Os X Partitions, Sizes?, minimum partition size for OSX? Options

[ArchivalAudio]

hey some advice would help a great deal....
I still am currently an OS9 user...D'OH!......

I *really* am finally getting a G4 ibook, I think a minium one with only a 30 gig harddrive... my question is as follows...
(I think I asked a simialr one before , but as thies is getting closer I am wondering more n more!)

I have hear the minimum size drive (partition) that OSX can comfortably run on is 10 GB is this true? and if so if I partition the (30 GB) drive roughly in half say 15 GB and almost 15 GB will OSX run smoothly and can I still fit some Apps on there so I can use the other Partition for writing files to? mostly this machine would be used for recording Audio. I plan in the near future on getting a External Firewire drive to also use to dump files ... and of course getting a 1 GB RAM chip in it to max the RAM to 1.25 GB.

any other and new info or suggestions would be super cool!

thanx
bunches!



-- Ian
aka Archival Audio

This post has been edited by ArchivalAudio: Wed 23 Mar 2005, 03:59

[PristineRec]

I have a Powerbook with an 80Gb internal drive. When I first got it, I reformatted and gave one partition about 8Gb and the other the rest. The 8 Gig drive was for Protools and it's plugins and such, and the other partition was for a separate system that i use for everything else: internet, Photoshop, Word, whatever. I record all tracks to an external Firewire 800 drive from OWC.
Currently, I still have about 5 GB open on my 'Protools partition'. The idea is to keep that system as clean as possible, as little possibility for conflicts as possible. It takes less than a minute to reboot from one partition to the other, and keeping everything separate has kept everything friendly as well.
I can confidently install whatever new third party system utility I want without fear that it might have a chance of messing up my recording rig. You never know what tiny little insignificant file might be installed with an application, and subsequently cause crashes or corruption or slowdowns in your DAW.

[ArchivalAudio]

cool
thanx
I am Specifically looking for info on operating the Operating System...
I thought I read that OSX won't run well if installed on a Drive less than 10 GB.....
so you run your OS on the large approx 75 GB partition... right?
and this seems to work fine

thanx
-- Ian

[eaks]

I never had the chance to work on a powerbook, but I would personnaly recommand you to not partition yr disk, run the OS and the audio apps on it, and buy that external HD to save files on it. That's how I work with my G4 dual 1.25Ghz machine and it works great! I ran my older imac G3 DVse (30Gig HD) like this too and it was fine...as long as nothing else was installed. Also, there's an older topic here where the debate is to partition or not to partition. If I remember well, the arguments not to partition were stronger than those for the partitioning camp. Sorry I dont feel like searching this thread right now...


hope this helps.

This post has been edited by eaks: Wed 23 Mar 2005, 18:27

[ArchivalAudio]

hmmmm
I always thought it was a good idea to partition a drive to write Audio or video files to (for mastering and burning discs) in order to erase and wipe freespace and properly optimize this partion of a drive....

I plan on Going "Portable" ie: no power available some times and with a firewire input device, an external drive would most of the time be out of the question...hence dumping/transfering the files to it later.... ie: when power 10volts is availbel and not jsut using the much needed battery juice.

anyone else shed light on this?



thanx
-- Ian

[dixiechicken]

Try to keep things simple is a good general rule to follow.
What is simple varies depending on your needs.

If you have access to proper power outlets:
Have one parttition on your internal drive for os & apps etc.
Record audio to an external drive.

I you must do withour proper power outlets & run on battery juice:
Format your internal drive and follow advice from PristineRec.

The absolute minimum partition for OS-X is about 4Gb - that is the size
of the eDrive partition TechTool Pro creates when installing TechTool on
your computer. The OS-X Panther "install files" can comfortably fit on an ordinary DVD-record.

To keep your os humming along smoothly - your bootdisk should always have at least 30%
free space no matter what - thats today the general rule of thumb for just about every modern os-system.

Cheers: Dixiechicken

[ArchivalAudio]

Dixiechicken

thanx
I think that helps...
I'll check out PristineRec soon...
I have been thinking abot just spliting the 30 GB drive roughly in half 15 GB and the rest... for writing to... I may have stated this already

I may try to post a quiry on the Apple threads... since a shearch there just trund up ... a How To Partition...

thanx again
-- Ian

[dixiechicken]

Archival Audio - You're welcome!

One thing to keep in mind:
I dont of course know - how much of audio recording you plan to do.
Lets say split your harddrive in 2 roughly equal halves of 15 Gb each.

It will be pretty easy to fill up one of those 15 Gb parttions with
project files and recorded audio.
Depending of course on the amount of audio recording you actually do.

15 Gb is not really huge amount of space these days.

Eventually you'll probably need to buy an external drive anyway -
to copy your work to and clear up space on the internal partition -
to make room for new projects.

Cheers: Dixiechicken

[PristineRec]

Maybe my last post wasn't totally clear. While I have partitioned my Powerbook's drive into two parts, one for ProTools and one for evrything else that I do on my computer, I record everything to an external Firewire 800 drive. The internal 4200RPM drive is much to slow to be able to read/write an appreciable amount of tracks.
I would never recommend recording to your Powerbook's internal drive, I've seen so many posts on here of people getting errors when they get past 3 or 4 tracks, and many of my sessions are 16 tracks or better.
The reason I have the internal drive partitioned is because I want to have two completely separate systems to run from. My smaller partition has ProTools and OS10.3.2 (I like to use a proven and supported version) installed on it and that's it. My larger partition has OS10.3.8 and everything else; Photoshop, Office, internet apps, etc.
I don't want anything I might download or install on my computer to mess with the OS that is running ProTools.

[lepetitmartien]

Pristinerec, the best way to do this is to use different users with different status.

- one admin (for maintenance)
- one admin (for music) (admins privileges help)
- one simple user for the fun stuff. So you fully control what's happening there.

Whatever you do, in OS X, you won't totally separate systems, OS X has and DO manage hard drives so if something is really fishy it'll blast everything anyway (members with OS X and OS 9 on the same computer can understand the voodoo I'm talking about). Now, the possibility to find something fishy is near to naught. So I think you complicate things to much. Use the users "trick", it'll be simpler to maintain and bring more than enough safety.

As long as you repair permissions after installs, and that you keep your OS X healthy (let him run the BSD script at night, or modify the Cron so it will make them during lunchtime for example), most problems will be next to naught.

You can use the second partition for back up. (the user folders for example)