Partitioning the HD for OS X. Yay or Nay?

breakskull · December 11, 2001 7:15PM

When you buy a Mac nowadays both systems(OS X+OS 9) are on one drive. I've read alot of comments pro and con on the issue. What do you people feel? If there were an advantage wouldn't Apple sell Macs already partitioned. I have scoured Apples web site and can't find anything specific on the issue. What say yee all?

seb · December 11, 2001 7:32PM

I've left everything on one drive and haven't had a single problem. Of course, that means very little. But that's what I have to say.

It may be a little faster if you setup the swap partitions and all that. My system works fine the way it is though. Can't complain about speed in any way so didn't bother.

FYI

B/W G3 400 576MB RAM

12GB HD

20GB HD

ghost_user_name · December 11, 2001 8:05PM

The only "pro" to partitioning a single drive to put OS9 on one part and OSX on the other is the ability to choose which system to boot at startup.

IMO, there are far more cons. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />

kelib · December 12, 2001 4:16AM

[quote]Originally posted by starfleetX:

The only "pro" to partitioning a single drive to put OS9 on one part and OSX on the other is the ability to choose which system to boot at startup.

IMO, there are far more cons. <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> <hr></blockquote>

What are the cons?

code master · December 12, 2001 7:44AM

I've got mine partitioned from way back when X had to have its own partition and I haven't had any problem with it, but if the computers come with X and 9 on the same partition, I'd just leave it like that.

Actually, it might be handy to have two 9 System folders, one for classic mode (with only base extensions on) and one for if you ever boot into 9 with the whole army of extensions.

CD

kidred · December 12, 2001 1:12PM

Yay.

fantastic happy dinner man · December 12, 2001 1:36PM

my experience (May 2001 DUSB iBook) is if you need OS 9, it's quicker on its own partition.

Haven't experimented as much with the 600 (just got it

) but have tossed OS 9 and am quite pleased with OS X only and a single volume.

bradbower · December 12, 2001 1:40PM

Make a teeny partition or get a separate HDD for OS 9, or else you run a serious risk of not being able to start up into 9 one day.

kate · December 12, 2001 1:41PM

Aye, nearly a must for all who try to make the most out of X. Backup, repairs, startup change, file system integrity etc. depend on a second partion at least. If you want to squeeze every percent of speed out of it you better use a third partition for swap space.

code master · December 12, 2001 3:02PM

Don't you need another drive to get anything more out of swapping? Two partitions on the same drive wouldn't help would it?

BTW, make your X partition bigger than 2 GB if you do partition... I am always pressed for space

CD

ethox · December 12, 2001 3:42PM

Here's my nickel BreadSkull; for me, since the very beginning I placed everything on one drive, OS-10/9, no problems. Before the big update I had a few funky quirks, but I expected some, after implementing the update all of those little qurks have literally gone away. I have so far helped 22 friends of mine,(who are also hardcore Apple folks) since the March update release, and so far all of these people are having much, much, fewer or no problems at all comparatively when they had their systems partitioned-out. And I have just finished surveying them all today, and all of these people are current, with 10.1.1, all but 1 is happy with OS-X now; and all, but this one, now seat in front of OS-X everyday. Oh, that one person who is not satisfied is someone who just does not like OS-X at all

, he simply hates the GUI, AND THAT IS ANOTHER ISSUE THAT SHOULD NOT BE STARTED UP HERE. So overall to your ?, I say nay to the partitioning the HD.

breakskull · December 12, 2001 4:20PM

I appreciate the feedback. I'm going to leave it all on one drive. If it were very critical for the running of OS X, it would be just as easy for Apple to sell the Mac with partitioned drives.

breakskull · December 12, 2001 10:04PM

I had actually decided a little while ago that, what the heck, I'll go ahead and partition afterall. Which leads me into a different posting in the Genius Bar...

[ 12-12-2001: Message edited by: breakskull ]

gino ledesma · December 13, 2001 1:56AM

One reason why Apple wouldn't partition drives on their computers as a "default" is probably because it'd be too... "complicated." How large should OS9 and OSX partitions be? Should they introduce a third "shared" partition for applications or documents? That's the drift, basically. Not to mention the Restore CDs...

I personally prefer to partition drives for some reasons like defragmenting/erasing them for temporary storage. I setup partitions exclusively for the OS, and dump all non-critical system applications on a shared partition, and general data on another partition. That way, its easier to back up as well.

Also, I have this minor issue with Mac OS 9 truncating filenames to 31 characters. The worse part is that sometimes OSX doesn't expand them again -- leaving them in the 31-character filename.

ghost_user_name · December 13, 2001 3:54AM

[quote]One reason why Apple wouldn't partition drives on their computers as a "default" is probably because it'd be too... "complicated." How large should OS9 and OSX partitions be? Should they introduce a third "shared" partition for applications or documents? That's the drift, basically. Not to mention the Restore CDs...<hr></blockquote>THAT is exactly why I do not like partitioning drives. I do not like the restriction imposed by splitting a drive into two parts whose sizes are immutable. I've tried partitioning my drive in the past, but I quickly found that having one was just as easy.

ghost_user_name · December 13, 2001 3:58AM

[quote]Also, I have this minor issue with Mac OS 9 truncating filenames to 31 characters. The worse part is that sometimes OSX doesn't expand them again -- leaving them in the 31-character filename.<hr></blockquote>This will only happen if the file's name has been changed in OS9 or if the file was copied/duplicated in OS9. When you copy a file in OS9, the Finder can only handle the name up to 32 chars; thus, the long "hidden" name is lost.

code master · December 13, 2001 8:22AM

The ability to have a shared drive for ftp servers and whatnot while keeping all system drives totally out of reach is a reason for partitioning.

It is quite convenient.

When I get my second big drive I'll have 4 partitions:

OS 9 System Drive /X scratch

OS X System Drive

Apps/Private Data

Shared Data/Downloads

franck · December 13, 2001 11:46AM

[quote]Originally posted by starfleetX:

THAT is exactly why I do not like partitioning drives. I do not like the restriction imposed by splitting a drive into two parts whose sizes are immutable. I've tried partitioning my drive in the past, but I quickly found that having one was just as easy.<hr></blockquote>

Hard Disk toolkit is doing a fairly good job, letting us changing the partition's size without erasing it.(Like PartitionMagic on a PC).

I have 6 partitions over 2 disks.

WD 100GB, 4 partitions (OS X, OS 9, documents, video)

Maxtor 20GB, 2 partitions ( Emergency OS 9 , copy of documents )

ventral · December 15, 2001 4:55AM

There actually are a few more good reasons to partition. I've got an OSX partition, for system files, an OS9 partition for Classic, and a User Partition for user files. On a 30 GB drive it breaks down 3Gig for X, 2 for 9, and 25 for Users I've got 5 users. One is "iTunes", with no password, so that anyone can log in and play music.

The advantages that I see are:

*I can reinstall any system w/o losing all my settings

*I (and others) can boot into 9 and I can have my X and User volumes not automount, so they are "invisible" to 9 and thus protected from accidental mishaps. Remember 9 don' need no stinkin' permissions. I can always mount the X and User volumes with Drive setup if I need to from 9.

*I've got another volume for running maintenance and diagnostics

*I can feel impressed with myself for figuring it all out and getting to be the head cheese on this iMac used by me, my mom, my niece and the cat.

ventral · December 15, 2001 5:01AM

Oh, and while I was testing OSX but mostly using OS9, ie before 10.1.1, I had 3 different partition, 10GB 9, 19.5 for X, and .5 for a small Classic partition. I put the classic partition at the end of the disk so it could not boot, but it still worked in classic. slick. This left os9 untouched by any osx trickery. The major flaw in this scheme is that the classic control panel would frequently forget which 9 volume was supposed to launch classic. This I assume is because all the classic aps were on the 9 volume.

breakskull · December 16, 2001 1:14AM

OK then, assuming partitioning is the way to go, how much percentage of the HD should be devoted to each OS?

Partitioning the HD for OS X. Yay or Nay?

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