[CUBE] partition math

[Todd Masco]

> just bought  a 120gb drive as a present for my cube. so here is the
> question. I was thinking of a partition for OS9, another partition for 
> OS10,
> and another for Virtual PC, oh, and another for documents. That makes 
> four
> partitions. is that a good idea? is there any good reason to have more 
> or
> less?

As TK says, it's very subjective.

Personally, I never partition more than I have to - if I have one disk, 
I use one partition and run everything off of that one partition.  
That's the most flexible way (since you won't overflow any partitions 
before you fill the disk).  I boot Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X from the same 
partition (not that I've booted Mac OS 9 more than once in the last 
year).  I generally keep a large file or two (usually images of game 
CD-ROMs I own) to delete just in case I need the ballast.

The only reason I can see to partition a disk these days is to prevent 
filling one partition from affecting another - so if you download a lot 
of stuff, for example, you might want to download to a distinct 
partition. In the bad old days with unstable filesystems, it was a 
whole 'nother story, but now... nah.

But if you have your reasons, go for it.  The only downside is that 
down the road you might end up wishing that you had done otherwise.  Of 
course, external firewire disks are cheap enough that you probably 
won't have much difficulty fixing the problem if you need to.