[X4U] Lion and Partition size

[Neil Laubenthal]

On May 3, 2012, at 3:25 PM,5/3, jetlag11 at mac.com wrote:
> There used to be a reason to partition the HDD (to display alternate startup partitions) but that's not really valid anymore. The only reason today I can think of, is for a Windows partition - and I'm not sure that's desirable either.
> 
> I've found drive partitions to be a big PITA. For example, I've tried to assign folders to dedicated partitions, but either I or the finder keep screwing things up. A single, large patition works best for me.
> 
> Regarding your friend's suggestion, Mac OS does drive optimization on the fly.  That's why Disk Utility doesn't include a defragmentation tool - it defragments continuously.
> 

Partitioning used to be a great topic of discussion. These days I think the only reasons to do it are to enable booting from multiple versions of the OS (or Windows via Boot Camp) or if one wanted to keep your /Users or /Applicaitons on a separate partition. It is probably true that the boot partition is more likely to get corrupted than other partitions; but I don't think the likelihood is great enough to warrant partitioning unless one wants to anyway. This was always one of those 'religious' arguments with each side having all sorts of reasons why they were right and the other side was wrong. I used to partition in the OS 9 and early OS X days; but these days don't partition unless I have a reason for it.

One good reason that I use is the Time Machine backup drive on my file server (a Mini) that collects Time Machine backups from our daily driver laptops. I gave this its own partition just to keep the boot partition on the server from accidentally filling up. I also have an external 1.5 TB drive that is partitioned and gets occasional clones from the file server and both laptops so I have a reasonably current bootable copy of the drives.

Beyond that; partition if you want; skip it if you don't want.


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There are only three kinds of stress; your basic nuclear stress, cooking stress, and A$$hole stress. The key to their relationship is Jello.

neil