Disk Utility - smallest partition size

I have new 500 GB external drive. Using Disk Utility I created GUID partition schema and created 4 partition - 3 x Mac OS Extended (Journaled) a 1 x FAT32 (initially with same size). Disk Utility doesn't let me resize 1st partion (the highest one) and 4th partition (the lowest one) smaller then cca. 50 GB (divider with 2 arrows changed to divider with 1 arrow). (I don't know if it's possible with other partitions to size them smaller then cca. 50 GB since I want them have large and I use disk already.) I didn't find anything about this in help, books or internet.
Is there limit in Disk Utility about minimum partition size? (It looks like cca. 10 % from drive size).

V.K. wrote:
it looks like DU will not allow you to create a partition smaller than one tenth of the disk size.
when i do it on a 200GB drive the smallest size it let's me make is 20Gb, and for a 500GB drive it's 50GB.
I guess that's a safeguard against creating too many partitions.
Message was edited by: V.K.
I thought so. Like most filesystems, all the information must be stored in the bootsector or whatever it's called with BSD, and the total number of files is related to the sizes and total numbers of partitions, so like FAT32 or even NTFS, HFS has it's practical and theoretical limits.
I believe HFS has two bootrecords or equivalents, one for backup and this adds to the storage space issue.
Going back to the old 1.44MB floppies, the unformatted size was over 1.7 MB and Norton and MS took advantage of that, but not all disk readers were happy with what they did. MS once shipped Windows on a set of 1.7 MB floppies. Of course this was BC (before CDs).

Similar Messages

  • Disk Utility: "Modifying Partition Map"

    Good Afternoon all. Im not sure whether this is a problem or not but i have run disk utility to partition my hard drive, and as of now it has been running for over 24 hours.
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    so my issue is whether or not i should just wait it out or if there is something safe i can do. Additionally if installing vista there is a bad idea i would like to be advised.
    Thanks In Advance

    It's most likely stuck and not going to finish. I experienced this once while creating a new partition for testing purposes. Force quiting will loose any unsaved changes including a partition that's being modified but it looks like your only option at this point. It should not affect your current Mac partition however I'm unsure if it will affect your XP partition. Boot camp works well but in general I would say it's not a good idea to try and re-size or split existing partitions that have data. To do what you want to do you could use Boot camp to create another partition but it would only take the space from your Mac volume. You would probably have to backup or make an image of your XP system then start over using Boot Camp to create the 2 partitions of the size you want.
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    Can Lion disk utility dynamically partition a drive? I see many posts that Leopard Disk utility can but nothing about Lion.

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    V.K. wrote:
    it looks like DU will not allow you to create a partition smaller than one tenth of the disk size.
    when i do it on a 200GB drive the smallest size it let's me make is 20Gb, and for a 500GB drive it's 50GB.
    I guess that's a safeguard against creating too many partitions.
    Message was edited by: V.K.
    I thought so. Like most filesystems, all the information must be stored in the bootsector or whatever it's called with BSD, and the total number of files is related to the sizes and total numbers of partitions, so like FAT32 or even NTFS, HFS has it's practical and theoretical limits.
    I believe HFS has two bootrecords or equivalents, one for backup and this adds to the storage space issue.
    Going back to the old 1.44MB floppies, the unformatted size was over 1.7 MB and Norton and MS took advantage of that, but not all disk readers were happy with what they did. MS once shipped Windows on a set of 1.7 MB floppies. Of course this was BC (before CDs).

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    Folks;
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    V.K. wrote:
    it looks like DU will not allow you to create a partition smaller than one tenth of the disk size.
    when i do it on a 200GB drive the smallest size it let's me make is 20Gb, and for a 500GB drive it's 50GB.
    I guess that's a safeguard against creating too many partitions.
    Message was edited by: V.K.
    I thought so. Like most filesystems, all the information must be stored in the bootsector or whatever it's called with BSD, and the total number of files is related to the sizes and total numbers of partitions, so like FAT32 or even NTFS, HFS has it's practical and theoretical limits.
    I believe HFS has two bootrecords or equivalents, one for backup and this adds to the storage space issue.
    Going back to the old 1.44MB floppies, the unformatted size was over 1.7 MB and Norton and MS took advantage of that, but not all disk readers were happy with what they did. MS once shipped Windows on a set of 1.7 MB floppies. Of course this was BC (before CDs).

  • Disk Utility: Reporting wrong size for disk after a restore

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    Thanks! That sounds like a good short term solution for a backup.
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    Message was edited by: mr_lunch

  • Infinite restore loop AND disk utility lists HD size as 500GB

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    Thanks for a quick reply <baltwo>. You’ve answered that it is not a fake message!
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    I have a Macbook 4,1 with an 120GB Hard drive. The hard drive has 3 partitions:
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  • BootCamp nor' Disk Utility will Partition my Drive.

    Alright, So Im back again, And this time I have a totally different topic.
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    If you are going to repair a startup volume then you must do this:
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  • Recovery/Disk Utility/Verifying Partition

    Hello and thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
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