New Imac: To partition or not to partition

derekuncwderekuncw
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Ok, heres a question for all you new imacers. It is suggested that you put os x on a seperate partition that os 9. I'm assuming that Apple will send it installed on one partition (despite their own recommendations). So should I go through the pain of formatting, partitioning and reinstalling all the software (I think I saw like 10 CDs in Mac's Girl's photos)? What do you guys think? Is it worth the time? I just like having different partitions for the different oses.



Thanks

Derek <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    serranoserrano Posts: 1,806member
    [quote]Originally posted by DerekUNCW:

    <strong>Ok, heres a question for all you new imacers. It is suggested that you put os x on a seperate partition that os 9. I'm assuming that Apple will send it installed on one partition (despite their own recommendations). So should I go through the pain of formatting, partitioning and reinstalling all the software (I think I saw like 10 CDs in Mac's Girl's photos)? What do you guys think? Is it worth the time? I just like having different partitions for the different oses.



    Thanks

    Derek <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>



    make 3 partitions, one for 9, one for x, and one for your os x swap files (160-320MB)
  • Reply 2 of 8
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    I would make a separate OS 9 partition just for the sake of having two partitions you can boot up from. It's going to make running disk repair utilities a lot easier. You won't have to boot from a CD. You'll also be able to quickly choose OS 9 or OS X at start-up by holding down option.



    Having a separate swap partition will result in less fragmenting at best, but even then you won't be immune to it. It's too much trouble and inelegant to muck around with /etc/rc to add the necessary lines to put the swap in another directory. The /etc/fstab method is even worse.
  • Reply 3 of 8
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    I am considering doing this with the PowerMac I am getting today, but I can't decide what size to make the partitions. I've got a 40 GB drive.



    I guess it depends on where you plan on doing the most work... I do want to stay in OSX for the most part, so I suppose if I want an OS9 partition mostly for safety, or to run a disk utility off of, I can keep it pretty small - a few GBs?



    Do you have to have OS9 on the same partition as OSX if you want to run Classic?



    Yes, I know I'm a little dense with OSX - I really haven't used it much at all.



    I'm leaning towards just leaving it as one...



    [ 02-13-2002: Message edited by: murbot ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 8
    serranoserrano Posts: 1,806member
    [quote]Originally posted by Eugene:

    <strong>Having a separate swap partition will result in less fragmenting at best, but even then you won't be immune to it. It's too much trouble and inelegant to muck around with /etc/rc to add the necessary lines to put the swap in another directory. The /etc/fstab method is even worse.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    wow that was uninformed. at best having my swap files on a seperate partition has cut my application load times in half. quite a big deal on a g3 450; however my results may be exagerated because of my ancient hardware ... i really can't speak on the performance increase it would give a g4 800, but it made a world of difference to my system. as always YMMV
  • Reply 5 of 8
    macgpmacgp Posts: 88member
    Apple puts OS9 and OSX on the same partition?Ick! Well, when I get my new iMac the first thing I'll be doing is creating two new partitions. I'll just have to decide what size I want the two to be.



    [ 02-13-2002: Message edited by: MacGP ]</p>
  • Reply 6 of 8
    mac writemac write Posts: 289member
    When I got my 60GB for my Beige G3 MT 266, last July, I did these partitions:



    ?5GB Mac OS X

    ?3GB Mac OS 9 (too big)

    ?52GB For Data (very useful)



    I like to keep my data away from my OS partitions.
  • Reply 7 of 8
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    Can someone give a good list of reasons why one would want to partition?



    I did two partitions initially with X, but stopped doing it. To me, it was just confusing and scattered, with all those different Documents directories and the like (one in Home, one on the main X partition, and another on your 9 partition). I got lost on my own machine all too often. And I never really understood why you would want multiple partitions.



    I'd suggest trying it for a while with just one partition, and seeing if you have any problems. If no problems, go for simplicity.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    mr.potatoheadmr.potatohead Posts: 99member
    Personally, I think partitioning HD's is overrated. On my PC at home, three years ago I partitioned my HD with a 1 gig partition for Win95 and the other partition for everything else. Well, upgrading to Win98 meant I had to offload everything on BOTH PARTITIONS and reformat the drive so my C: drive had more space (2 gigs this time, which is plenty for Win98). Now I've upgraded to Windows 2000, and 2 gigs is again feeling tight (in fact, I had to trash a bunch of stuff just to get it to install). I now have about 200 MB to spare after the upgrade, and I'll probably have to offload and reformat if (when) I upgrade to WinXP.



    My point is, if you ever start to run low on space, then file management on a partitioned system can be a real pain, especially if you only give the boot partition a small but comfortable amount of space. OS upgrades will fill it up.



    My preference now is to completely forego partitions and just add additional drives (though I do like janitor's idea of creating a partition just for swap; I may have to try that).
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