Help please -To partition, or not to partition?

[Zack Whittington]

I'm trying to set up a good workflow for my new iMac. I'm a budding videographer/photographer. I use Aperture and FCP, equally. Also, this is my only computer, so I have iTunes music etc., on here as well.

I've read most people put their OS and applications on the internal, and all files (video/photo) on the external, and partition it. But I've got 1000 gigs!!! on the internal, now. What do I do with all that extra space? Should I partition my internal drive, too? Also, is partitioning still necessary? I came across this outside thread:

Should I partition my iMac hard drive? - MacRumors Forums

And came away even more confused...

My gear:

New iMac, 4gb RAM
1TB internal HDD
1TB external G-tech HDD
Canon 7d

Thanks!

[William Hohauser]

Don't bother.

[Nigel Barker]

Partitioning is not necessary unless you want to do it for housekeeping reasons. There is no performance advantage. However it is still a good idea separate the OS & applications files from your data files. For Final Cut you definitely want to manage the placement of capture & render files off the system disk.

[Robert Lane]

Zack,

All partitioning does is make your drive work harder. Think of it this way: You only have two hands and feet, would it be easier for you to control your car with two steering wheels and two sets of pedals, or harder? For a hard-drive it's the same thing; when you partition a drive you force it to duplicate it's work by the number of partitions you create. Bad idea.

If you want an overview of how to setup your system for video editing you can use this guide I created which will cover the system you have now and give you a roadmap for future expansion:

Grumpy Quail: Setting up your Computer for HD Video Editing

[Andrew Hughes]

On my home system, which is dual-use (i.e. fun and personal stuff v/s audio and video programs), I run a partitioned hard drive with a dual boot system. This isn't really for performance reasons, but I've grown to REALLY enjoy it. The main benefits are that I can have completely separate docks, menus, applications, documents, etc... Between music, audio editing, and video I use about a dozen programs regularly. It's really nice having a separate system that has only those apps and documents on the drive. I don't have all my personal stuff cluttering up the dock. The document histories are all relevant to whatever I was working on. I can setup the quick links in the finder for folders that I use for music and video. I can also make separate decisions about updates and such. Backups are separate.

I heartily recommend it. Performance-wise I doubt it does much of anything, but my workflow is greatly enhanced.

[Bruce Watson]

Originally Posted by Zack Whittington

...is partitioning still necessary?

Partitioning used to seem like a good idea. Until, like me, you've had a partition fail. Makes recovery difficult if not impossible. But it does make you sit back and ask that question: Why partition?

I've not come up with a good answer. So I don't partition anymore, nor do I advise anyone else to. For normal use, just use folders to organize your data. Less work for you, less work for your OS, and more reliable too.

[Andrew Hughes]

A partition failure would certainly dampen my enthusiasm. I've never had that problem. My hard drive failures so far have always been all or nothing.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hughes

On my home system, which is dual-use (i.e. fun and personal stuff v/s audio and video programs), I run a partitioned hard drive with a dual boot system. This isn't really for performance reasons, but I've grown to REALLY enjoy it. The main benefits are that I can have completely separate docks, menus, applications, documents, etc... Between music, audio editing, and video I use about a dozen programs regularly. It's really nice having a separate system that has only those apps and documents on the drive. I don't have all my personal stuff cluttering up the dock. The document histories are all relevant to whatever I was working on. I can setup the quick links in the finder for folders that I use for music and video. I can also make separate decisions about updates and such. Backups are separate.

I heartily recommend it. Performance-wise I doubt it does much of anything, but my workflow is greatly enhanced.

You can achieve pretty much the same thing by having two separate users. Then there is no need to reboot when you switch from work to private. Just logout then login with the other user name.

[Andrew Hughes]

Yeah, that will get you pretty close. The big difference is OS updates. I'm still running Tiger and Logic 8.02 on my music workstation partition. The system I have right now is stable and I tend to lag a few versions behind the cutting edge unless there's a compelling reason not to.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hughes

Yeah, that will get you pretty close. The big difference is OS updates. I'm still running Tiger and Logic 8.02 on my music workstation partition. The system I have right now is stable and I tend to lag a few versions behind the cutting edge unless there's a compelling reason not to.

Wow! That really is being conservative. Leopard shipped over 3 years ago. I would regard Time Machine as a compelling reason to upgrade.

[Ed Roo]

I have a 2008 MBP 17-inch dual core that I use for video editing. It came with a 200GB 7200RPM Hitachi HDD. I kept bumping up against the "Disk is getting full" message, even using an external HDD for non-active storage.
I just installed a 500GB 7200RPM Seagate HDD and partitioned into a 300GB operating segment and a 200GB active/working-storage segment.

I use TechTool Pro by MicroMat, DiskWarrior by Alsoft and Apple Disk Utility for HDD maintenance.
I repair permissions on a weekly basis and update the volume directory regularly.

If I could find a 3.5-inch HDD container to put the 2.5-inch laptop HDDs into, I would put them into my Windows tower and run Steve Gibson's SpinRite application on them prior to installation in the laptop. It would be ideal to run SpinRite every three months in maintenance mode, but that would require a lot of HDD swapping.

[Andrew Hughes]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

Wow! That really is being conservative. Leopard shipped over 3 years ago. I would regard Time Machine as a compelling reason to upgrade.

Maybe I am a little paranoid, but I don't trust time machine. I also don't like having a program running in the background. This is really more of a problem for music production/recording when you don't want background processes starting up at the wrong time and causing hiccups. I also turn off indexing and disable extraneous features like the dashboard. Anyway, I use Data Backup, which interfaces with rsync to do it's backups.

I might add that I was probably permanently scarred by my experiences with Windows 98. Sometimes I still catch myself twitching control-S, control-S. Haha.