[P1] HD Partitions - General Question

[Tom R. no spam]

Depends on the size of the harddrives you want to backup. but
maybe 1 partition for backups and 1 for all else?  The 1 for
backups would be the size (real size, not advertised "GB") of
the total of the iMac and the iBook, + maybe .1% - 1% for
various OS admin overhead stuff.  The 2nd would be whatever
is left over.  You're actually not likely to use the backup
partition fully, since you're not likely to have an actually
full harddrive to backup, so that maybe could be some amount
smaller; or you could use the extra space to keep miscellaneous
backups (the last state of your B&W, camera cards, USB flash
drives, whatever).

But if you want to do the backups by a simplistic cloning
process that fills the target volume, eg with zeros, so there
is a strictly 1_volume-to-1_volume backup and nothing else, to
give an exact copy of the source volume, then you want separate
partitions for each harddrive you want to backup, each target
volume the same size as its source volume.

If you want bootability as well as backup--a good idea--,
the simplistic strict clone should give that automatically;
the 1st version above would have to have some partition be
bootable.  And it's good to have diagnostic and recovery tools
on a bootable partition, too, in addition to the OS Disk
Utility:  DiskWarrior, maybe TechTools (a version of which
comes on an AppleCare CD), any etc.

I recently got an AcomData 160GB FW/USB for < $1/GB.  Isn't
it great?

On Sat, 17 Jul 2004, Bob Gir. wrote:

>     Just got my La Cie160GB external HD (found via DealMac for $146,
> shipping included).
>
>     I will be using it to back up whatever iMac I get when the new ones come
> out and a G4 iBook which my wife will be getting.
 . . .
> computer), what would more experienced folks suggest for a partition scheme?
>
>     Just off the top of my head, I was considering three partitions of equal
> size:  one would hold the backup for the iMac, another the backup for the
> iBook, the third for storage of odds and ends like photo files, downloaded
> System upgrades from Apple, for use in the event that we ever had to install
> the system software from the CDs, etc.
 . . .