Any partitioning tips?

[pathic]

I'm about to reformat my PB 667 and could do with some advice.

Basically I use it 90% of the time for writing music, mostly using Cubase 5.1 and Ableton live. I'm going to switch over to using OSX as soon as there are as many bits of software available for it as there are in OS 9.

In the meanwhile I'd like to reformat the computer to make it as streamlined as possible. Up until now I've had OSX and OS9 on the same partition and a separate partition for audio files.

The computer has 30gigs in total, but I've also got a 120gb Lacie drive for backing up older bits of audio and any docs that aren't immediately important.

Now then, I suspect that my computer is a bit slow at times because OS9, OSX, all the applications and docs share the same partition. Judging from what I've picked up on previous threads, it seems like a good idea to have one partition for os9, one for osx and one for audio files, but should I also have one for applications? If so, how much space should I allocate to each of the partitions and do osx apps and os9 apps sit well together on the same partition?

Many thanks

 

[joker2]

OS 9 on a separate partition is generally considered a good idea, as well as your personal files on one. I stop at the applications though -- most applications do best when they're on the same partition as the operating system they're working with. Your OS 9 apps should be on your OS 9 partition, your X apps on your X partition.

Backing up your files to your external drive *and also* to another type of media (Data CDs, DVDs, etc) should keep your files in good standing. You never just want to have one backup of your files. (See sob stories of people with Oxford 922 chipsets on their firewire drives, had everything backed up to them, didn't bother to unplug the drives from the computers while upgrading, and then lost data due to a firmware incompatibilty.)

Edit: Sizes are relative. See how much room your OS 9 apps take up plus the 9 system folder, add a gig or so... use the rest for your other parititions... (and no, this response is not scientific at all.)

 

[FattyMembrane]

if you will not be needing os9 for anything other than classic, you can actually install it on a disk image.

i partitioned my drive when i installed panther and use a method that keeps the system separate from all of my frequently changing files.

i have my hd set up with the following partitions:
/Macintosh (system and apps)
/Users (all user directories are stored here)
/Scratch (photoshop swap, caches, downloads, etc.)
/Ports (fink, cpan, etc.)
/Backup

if i ever reformat, i'll probably create a partition for applications as well. you can find hints for using /etc/fstab to mount partitions into particular places in the system on www.macosxhints.com (so that your /Users or /Applications folder is actually a seperate partition).

the setup works wonderfully, all of my downloads and temporary things go to the scratch disk, all of my user files are on their own partition (i've even symlinked all of the cache folders to the scratch disk), and my system stays squeaky clean all by itself.

 

[pathic]

Great, thanks for those hints. Sounds like its a good idea for me to do a CDR backup along with a firewire one as a precaution.

I should make it clear that most os9 music apps don't run at all in classic. Cubase certainly doesn't (it doesn't run all that great in 9.2!). OMS is also out the window, so no Midi equipment will run in classic.

 

[cb911]

FattyMembrane, do you know if you have /Applications folder as a seperate partition, can you then keep that partition if you re-install Panther?

that's the main reason i used to use a seperate partition for my apps, so i didn't have to re-install then when i re-installed an OS.

now i'm sorry i started using the Applications folder... i'm probably going to have to re-install Panther, and all my apps as well. when i first installed my apps it took about 2 days of messing around. hopefully at least i'll be able to develop some streamlined method of installing apps.

 

[kylos]

I set up a separate apps partition on my mom's imac and only had to reinstall the os for Panther and had nothing to worry about with the apps. (However, I somehow majorly botched the process of getting Panther to recognize the user partition and wiped all the user accounts )

 

[FattyMembrane]

Originally posted by cb911
FattyMembrane, do you know if you have /Applications folder as a seperate partition, can you then keep that partition if you re-install Panther?

did the problem arise from the installer not updating the apple apps on your Applications partition? i'm not sure exactly how this situation would work. to set up an Applications partition from the start, i'm assuming you would have to go into single user mode right after install disk 1 (before the Applications folder is installed) and edit fstab so that the apps were installed on the second partition. doing another clean install of panther would overwrite the fstab file, so you would have to repeat the process, but i don't know if a clean install would overwrite the entire Applications folder, or just the apple apps. since you're re-installing panther, all of the apps should be the 10.3 versions, and if you could somehow stop the installer from installing the Applications folder all together, the setup should work fine if you just change the fstab file after disk 1.

wow, this is all getting really confusing. perhaps someone with more knowledge about how exactly the osx installer works could help us out...

i'm pretty sure using the same applications folder for a re-install of the current os will work fine, but an upgrade (say 10.2 > 10.3 or 10.3 >10.4) might get tricky.

 

[cb911]

i had a look on macosxhints.com and couldn't see anything about an Apps partition, or maybe i just don't know how to search it properly.

perhaps if i re-install Panther just normally, then setup the 'Apps' partition, then do a software restore from the CD's. that should work...

as for it working when i upgrade from 10.3 to 10.4, that shouldn't be a problem, because most people do a clean install of a new OS, right?

but what happens if you have to re-install Panther after you get the Apps partition setup? it would wipe it? that kind of defeats the purpose of having a seperate partition... unless you could unmount the Apps partition while installing, then fix it up again.

oh well, i might just go back to having my Apps on my documents partition. it worked okay for me last time.