[P1] To Partition or...!

[Mary Keene]

>> I'm also curious of something Apple Tech Support told me, -  that
>> partitioning tears the disk, and slows the read/write times
>> substantially

acutually, one of the best reasons to partition is to divide ther disk 
into smaller pieces so searches are restricted in scope and 
consequently faster. Ther other primary, original reason for 
partitioning revolved arouond disk size

Back in HFS file days, all hds were divided into the same number of 
sectors regardless of the hd's pyhsical size. As a result, a 2 kb file 
would totally tie up a 64kb sector even if it never got any bigger. 
That left a lot of open wasted space. Partitioning served to downgrade 
the minimum sector size by downgrading the HD into partitions which 
were smaller thus permitting more complete use of the space available.

Additionally, the larger HDs were spacious enough to divide into 
partitions so people who wanted to isolate their major working OS from 
as much problems as possible and to make clean installs and backups 
faster and easier, were able to confine everything to one partition. 
After copying the few essential files from the OS, they could wipe the 
partition and reinstall the OS in minutes versus hours if full hd 
backup were required.

If the data files were also confined to a partition that contained data 
only and no apps or OS files, then backup was easier, more compact and 
faster. I also kept a partitiono just for applications. That partition 
rarely had any problems because after installaation, no more files were 
added to the app. I used the data partition as the scratch partition 
and only had to change something in the apps partition when I wanted to 
delete or upgrade an application.

Since OSX has the efficient archive and install option, needing a 
separate partition for it is less necessary. Because HFS+ files solved 
the sector size problem, again partitioning is less necessary. 
Partitioning now because a choice for specific reasons as opposed to a 
work around for hardware limitations or software problems.

With X, I will probably still continue to use partitions because I can 
isolate os 9 (which I will still use for a while) from the rest of my 
files  to make its maintenance easier and more efficient. Because X 
makes it easier to put data files where I want them to go, I will  also 
probably keep a data partition for convenience in backing up. I don't 
have to remember to scour the drive for files stuffed in the system 
folder.

One good reason to partition still exists today. If you want to play 
with other OSs or OS configurations (or new software apps, ie, Quark 
people may want to set up a partition with InDesign and/or an OS to see 
how it compares with QXP and not risk mixing the files up or if the 
software app is a demo that is systemically invasive, you can wipe the 
partition and remove all system files without losing your working 
system when the demo expires)  without involving your bread and butter 
files and apps, a partition will make this possible. Then if trouble 
for beta files occurs, you can wipe the partition and reinstall at the 
last working configuration and try again without jeopardizing your B N 
B files and OS