Minimum OS 10.8 Installation For Multimedia?

[howellz]

I'm interested in installing OS 10.8 Mt. Lion on an external HDD, which would be used as a dedicated drive for working on video/audio/graphic files. Since I'd like to preserve as much disk space as possible, I'd like to know what the MINIMUM OS installation would be for doing this. By minimum I mean only those core OS 10.8 files that would likely be necessary for booting the drive and operating additional installed video/audio/graphic software.

Any insight that could be passed along would be most appreciated.

 

[MrMacMack]

There isn't a minimal option that I'm aware of. One thing you could try is after the install is complete, go into the Applications folder and remove the built-in apps that you don't need. Not sure if this will work or break your OS. There's nothing wrong with experimenting though.

 

[Bear]

I'm interested in installing OS 10.8 Mt. Lion on an external HDD, which would be used as a dedicated drive for working on video/audio/graphic files. Since I'd like to preserve as much disk space as possible, I'd like to know what the MINIMUM OS installation would be for doing this. By minimum I mean only those core OS 10.8 files that would likely be necessary for booting the drive and operating additional installed video/audio/graphic software.

Any insight that could be passed along would be most appreciated.

OS X at last check fits in under 8GB of disk space. I am not sure trying to trim it down will save all that much. This is without iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband of course.

There isn't a minimal option that I'm aware of. One thing you could try is after the install is complete, go into the Applications folder and remove the built-in apps that you don't need. Not sure if this will work or break your OS. There's nothing wrong with experimenting though.

Removing builtin Apps tends to play havoc with OS X patches. And /Applications (including /Applications/Utilities) is under 1 GB for the bundled Applications. It's probably under 750MB, but I took the size of my /Applications folder and subtracted the size of all the large applications I installed. I know I missed a bunch of small ones.

 

[mwhities]

Install OS (8gigs - give 9 gigs for updates, if that), install Media apps (whatever size those are), and enjoy your media.

 

[benwiggy]

I'm interested in installing OS 10.8 Mt. Lion on an external HDD, which would be used as a dedicated drive for working on video/audio/graphic files. Since I'd like to preserve as much disk space as possible, I'd like to know what the MINIMUM OS installation would be for doing this. By minimum I mean only those core OS 10.8 files that would likely be necessary for booting the drive and operating additional installed video/audio/graphic software.

Any insight that could be passed along would be most appreciated.

Removing stuff from the OS is likely to break something and cause problems, even if you are "just" working on audio and video files. That's a lot of system APIs that still need to get called. The system is doing a lot more than "graphics and audio".

As said: OS X fills about 8Gb. On a modern-sized volume -- particularly an external one -- that IS a minimum install. The stuff you can "safely" remove is likely to be peanuts by comparison.

 

[howellz]

Thanks for the input, guys. From the sound of things I suppose I may as well just install the whole OS rather than performing surgery on it in the hopes of acquiring some extra disk space. The external drive I'll be using is 500 GB, but it's surprising how fast it can start to fill up when working on video files. If it looks like I'm about to hit the wall maybe I'll finally invest in a larger HDD, which I was hoping I could avoid having to do; at least for a while!

 

[MrMacMack]

You could install onto a flash drive and then keep all your data on a separate external drive.