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    Partitioning Strategies

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by taelrak, Jun 9, 2007.

  1. taelrak

    taelrak Lost

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    What are some good partitioning strategies for MBP?

    For 160GB HDD in the laptop, and a 250GB external drive.

    All my music, video, photos will be on the external drive, which I want to be able to access and write with both Vista and OSX. I prefer not to use FAT32 though.

    What's a good size to set for a Vista Business partition. How much space will I need to leave for future updates?

    For the remaining partitions, I want to have one designated for Windows programs (games, Office 2007). Is this necessary, or should it just be combined with the Vista system partition? I figure 50-60 GB should be enough for this.

    One partition will be for OSX and Mac programs.

    And one remaining small one for temporary media files on the system, and documents and data. I also want both Vista and OSX to be able to access this partition.

    Is this a viable partition method? Is there anything special I need to do with any of the partitions or HDDs for bootcamp/vista/parallels compatibility if necessary?

    Basically I want data/media/documents to be accessed by both OSes, while the programs can be OS-specific.
     
    taelrak, Jun 9, 2007
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  2. postmortem

    postmortem Notebook Consultant

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    Bad approach is too many partitions- it reduces drive speed because drive head has to jump a lot between partition boundaries

    OS and all games and program files one partition
    media: documents and mp3 and movies- that makes sense to move one partition
     
    postmortem, Jun 9, 2007
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  3. Charr

    Charr Notebook Deity

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    I would leave OS X on one partition, Windows in another, and your files used by both in a third partition. Any OS exclusive data can go with the OS.
     
    Charr, Jun 9, 2007
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  4. infiniti007

    infiniti007 Notebook Guru

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    Would that 3rd partition have to be FAT32 then?
     
    infiniti007, Jun 9, 2007
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  5. ScifiMike12

    ScifiMike12 Drinking the good stuff

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    This is what I would do:

    Laptop hard drive - Two partitions
    • Windows - 80GB (or half the size of your HDD)
    • Mac OS - 80GB (or half the size of your HDD)

    External hard drive - Three partitions - Adjust the size according to the amount of media and documents/files you currently have or will have.
    • Music
    • Videos
    • Data

    And as for the "too many paritions will decrease the speed"... Lol. Fubar. The tests I've seen show very minimal decrease in hard drive performance.

    Mike.
     
    ScifiMike12, Jun 9, 2007
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  6. mongoloido

    mongoloido Notebook Consultant

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    I think it's all going to depend on what use you think you'll get out of machine. I don't intend to give my Vista partition more than 40gigs. For me, the Windows partition is going to be used only for the OS, a couple games, and some random, small apps. Just about everything I do outside of gaming is going to be done in OSX, so I want the majority of space for that. An external for media sounds pretty nice. I think I'll have to do the same. :)
     
    mongoloido, Jun 9, 2007
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  7. taelrak

    taelrak Lost

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    I like the 50-50 idea. I do want to do a full convert to OSX eventually and leave enough room for most of my programs to be Mac programs. I also want enough space to run 1-2 games (never more than that), and I'll probably keep the Windows version of Office 2007 just so I can use it no matter what OS I'm on without rebooting (that and it has Access).

    What's the best way to be able to write to a drive with both OSX and Vista?
    Macdrive? Macfuse? Other drivers?
     
    taelrak, Jun 9, 2007
    #7