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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Consumer Hardware & Components > what is the advantage of partitioning an internal drive?

what is the advantage of partitioning an internal drive?
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bonniescotland
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Dec 9, 2008, 06:36 AM
 
I just posted a thread previous to this on how to partition an external drive, but it just got me wondering often I read about people partitioning their internal drives. Now I understand why you might want to partition an external drive if you had a mac and pc so one part of the external drive is for mac the other for pc etc, but other than that I don't understand what the advantages are of partitioning a drive solely for mac or solely for pc.
Obviously there must be a good reason for it as I often read of people doing it, but I just don't understand why.
No urgency to reply, this is just my curiosity rather than anything I need to know.
     
Simon
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Dec 9, 2008, 06:52 AM
 
If the PC and Mac data do not need to be accessed by both platforms you can partition and have each platform use the partitioning of choice for that side.

If you want both sides to be able to "see" all data you need to select a partitioning both sides can deal with. Macs can read/write to/from FAT whereas PCs cannot deal with HFS unless you install extra software.

Partitioning does make sense in certain cases. But it also reduces flexibility (live repartitioning is not necessarily a given). So it's good to only partition when you need to. On external drives this can often be the case. On internal boot disks it's almost never appropriate. In this respect OS X is different from Windows or Linux.
     
bonniescotland  (op)
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Dec 9, 2008, 07:33 AM
 
so if you were only ever using a mac there would be no reason to partition your mac internal drive?
and if you were only ever using a pc there would be no reason to partition your pc internal drive?
so why do people who only use one computer all the time i.e. they never switch between mac/pc etc, why do they sometimes partition a drive, for instance they might make a drive 3 partitions all of mac os extended, what would be the point of this?
     
NobleMatt
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Dec 9, 2008, 07:48 AM
 
for data protection, if u have all your documents on the same partition as you OS and your OS corrupts and is not recoverable, then chances are you gonna lose all your file too because your going to have to format the entire drive. where as if you had the OS and all non important files on one partition and all your important files on another then if your OS corrupts you can format that partition without the worry of losing all your documents. Mind you this can all be ignored if your running an external HDD as a back up HDD but for those without externals its a good option.

Tbh i dont know of it being done with macs a great deal with the OS being so stable, however its rather important in my mind with windows, i always create a partition of a good few gigs and move my 'My Documents' folder to that location.
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Simon
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Dec 9, 2008, 08:22 AM
 
Originally Posted by bonniescotland View Post
so if you were only ever using a mac there would be no reason to partition your mac internal drive?
There are special circumstances. But for most OS X users (especially regular non-pro users) a single OS X partition is what they want to boot from. OS X can be installed over an existing install if the system gets screwed up (upgrade install, MA, etc.). Backups of your documents and apps should be available anyway. There was a discussion recently about the pros and cons of partitioning OS X boot disks starting here.

and if you were only ever using a pc there would be no reason to partition your pc internal drive?
PCs are different. Linux users will partition - and if it's for swap and scratch alone. On Windows partitioning is common too. But this has to do with the way these OS work. There are reasons to partition on a Mac, but it's a bad idea to do so just because that is what you're used to from the PC world.

so why do people who only use one computer all the time i.e. they never switch between mac/pc etc, why do they sometimes partition a drive, for instance they might make a drive 3 partitions all of mac os extended, what would be the point of this?
There are many reasons. Some better, some not. In the end I think if you do not know exactly why you are partitioning, you probably don't need to. The few pros that actually need to partition usually know exactly why.

Note also that this all applies to the main boot disk. External, backup, clone, exchange, etc. disks are a different matter.
     
wadesworld
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Dec 9, 2008, 11:36 AM
 
For an average user, there is no advantage. Make sure you have time machine backing up your disk and leave it as one partition.
     
tooki
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Dec 9, 2008, 03:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by crazyreaper View Post
for data protection, if u have all your documents on the same partition as you OS and your OS corrupts and is not recoverable, then chances are you gonna lose all your file too because your going to have to format the entire drive. ...
Ummm, no... the Archive and Install feature of the Mac OS X installer allows you to install a fresh OS without affecting files, applications, or settings. (Mac OS 9 and earlier had a similar feature in their installers, so it's nothing new on the Mac.)
     
NobleMatt
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Dec 9, 2008, 03:34 PM
 
oh... ok... havent had to use it, just presumed it wouldn't be plausible, nice to know thought, but surely there must be something that can cause you to lose data?
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CharlesS
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Dec 9, 2008, 03:34 PM
 
Yes, your hard drive's partition map could get messed up or the hardware could fail, and then you are going to lose everything no matter how it's partitioned. The proper solution to this is to back up your files, not to partition.

To answer the OP's question, the advantage of partitioning is to be able to boot multiple operating systems. If you are a developer, for instance, you might want to have one partition that boots into Leopard, one that boots into Tiger, one that boots into Snow Leopard (if you're an ADC member), one that boots into Ubuntu, one that boots into Windows XP, etc. If you don't need to do that sort of thing, you don't need partitions.

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Big Mac
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Dec 9, 2008, 03:44 PM
 
There's just as much of an advantage to partitioning an internal drive as there is to partitioning an external drive. People do it for various reasons, but multiple boot partitions is one good reason, as Charles points out. I personally like having my second internal drive in my G5 be a mirror of sorts of my boot drive, but my second internal usually ends up being larger than my boot drive so I partition the second so that the mirror partition is the same size.

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Cold Warrior
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Dec 9, 2008, 07:22 PM
 
Since this is not about OS X but about a computer component and the multitude of issues surrounding its partitioning, I've moved it to the proper forum.
     
bonniescotland  (op)
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Dec 9, 2008, 10:03 PM
 
Thanks all, finally am understanding the intricacies of partitioning! No intention of doing it myself, but because I keep hearing of people doing it, I started to wonder if I needed to, but having read all this I know finally understand the reasons for it, but I've realised it isn't something I feel that would be beneficial to my computer.
     
tooki
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Dec 10, 2008, 03:57 PM
 
In the old days, there were hard limits on filesystems that made partitioning either mandatory or beneficial, but these days, those limits are long gone. Using partitions to organize is just silly now, only the reasons outlined by CharlesS remain.
     
reader50
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Dec 10, 2008, 04:54 PM
 
CharlesS mentions different partitions for booting different Operating Systems during development work. I can add a few other situations:

If you have a laptop, it's a good idea to have a 2nd boot partition with disk-repair utilities installed on it. If you're on a trip / at school / wherever and the main partition stops working, your install / repair disks are likely back at home. So boot from the 2nd partition, fix the first one, and be back in business. You can even use your Mac for basic stuff while the repair is in progress.

If a drive may be swapped into an older Mac with the 128 GB limit, it's beneficial to make a 127 GB partition at the beginning for booting. Include the Intech big-drives kext, and the rest of the drive will mount after boot on all Macs. This is becoming a legacy matter as the older Macs are retired.

If you are the cautious type, and your Mac doesn't accommodate multiple drives, then you might make three partitions: two boot partitions, and a shared data partition with your user folder on it. Apply OS upgrades / updates to the other boot partition, and switch across. If it's a bad update, switch back to the first partition and wait for Apple to release a better update. This has been less of an issue lately, but Apple does sometimes break things accidentally. Maybe your daily work depends on one of those things, and you don't have time to reinstall the OS, reinstall pro apps, and update everything back up to the previous level.

There are a few installers that search your drive(s), in order to update every copy of something. Having multiple partitions allows you to unmount one with Disk Utility, so a tresspassing installer doesn't mess with applications on the 2nd partition. This is an uncommon issue, but could save the reinstall time if you needed to keep an older app version on hand for whatever reason. Like better document compatibility.
     
Simon
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Dec 10, 2008, 04:57 PM
 
As I already pointed out above, there are indeed good reasons to partition. Even on OS X. But the people who need it know it and they also know why. If an OS X user doesn't know if he should partition or why, chances are he doesn't need to.
     
smitty825
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Dec 11, 2008, 01:45 AM
 
One other reason I've found it's good to partition: If you are constantly creating large files, you won't accidentally fill up your whole drive, making it impossible to save things :-)

I work with lots of computer programs, and when I make builds, sometimes they generate lots of large object files. If I only have one partition, and I'm not careful, I can easily fill up the whole disk with only a few KB remaining. That's bad if I have other applications running (such as mail) which also needs to write data to the disk. (I'd imagine it's the same for people working with lots of photos, digital videos, etc)
     
Big Mac
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Dec 11, 2008, 02:28 AM
 
It may also make sense in a few situations to partition a large drive used for Time Machine if you want to use part of the space for some other non-essential storage task - if you don't do that Time Machine is set to potentially fill the whole drive.

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Simon
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Dec 11, 2008, 06:12 AM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac View Post
It may also make sense in a few situations to partition a large drive used for Time Machine if you want to use part of the space for some other non-essential storage task - if you don't do that Time Machine is set to potentially fill the whole drive.
Absolutely.

I have for example partitioned my external TM drive so it has a second partition with a clean OS X installation. You can't boot from a TM backup, but in the event of trouble, I can boot from the other partition. Sure you could also use the install DVD for an emergency boot, but the HDD is just so much faster.
     
zack13532
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Dec 14, 2008, 10:45 AM
 
You can actually boot from a Time Machine partition, by first installing the OS, then choosing the disk as you Time Machine backup. Boots up normally.

With extremely stable OS's these days, the only reason that 95% of people would want to partition is to install Windows or Linux.
     
Simon
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Dec 14, 2008, 10:55 AM
 
You can actually even install OS X over an existing TM backup w/o destroying the TM backup. It works just fine.

But personally, I feel more comfortable having nothing but the TM backup on its partition. Maybe it's just voodoo.
     
CharlesS
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Dec 14, 2008, 03:32 PM
 
That's true, but Big Mac had a point that Time Machine will theoretically fill up the whole drive eventually, leaving you with no VM space when you boot from the TM disk.

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Spheric Harlot
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Dec 14, 2008, 05:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by Simon View Post
Absolutely.

I have for example partitioned my external TM drive so it has a second partition with a clean OS X installation. You can't boot from a TM backup, but in the event of trouble, I can boot from the other partition. Sure you could also use the install DVD for an emergency boot, but the HDD is just so much faster.
As rarely as that happens (once in two years or so on my machines), I'm not at all sure the effort spent is really worth it.
     
Simon
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Dec 15, 2008, 06:13 AM
 
Which effort? The ten seconds it took to make an extra 15 GB partition on that external drive or the two minutes it takes to start off the OS X installation? The effort is zero.

Sure, with OS X being as stable as it is I do indeed almost never make use of that emergency install. But that's not something I'm gonna complain about.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Dec 15, 2008, 07:25 AM
 
Originally Posted by Simon View Post
Which effort? The ten seconds it took to make an extra 15 GB partition on that external drive or the two minutes it takes to start off the OS X installation? The effort is zero.
Last time I installed an OS X from scratch it took about three hours from kick-off until the last software update was installed.

I have an external boot HD for support purposes, but I haven't used that in ages, either.

I repeat: It's not worth the effort if you don't make your living off making other people's ****ed-up machines bootable again - and even then, Target Disk Mode and if that didn't help, an Archive & Install are the better alternatives, almost always.
     
Simon
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Dec 15, 2008, 09:39 AM
 
You start the install and then go to bed. When you wake up it's done. If you want the updates you do the same things with SU the next night. Total effort: about 5 minutes.

TDM is on the way out. At least for consumer Macs.

A&I is a recovery procedure, not a diagnostic.

This was merely an example of why somebody might partition. There are others. You may not want to. That's fine too. But there's not one right that fits everybody.
     
cbrfanatic
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Dec 15, 2008, 01:56 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
As rarely as that happens (once in two years or so on my machines), I'm not at all sure the effort spent is really worth it.
i have had it happen 4 times in the past 3 years on 3 different machines. The most recent was on my MPB.
I had it on all night downloading some things, woke up in the morning, checked my email and stocks and the usual, then shut down. Got to work and turned it on and all i got was the ? blinking inside of the folder, for some reason it didnt see an OS.
Had to rush home and plug in my eternal and reload from the TM backup from a few hours prior. hasnt happened since, and still dont know what caused it. I just have bad luck i guess.

Second, If i were to partition my internal HDD to put a copy of Drive Genius on it, do i need to install the OS on that partition as well or can it be solely Drive Genius?
( Last edited by cbrfanatic; Dec 15, 2008 at 02:10 PM. )
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gentooq
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Dec 15, 2008, 05:18 PM
 
first, i agree with other posters who put forth the "know why you are partitioning before you partition" logic.

second, i believe there are a large number of reasons why people would have a desire to partition, and a good many of them may or may not have validity. here we fall back on "know why . . ."

third, on my MacBook Pro i have two partitions. my primary partition is my boot/os/documents/apps partition. my second partition i call "jukebox" on that partition i put all of my music. my reason for doing so is that while frequently add music, i rarely if ever remove it. this data does not change much, if at all. this keeps it all in pretty much contiguous blocks on the volume. i believe that avoiding the shuffling around that would occur on my primary partition keeps the music files from potential corruption incidents, and may also allow for better playback speeds.

just my 2¢ worth.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Dec 15, 2008, 06:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by gentooq View Post
my second partition i call "jukebox" on that partition i put all of my music. my reason for doing so is that while frequently add music, i rarely if ever remove it. this data does not change much, if at all. this keeps it all in pretty much contiguous blocks on the volume. i believe that avoiding the shuffling around that would occur on my primary partition keeps the music files from potential corruption incidents, and may also allow for better playback speeds.
I assume you're talking about music production, because "better playback speeds" is completely ludicrous in the context of iTunes.
     
cbrfanatic
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Dec 16, 2008, 12:14 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
I assume you're talking about music production, because "better playback speeds" is completely ludicrous in the context of iTunes.
it is safe to assume he is talking about music production.....i hope
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