SAN partitions vs separate disks

Hi all,
We're currently on a SAN that has individual disks for the OS, for the oracle software, and for the datafiles of the various databases. We are planning to move to another SAN that will have 1 large lun presented to the OS. As i understand it, this lun will have multiple RAID disks (running either RAID 1 or RAID 10) underneath it. The engineers said that to get individual file systems, i would then use the OS to partition this large lun. Because of the disks behind it, they claim that this shouldn't affect I/O, even though the partitioning will be done at the OS level.
In terms of multiplexing redo logs, control files, and in terms of keeping the OS/oracle software separate from the datafiles, does anyone know if this layout will be the same as having individual disks? Also, is it accurate that I/O will not be an issue for Oracle with this type of configuration?
Thanks in advance for any insight into this, since i'm pretty clueless in terms of SAN storage, etc. Let me know if you need any other info for this!

Can be done. From a Linux perspective.. You can partition a LUN and use one partition for OCFS2, another for ext3 and another for ASM.
There are however limitations. You can only have 4 primary partitions on a LUN. A LUN can only be a certain size due to limitations of the SAN (e.g. around 146GB with the vendor SAN we're dealing with).
A single LUN is also all an all-eggs-in-one-basket situation. Multiplexing and mirroring are pretty much useless in this case.
As far as I/O is concerned.. this should not (I believe) make I/O worse. After all, whether using 50 LUNs or a single LUN, all that I/O goes through the same HBA and same fibres (or wires) that connects the server to the SAN.
Personally, I would not accept this SAN config. I would insist on using a local disk for the root file system (else how the hell do you get the server to boot when there is a SAN problem or a HBA driver issue or something similar?). I would also insist on at least 2 LUNs in order to mirror the OCR and voting disks. (however, for the latter you need 3 locations and not just 2 as is the case with OCR)
PS. Do not let the SAN/LUN side of things confuse you. From an o/s perspective that is simply just another SCSI device. And you should treat it the same way. In other words, when something does not make sense with a normal SCSI device, it is likely to also make no sense when that device is a LUN.

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Hi,
even though you expand the volume from the storage the partition table is still the same. You need to reflect the changes to the new head/sector/cylinder setting on the disk to see the new disk size.
Prior doing that take a backup copy of the existing partition table.
# prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/cxtxdxs2
also if there are multiple partitions on the disks it is also dvisable to note down the start cylinder and the size in cylinders of each partition.
Then you have to unmount the volumes and relable it.
format
format> type
select "auto" to let format to select the new disk type and lable.
Once this is done you will see the new disk size. Create the existing partions using the saved partition information. You will find the added capacity towards the end of the previous cylinder boundry.
Note: During the capacity increase if there are changes to the heads or sectors of the disk then the "growfs" command will fail.

Windows could not set a partition active on disk 0. error 0X80300024

I followed the "Step-by-Step: Basic Windows Deployment" Link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd349348%28v=ws.10%29.aspx
after creating aotounattend.xml file, I went to step2: building reference installation. however, recieving the below error message:
"windows could not set a partition active on disk 0. The target disk, partition, or volume does not support the specified operation. The error occurred while applying the unattend asnwer file's <DiskConfiguration> setting. Error code: 0X80300024"
it happened in the beginning of installation.
what's more, before that error, system still asked me to choose which languange in the installation and I also need to click install button to begin installation.
I believe that with answer file, windows 7 should start installation automatically. Am I right?
Here is my answer file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="specialize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-IE-InternetExplorer" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <Home_Page>http://www.google.com</Home_Page>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="oobeSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Deployment" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <Reseal>
                <Mode>Audit</Mode>
            </Reseal>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <OOBE>
                <HideEULAPage>true</HideEULAPage>
                <ProtectYourPC>3</ProtectYourPC>
            </OOBE>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="windowsPE">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SetupUILanguage>
                <UILanguage>en-us</UILanguage>
            </SetupUILanguage>
            <InputLocale>en-us</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>en-us</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-us</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>en-us</UserLocale>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <UserData>
                <AcceptEula>true</AcceptEula>
            </UserData>
            <DiskConfiguration>
                <Disk wcm:action="add">
                    <CreatePartitions>
                        <CreatePartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <Size>300</Size>
                            <Type>Primary</Type>
                        </CreatePartition>
                        <CreatePartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Extend>true</Extend>
                            <Order>2</Order>
                            <Type>Primary</Type>
                        </CreatePartition>
                    </CreatePartitions>
                    <ModifyPartitions>
                        <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Active>true</Active>
                            <Format>NTFS</Format>
                            <Label>System</Label>
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <PartitionID>1</PartitionID>
                        </ModifyPartition>
                        <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Format>NTFS</Format>
                            <Label>Windows</Label>
                            <Order>2</Order>
                            <PartitionID>2</PartitionID>
                        </ModifyPartition>
                    </ModifyPartitions>
                    <DiskID>0</DiskID>
                    <WillWipeDisk>true</WillWipeDisk>
                </Disk>
                <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
            </DiskConfiguration>
            <ImageInstall>
                <OSImage>
                    <InstallTo>
                        <DiskID>0</DiskID>
                        <PartitionID>2</PartitionID>
                    </InstallTo>
                    <InstallToAvailablePartition>false</InstallToAvailablePartition>
                    <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
                </OSImage>
            </ImageInstall>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:c:/users/dyang3/desktop/install.wim#Windows 7 ENTERPRISE" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
</unattend>

Hi all,
I have created an answer file using Windows SIM tool. Please find the answer file below:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
    <settings pass="windowsPE">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <DiskConfiguration>
                <Disk wcm:action="add">
                    <CreatePartitions>
                        <CreatePartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Extend>true</Extend>
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <Type>Primary</Type>
                        </CreatePartition>
                    </CreatePartitions>
                    <ModifyPartitions>
                        <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Active>true</Active>
                            <Format>NTFS</Format>
                            <Label>System</Label>
                            <Letter>C</Letter>
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <PartitionID>1</PartitionID>
                        </ModifyPartition>
                    </ModifyPartitions>
                    <DiskID>0</DiskID>
                    <WillWipeDisk>true</WillWipeDisk>
                </Disk>
                <Disk wcm:action="add">
                    <CreatePartitions>
                        <CreatePartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Extend>true</Extend>
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <Type>Primary</Type>
                        </CreatePartition>
                    </CreatePartitions>
                    <ModifyPartitions>
                        <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Active>true</Active>
                            <Format>NTFS</Format>
                            <Label>DB_Data</Label>
                            <Letter>D</Letter>
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <PartitionID>1</PartitionID>
                        </ModifyPartition>
                    </ModifyPartitions>
                    <DiskID>1</DiskID>
                    <WillWipeDisk>true</WillWipeDisk>
                </Disk>
                <Disk wcm:action="add">
                    <CreatePartitions>
                        <CreatePartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Extend>true</Extend>
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <Type>Primary</Type>
                        </CreatePartition>
                    </CreatePartitions>
                    <ModifyPartitions>
                        <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add">
                            <Active>true</Active>
                            <Format>NTFS</Format>
                            <Label>Image_Data</Label>
                            <Letter>E</Letter>
                            <Order>1</Order>
                            <PartitionID>1</PartitionID>
                        </ModifyPartition>
                    </ModifyPartitions>
                    <DiskID>2</DiskID>
                    <WillWipeDisk>true</WillWipeDisk>
                </Disk>
            </DiskConfiguration>
            <ImageInstall>
                <OSImage>
                    <InstallTo>
                        <DiskID>0</DiskID>
                        <PartitionID>1</PartitionID>
                    </InstallTo>
                </OSImage>
            </ImageInstall>
            <UserData>
                <AcceptEula>true</AcceptEula>
            </UserData>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <SetupUILanguage>
                <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
                <WillShowUI>Never</WillShowUI>
            </SetupUILanguage>
            <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="oobeSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <AutoLogon>
                <Password>
                    <Value>YQBkAG0AJABwAHcAZAAkADQAJABtAGUAZABQAGEAcwBzAHcAbwByAGQA</Value>
                    <PlainText>false</PlainText>
                </Password>
                <Username>Administrator</Username>
                <Enabled>true</Enabled>
            </AutoLogon>
            <FirstLogonCommands>
                <SynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
                    <CommandLine>cmd /c wmic useraccount where "name='Administrator'" set passwordExpires=FALSE</CommandLine>
                    <Order>1</Order>
                </SynchronousCommand>
            </FirstLogonCommands>
            <UserAccounts>
                <AdministratorPassword>
                    <Value>YQBkAG0AJABwAHcAZAAkADQAJABtAGUAZABBAGQAbQBpAG4AaQBzAHQAcgBhAHQAbwByAFAAYQBzAHMAdwBvAHIAZAA=</Value>
                    <PlainText>false</PlainText>
                </AdministratorPassword>
            </UserAccounts>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="specialize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <InputLocale>en-US</InputLocale>
            <SystemLocale>en-US</SystemLocale>
            <UILanguage>en-US</UILanguage>
            <UserLocale>en-US</UserLocale>
        </component>
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-ServerManager-SvrMgrNc" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <DoNotOpenServerManagerAtLogon>true</DoNotOpenServerManagerAtLogon>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="generalize">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-ServerManager-SvrMgrNc" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <DoNotOpenServerManagerAtLogon>true</DoNotOpenServerManagerAtLogon>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <settings pass="auditSystem">
        <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="NonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
            <AutoLogon>
                <Password>
                    <Value>YQBkAG0AJABwAHcAZAAkADQAJABtAGUAZABQAGEAcwBzAHcAbwByAGQA</Value>
                    <PlainText>false</PlainText>
                </Password>
                <Enabled>true</Enabled>
                <Username>Administrator</Username>
            </AutoLogon>
            <UserAccounts>
                <AdministratorPassword>
                    <Value>YQBkAG0AJABwAHcAZAAkADQAJABtAGUAZABBAGQAbQBpAG4AaQBzAHQAcgBhAHQAbwByAFAAYQBzAHMAdwBvAHIAZAA=</Value>
                    <PlainText>false</PlainText>
                </AdministratorPassword>
            </UserAccounts>
        </component>
    </settings>
    <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:c:/coem/workbenchwin2008/iso/sources/install.wim#my win2008 san install" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
</unattend>
It doesn't work. System configurations are,
-> system with out build-in harddisk
-> there were 3 disks from SAN
-> you can see that disks 0, 1 and 2 are configured in diskconfiguration section.
After constructing new COEM with this answer file, when i boot the system via DVD disk, in some point in time, i get the following exception:
the
target disk, partition or voume doesnot support the specified operations.
The
error occured while applying the unattended answer file's <DiskConfiguration> setting. Error code 0x80300024
any help would be appreciated.
Thank you
Regards,
Saravanan

I have Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 and Adobe Premier 10 loaded on a Dell PC. Do I need to uninstall from the Dell before I install on a recently purchased Apple Mac Pro? There are separate disks for Mac and PC in the package.

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Hello Everyone, I have a MacBook older model with me.I am running 10.7.6 on that, I was trying to use BootCamp to install windows on my mac. Since BootCamp can only work on a single Volume, I partitioned my Hard Disk to one volume. Using BootCamp I

Hello Everyone,
I have a MacBook older model with me.I am running 10.7.6 on that, I was trying to use BootCamp to install windows on my mac. Since BootCamp can only work on a single Volume, I partitioned my Hard Disk to one volume.
Using BootCamp I installed windows and everything worked fine. After installing windows and testing everything, I switched back to OS X and this time I tried to make another partition on my single portioned Mac volume and named it Backup. That too worked. Now I have three Volumes
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Next when I switched to Windows, It should the classic error, No Bootable device found, please insert a Bootable CD and press any key. When I tried to enter my Mac OS X install DVD and by pressing option key, it does not show me the proper Mac OS X development volume. It keeps going back to the No bootable device found message.
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Regards
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you can't add a partition in between - you put Windows to a new partition number.
GPT (GUID)
EFI
Mac HFS
Lion Recovery
Windows
And now you have two HFS
One partition and one Windows (plus Lion Recovery).
If you were to have more, it can't be before Windows for one thing.

Can you play Diablo with the PC disk or is there a separate disk just for Mac?

Can you play Diablo with the PC disk or is there a separate disk just for Mac?

Hi DJNIKKo,
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I played thru all the chars on 'normal' and started playing the 2nd difficulty, but running away (=being chased) by enemies is NOT my style of playing a game...
Check some youTube videos & see if that's what you want to do...
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[SOLVED] Partition "outside of disk"

I got a new hard drive, with the intention of having an Arch Linux/Windows 7 dualboot. Somewhere along the line when I made all the partitions before installing anything, I screwed up the partition table, and now when I try to use cfdisk or parted it says "Can't have partition outside the disk!" GParted gives me the same problem. I've only installed Windows 7, and it boots fine, but I can't make any new partitions because of this stupid error.
I really don't give a damn about any of the data outside of the Windows partition at the moment, which only takes up the first 197 GB of the 1 TB disk. Is there a way to just clear out these other partitions giving me trouble? Can I dd zero it or will that make things worse?
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Last edited by Ferrenrock (2010-12-09 19:20:32)

delete the non windows partitions before trying to make new partition, you most likely have used all disk space already.
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Partition in hard disk

i'm new in using mac book pro..
i'm wondering,, do i have to do partition in my hard disk? like when using windows?
thx be4

Some users of the Intel-based Mac computers had used the BootCamp utility to
partition a hard disk drive - if suitable free space in one large section existed -
in the computer. Since Boot Camp has (or had) the ability to do this, when the
partition was no longer desired, some of those same users had to use BootCamp
to remove the partition. Another option was to use Disk Utility to make partitions
on a new or wiped hard disk drive, and install whatever on those partitions.
And there is also some other means, where you can partition a drive that already
has a working OS on a section of the drive, without damaging the existing content.
Since I don't do that, I am at a loss in regard to more detailed information. My
external drives have partitions and some of them contain bootable clone content.
Good luck & happy computing!

Swap Partitioning and multiple disks

Ok so I have been setting up a workstation with Arch Linux that has a total of 16GB of RAM and, because it will run very memory intensive applications we actually require a large swap partition. Because this may eventually get upgraded to even more RAM we decided to go with a 50 GB swap partition.
I also have two drives in the machine, the primary 500GB HDD and a smaller 250 GB HDD that we wanted to use for a /backup partition as well as swap space and so I set up the disks as follows:
sda (500 GB):
/ (30 GB Primary Partition)
/home (435 GB Primary Partition)
/usr/local (2 GB Primary Partition)
sdb (250 GB)
50 GB Primary swap partition
/backup (~200 GB Primary Partition)
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sda1, sda2, sda3, and sdb2 but instead of seeing what woul;d be sdb1 as a large swap I see an 8 GB swap listed as being mounted on /dev/shm (which I think is normal).
After reading this:
http://lissot.net/partition/partition-04.html
I think the problem is that I don't have a swap partition set on my 500 GB drive. It seems like any bootable drive needs a swap partition on it. Although my system boots fine and I haven't had any problems running it yet I do need to get this swap partition straightened out otherwise the machine will have issues when it is fully operational and running heavy jobs.
IS this the problem? And if so would the best way to fix it be to use parted to shrink my /home partition by a few GB and make a small swap partition on that drive at the end of the drive space? Right now it is laid out as:
|---------------- / ----------------| |---- /usr/local ----| |------------------------------------------ /home ------------------------------------------|
Suggestions, ideas?
Thanks

The output from free -m is:
<code>
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 16018 15372 645 0 91 14600
-/+ buffers/cache: 679 15338
Swap: 47685 0 47685
</code>
For comparison here is the output from my laptop (also Arch Linux):
<code>
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2025 614 1411 0 12 232
-/+ buffers/cache: 370 1655
Swap: 1019 0 1019
</code>
It has an ~ 1GB swap partition but it's df also shows something at /dev/shm:
<code>
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 12G 7.6G 3.4G 70% /
none 1013M 0 1013M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda3 78G 28G 47G 37% /data
</code>
In gparted on my laptop /dev/sda2 is the swap partition with size: 1019 MB
Going by free -m on the workstation it looks like it is seeing the ~50 GB swap partition and it is mounted in /etc/fstab so perhaps I have nothing to worry about? Is it actually necessary that your bootable disk has a swap partition on it? Both disks (sda and sdb) actually have at least one partition flagged as bootable but sda (which has / and /home on it) didn't have a swap partition on that disk.
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Partitioning 1TB with Disk Utility

I have 1TB external drive which I want to partition, but I have some questions regarding format, size, compatibility with both Snow Leopard and Windows (eugh, but necessary). Can someone help me out? I have a few gaps.
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_*Partition B: for Bootcamp*_
Format: I don't know. Should it be FAT? or Mac OS Extended?
Size: I don't know? Can someone recommend?
_*Partition C: Everything else (Media etc)*_
Format: I don't know? I need this to be compatible with 10.6 and Windows.
_*Other questions*_
a) Do I need to Erase first, re format, then create partition?
b) What is RAID?
c) Do I need to change something in Options? There's Master Boot - GUID - Apple Partition Map,
What do I choose?
Help.

Ninda wrote:
I have 1TB external drive which I want to partition, but I have some questions regarding format, size, compatibility with both Snow Leopard and Windows (eugh, but necessary). Can someone help me out? I have a few gaps.
_*Main Questions*_
_*Partition A: for TimeMachine*_
Format: Should it be Mac OS Extended Journaled...? is that right?
Yes
_*Partition B: for Bootcamp*_
Format: I don't know. Should it be FAT? or Mac OS Extended?
Size: I don't know? Can someone recommend?
I would make a bootable clone of my internal disk volume on partition B. The clone will provide a fail safe mechanism for disaster recovery. If you decide to do so, then the partition should be GUID.
As far as I know, you cannot run Windows from an external drive even if using Boot Camp. I would put Boot Camp/Windows on a partition of your internal drive. When you want to set up you Boot Camp partition, just follow the instructions of the Boot Camp Assistant. Do not format FAT under any conditions. You want to use NTFS.
_*Partition C: Everything else (Media etc)*_
Format: I don't know? I need this to be compatible with 10.6 and Windows.
I would not go this route. You do not want to use FAT. The best approach is to install MacDrive (mediafour.com) on you Windows system. If you do so then the 3rd partition can be Mac OS X extended (journaled), and both you Windows and OS X machines will be able to read and write the partition.
_*Other questions*_
a) Do I need to Erase first, re format, then create partition?
Using Disk Utility, create 1 partition with partition table GUID. After doing so, your partition should be formatted Mac OS X extended (journaled). If it isn't, then format (i.e., erase) it this way. Change your partition to 3 GUID. Selecting the sizes you want.
b) What is RAID?
Of no importance to you
c) Do I need to change something in Options? There's Master Boot - GUID - Apple Partition Map,
What do I choose?
See above
Help.

Cant partition external FW disk

a. launch DU
b. see that my 240Gb ext disk is already partitioned into three volumes.
c. wish to further split 3rd volume into 3 more volumes of around 20Gb each
d. launch Help from DU
e. search on partition
f. see that at step 3 of the suggested solution "Partitioning a startup disk into several volumes" - mentions that I should be able to "click partition"
g. see that there is no button or menu to do this...
am I missing something ? btw the Help stuff mentions "partitioning a non-startup disk" as well, and the instructions dont significantly deviate from what Ive already stated....

never mind figured it out. Wrote too soon ! Have to click on the correct icon within DU. Duh.
- Still cant split the 3rd partition without erasing the whole disk, but I have Disk Studio from Macromat.

Partition a startup disk

How do I partition a startup disk? Disk utility does not display a partition option.

Just open disk Utility and grab the bottom right hand corner of the partition layout area and drag it up to create free space below and the startup disk size you want.
Then click the Apply button.
After that finishes click the Plus sign and that now free space will be another partition. Set name and format and click Apply again.
This will not erase or damage the startup volume.

SAN partitions vs separate disks

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