Thoughts about partitioning myhard drive

igrant · August 30, 2006 9:21AM

Hello again

I am going to order my MacBook this coming weekend and last night I got to thinking how I should partition the drive. I want to be able to acces all my files in both the Mac OS and Windows and then I can up with an idea. Here is my idea on a 80 gig drive.

Name_____Size___Format

Mac OS X - 20 gigs - HFS

Windows - 20 gigs - NTFS

My Files- 35 gigs - FAT32

Now the logic behind this is that OS X can read Fat32 if I remember correctly and by doing this, I do not have to duplicate data and I can access my files in either or without worrying if I am using the most up to date version.

Thanks for any input you have.

-iGrant

placebo · August 30, 2006 9:22AM

That sounds like a great idea. You could skip one step and just format your Windows partition as FAT, enabling you to pull files over in Mac OS X.

igrant · August 30, 2006 9:25AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Placebo

That sounds like a great idea. You could skip one step and just format your Windows partition as FAT, enabling you to pull files over in Mac OS X.

See I thought about that and I do not want to have to go find my files in Windows plus I really do not want to keep all my files on a Windows partition.

placebo · August 30, 2006 9:26AM

I meant, make the Windows partition as small as you can get away with, format it as FAT, and then if you need a file that's over on Windows you can get it easily, while having even more HFS+ storage.

Maybe if you explained what you intended to do in both Windows and Mac OS X I'd have better recommendations for you.

chucker · August 30, 2006 9:32AM

Wow, wonderful, my post didn't get through at all.

…and Placebo's went through twice!

placebo · August 30, 2006 9:33AM

Yeah, there was some sort of lockup with the forum DB.

igrant · August 30, 2006 9:33AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Placebo

I meant, make the Windows partition as small as you can get away with, format it as FAT, and then if you need a file that's over on Windows you can get it easily, while having even more HFS+ storage.

Maybe if you explained what you intended to do in both Windows and Mac OS X I'd have better recommendations for you.

I am mainly using the Mac OS X, however I am a Computer Science Major at college and some of my courses require me to have Windows running windows programs such as Visual Studio for my Software Engineering class. I am only going to us Windows when I have to and I really rather no see it when I am in the Mac OS.

placebo · August 30, 2006 9:35AM

Well then, to be honest I'd go with a small Windows XP partition in FAT and then the rest of it HFS with Mac OS X. I think it'll end up being a lot more simple and elegant, making the bulk of your files less fragmented in HFS+ instead of FAT, while leaving Windows files still accessible.

Just my opinion.

chucker · August 30, 2006 9:35AM

Let's try posting once more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iGrant

Name_____Size___Format

Mac OS X - 20 gigs - HFS

Windows - 20 gigs - NTFS

My Files- 35 gigs - FAT32

Now the logic behind this is that OS X can read Fat32 if I remember correctly and by doing this, I do not have to duplicate data and I can access my files in either or without worrying if I am using the most up to date version.

I can see where you're coming from, but you're sacrificing a lot of optimization by storing your data on FAT32. Instead, I would recommend buying an HFS+ driver for Windows, such as MacDrive, and going for a 55/20 partition scheme.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Placebo

That sounds like a great idea. You could skip one step and just format your Windows partition as FAT, enabling you to pull files over in Mac OS X.

I would recommend using NTFS for any Windows boot partition. It obviously has the downside of no write access, but it is (and has been) the preferred file system for Windows installations. I believe it's even the only choice in Vista (though maybe they changed that).

One major reason is that FAT32 offers no permissions whatsoever, which has some bad security implications. At least with NTFS, intruders cannot manipulate system files as easily due to the security model. It's weak (not NTFS's fault), but better than nothing at all.

igrant · August 30, 2006 9:39AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chucker

Let's try posting once more.

I can see where you're coming from, but you're sacrificing a lot of optimization by storing your data on FAT32. Instead, I would recommend buying an HFS+ driver for Windows, such as MacDrive, and going for a 55/20 partition scheme.

I would recommend using NTFS for any Windows boot partition. It obviously has the downside of no write access, but it is (and has been) the preferred file system for Windows installations. I believe it's even the only choice in Vista (though maybe they changed that).

One major reason is that FAT32 offers no permissions whatsoever, which has some bad security implications. At least with NTFS, intruders cannot manipulate system files as easily due to the security model. It's weak (not NTFS's fault), but better than nothing at all.

I see where both of you, Placebo and Chucker, are coming from but I want to not see the Mac OS in Windows and Windows in the Mac OS. Now here is a good question, how big should I make the Windows partition so that I can install a few programs such as Visual Studio and Office. I thought the 20/20/35 was a good scheme.

zachpruckowski · August 30, 2006 9:42AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iGrant

I am mainly using the Mac OS X, however I am a Computer Science Major at college and some of my courses require me to have Windows running windows programs such as Visual Studio for my Software Engineering class. I am only going to us Windows when I have to and I really rather no see it when I am in the Mac OS.

If I were you, I'd get more RAM and just use Paralells. It's more expensive, but saves a reboot. It'll be great if all you use is Office and Visual Studio. And for a laptop in college, a reboot is a pain. I find myself with all sorts of files open (PDF schedules, random scratch notesheet, IMs) most of the time, and restarting is a pain when you have to quit 5 apps and save and close a bunch of files.

igrant · August 30, 2006 9:45AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZachPruckowski

If I were you, I'd get more RAM and just use Paralells. It's more expensive, but saves a reboot. It'll be great if all you use is Office and Visual Studio. And for a laptop in college, a reboot is a pain. I find myself with all sorts of files open (PDF schedules, random scratch notesheet, IMs) most of the time, and restarting is a pain when you have to quit 5 apps and save and close a bunch of files.

Ok when you say run paralells do you Virtual Machines, if so I do not want to deal with it anymore, I really hate VMs. I can run VMs on my iBook, granted not as fast, I just hate the limitaion of VMs.

kishan · August 30, 2006 9:58AM

Also keep in mind that FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit. When I was using an external hard drive on both Mac and Windows computers, I had it in FAT32 format. It worked fine until I tried to copy over a giant imovie file.

chucker · August 30, 2006 9:58AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iGrant

I want to not see the Mac OS in Windows and Windows in the Mac OS.

I cannot see the point of this.

Quote:

Now here is a good question, how big should I make the Windows partition so that I can install a few programs such as Visual Studio and Office. I thought the 20/20/35 was a good scheme.

20 will definitely be enough for Office and Visual Studio. It should be at least 10.

igrant · August 30, 2006 10:07AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chucker

I cannot see the point of this.

20 will definitely be enough for Office and Visual Studio. It should be at least 10.

Ok I just like things simple, it might not be the most logical way, but to me its what I want.

Now I thought up another idea just a second ago. What about my 35 gig partition for my files being a ext2 Format. I know that is a linux format and I have used it before but I also know about it is that you can read and write to a ext2 format in Windows with a certain driver, I have done it before. What I don't know is what are the limitation for ext2.

Thanks

iGrant

placebo · August 30, 2006 11:15AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iGrant

I see where both of you, Placebo and Chucker, are coming from but I want to not see the Mac OS in Windows and Windows in the Mac OS. Now here is a good question, how big should I make the Windows partition so that I can install a few programs such as Visual Studio and Office. I thought the 20/20/35 was a good scheme.

So it boils down to not wanting to see a hard drive icon on your desktop? Well, for the record, the Mac OS X partition, unless you install some 3rd party software, won't appear on your Windows desktop. On the Mac desktop, whether you format the Windows partition FAT or NTFS, will appear, since while Mac OS X can't write to NTFS, it will still be able to read from it and thus show it on your desktop.

igrant · August 30, 2006 11:41AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Placebo

So it boils down to not wanting to see a hard drive icon on your desktop? Well, for the record, the Mac OS X partition, unless you install some 3rd party software, won't appear on your Windows desktop. On the Mac desktop, whether you format the Windows partition FAT or NTFS, will appear, since while Mac OS X can't write to NTFS, it will still be able to read from it and thus show it on your desktop.

AGGHHH . . . . . Ok SO I am going to see the windows install on my mac, then I might as well . . . well crap that really ruined my theory on how I was going to run my system. I sttil like the idea of haveing all my files in a seperate partition, I have done that in the past with Debian and Ubuntu installs and it seems to work really well.

imacfan · August 30, 2006 1:01PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iGrant

AGGHHH . . . . . Ok SO I am going to see the windows install on my mac, then I might as well . . . well crap that really ruined my theory on how I was going to run my system. I sttil like the idea of haveing all my files in a seperate partition, I have done that in the past with Debian and Ubuntu installs and it seems to work really well.

I wouldn't sweat over it - neither install will be able to mess with the other one...

David

Thoughts about partitioning myhard drive

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