not use HFS+, for which there is only one answer and that is if you need to boot a non-PPC mac from that volume.

[User2001]

I guess I wasn't being very clear. I plan to format the drive using HFS+, but want to know if chopping it up into a bunch of partitions would be of any real, quatifiable benefit....

I've since found an article that is strongly pro-partitioning: http://sciencequest.org/support/comp...titioning.html

Is there any reason NOT to partition?

[Cipher13]

Only 2:

1. you have to reformat to change the partition table.
2. you have multiple desktops which can get confusing.

Other than that, DO IT!

I have 2 drives in my G4, each with two partitions.
All 4 partitions are bootable ("just in case"), and have different kinds of stuff on them.

I strongly recommend you partition.

How large is your drive?


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[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 04-29-2001).]

[jenman27]

I would advocate partitioning a large drive because:

(1) You can put a system on at least 2 partitions, and if something goes wrong with one system, you can boot up with the other
(2) Defragmenting and optimizing a frequently-used partition is faster and simpler than having to defragment/optimize the whole entire drive
(3) You can isolate your system on one partition and put everything else on another, so that one drive won't necessarily affect the other
(4) It is beneficial when you need to troubleshoot your system that resides on a partition. If you end up finding out that no amount of troubleshooting can salvage your system and you need to start anew, you can use the "Erase disk..." function under the Special menu and wipe out that partition only (and not have to wipe out the entire drive)
(5) I can play around with OS X, since I don't use it as my primary system
(6) It simply doesn't hurt to do so...

Those are my own personal reasons that have become useful to me at some point. Of course, to partition, you'll need to backup everything, reformat the entire drive, and then set-up your partitions afterwards.

[AirSluf]

Ciphers post might be a little misleading.

You get the multiple desktops if you have a bootable system on each partition. So if you boot from partition 1 you get it's desktop, boot from partition 2 you get a different desktop. If you just want to use the second (or more) partition(s) for applications or data you will just have your single normal desktop with an extra drive icon for each partition.

I add my advice to partition with the others. I have 3 partitions on 2 drives. 1 for OS X/OS 9-Classic and 1 for applications, the other drive is a single partition for backups, scratch space and an emergency system folder with appropriate utilities.

[User2001]

Thanks for the advice, folks. It's a new 40 Gig drive; I'm thinking that I'll chop it up with a small partition just for the primary system folder, a scratch partition, one for AV storage (MP3s, etc), one for documents, one for applications, and maybe another just for random stuff/downloads. That seems like a lot, but I think I'll give it a try. I can always reformat if it's too annoying to have that many partitions....

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by AirSluf:
Ciphers post might be a little misleading.

You get the multiple desktops if you have a bootable system on each partition. So if you boot from partition 1 you get it's desktop, boot from partition 2 you get a different desktop. If you just want to use the second (or more) partition(s) for applications or data you will just have your single normal desktop with an extra drive icon for each partition.

Thats not true.

If you boot from partition a, you get ALL the partitions desktops.
Boot from partition b, you get all of them too...

When I say "desktops", I mean multiple desktop files are made, and all of them are shown on the one 'desktop'.

Imagine it like Photoshop - each layer is a different desktop, but they look like they're all on the one desktop, but behave like they're not.

Same thing.

User, give about... 800 megs to your OS9 system folder. Thats overkill, but is a nice amount...

Cipher13

[AirSluf]

Interesting Cipher,

Hadn't noticed it like that before. I keep a pretty austere desktop so none of that would jump out at me. I'll take a look at that this afternoon during my little OS9 maintenance interlude.

[Paul S]

Cipher is right about the desktop issue (nice analogy to Photoshop by the way). It's certainly workable, but can get confusing.

[Cipher13]

Thanks

Yeah, its really confusing and annoying at first. After the first time I did it, I reformatted in sheer frustration.

This is the second time I've had it like this... and I like it now. No probs with it. Just takes some getting used to

Maybe if I was organised better with less than 162 items (currently) on my desktop

Cipher13

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[zigzag]

I've been researching the relative merits of partitioning as well. I would note that among the better-known Mac writers, David Pogue thinks that the disadvantages of HFS+ partitioning outweigh the advantages, and Gene Steinberg and Ted Landau seem to be more or less neutral about it. I don't vouch for them, but they do have credentials and it's food for thought. I think that some people (like the sciencequest writer) go overboard and spend far more time managing their drives than they gain in productivity or reliability. Even Ted Landau says that he only defragments once a year, and even then he's not sure it matters. I'm biased towards keeping things simple - I want my Mac to make my life easier, not more complicated. I've concluded that while partitioning has its place (especially for experimenting with a new operating system like OS X), when the average user gets beyond one or two partitions, the law of diminishing returns seems to enter in very quickly. But to each his own.

[This message has been edited by zigzag (edited 04-30-2001).]

[petek]

With my latest disk (45 GB IBM) I decided to try the many partitions route. I went whole hog this time, with HFS+ partitions for:
OS 9.1,
future OS X (not installed yet, have OS 9.1 here for now),
Virtual Memory & Cache,
Applications,
Virtual PC,
Files,
and a large partition for video, etc.

I burned 2 GB each for the OS partitions, to be sure to have unfragmented space available for clean installs and for the few apps which have to be there.

My conclusions after doing this?

I didn't notice any appreciable improvement in operating speed or stability (vs. 2 or 3 large partitions);
Disk maintenance is quicker;
It is a Good Idea to have more than one bootable partition for when things act up, though I don't see the need to have more than two unless you're into Linux;
My family did not go ballistic over all the new desktop "drives" as I had feared;
The next time around I'll still have separate partitions for OS's, Apps, Files and Scratch, but I don't think I'll bother with the VM and VPC parts.

[MM-o4]

Yeah, I also like the partion idea. HFS+ is definitly recommended, I got a 40g harddrive which I fromated in HSF and it was doin strange file sizes! I had 8.3mb taking up almost 250mb!! I found out later is was because of the block size I had, which ment the smallest file I could have was 195k. This folder was from my website (http://go.to/mprojects which had sh#t loads of small files. Thats why it took up so much space.
Once I refomatted it with the smallest block (or whatevea) to 4k, and everything is sweet! 250mb was now about 9mb. I also cut it into 2 partions, 1 for Documents the other for downloads and disc transferring (just incase of a virus, so it only messes with that small 7g partition)
Also the benefit of having a back up system soft where. Bloody good idea.

Well nuff babbling fro me, just DO IT!

Peace

Macca

[AirSluf]

I would recommend careful consideration on what size to make System partitions. Apple and some others as well keep putting things in the Applications Folder(s) that get so annoying to deal with any other way that you eventually just capitulate and leave it there. Some things don't like to run from elsewhere much either. You can make 'em work but is it worth the extra effort?

My sytem partition has about 2.5G of stuff now so although 4G would sound good, it should be more to avoid fragmentation slowing the VM paging too much and more importantly, a little larger means more time between needed de-fraqs. Go with whatever is comfortable, but going too small can cause more headaches later that could be avoided. It's that too much of a good thing, thing...