Should I partition my SSD?

Hello!
I just received my new macbook pro (yay!) It's a 17" with the i7 processor, 8Gb of RAM and a 256 SSD. I'm a photographer, so (except for the fact I live my whole life on my machine!) I use it primarily for photo editing and web publishing (with CS4.)
I was wondering whether I should partition my hard drive? Should have a system partition and maybe a documents/cache partition - or even one just for the application caches and my latest photos/jobs?
I know it was recommended for regular hard drives to help with fragmentation, but I never did it before,
1. because my hard drive was only a 100Gb and my photos were stored on a USB external and my scratch disk for Photoshop was an empty 250Gb firewire, and
2. because it seemed silly to me since the User folder remained in the system partition and all downloads and emails and libraries were still stored with the system.
Now that I have a bigger HD I could work my latest jobs directly from the internal, and using the internal as a scratch would be more practical than launching an old Lacie that makes more noise than a jet taking off.
Would it make sense to make 2 different partitions in that case? Especially on an SSD? I've been debating what to do since I installed tonight... and I noticed that I could add and change partitions' sizes on the fly now (is that specific to SSDs? Crazy!) so I'm asking before I migrate my docs tomorrow. What do you think?
Thank you for your advice!
Marie

Well, I've read that, but also that SSD's do suffer a tiny bit from fragmentation anyway, and caches can really affect fragmentation a lot, especially Photoshop's, so since indeed I won't be able to defragment, I wondered whether applying some prevention by making this cache/scratch partition would help significantly enough that it would be worth it.
I can't make up my mind

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Partition my ssd

Hello,
I have a macbook pro retina 13 "mid 2014 under yousemite.
I would like to partition my SSD and FileVault is not enabled.
I completely format the drive and I have to partition before installing OSX, but now I'd like to change my diagram partion without deleting my data.
I open Disk Utility, and I click Macintosh HD => partition => I see the disk partion shcéma on the right side of the window, but the little "+" and the tab "patition scheme "are grayed out, I can not add other partitions.
Could you help me please, Thanks in advance.

To resize the drive do the following:
1. Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
After the main menu appears select Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the hard drive's main entry then click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
2. You should see the graphical sizing window showing the existing partitions. A portion may appear as a blue rectangle representing the used space on a partition.
3. In the lower right corner of the sizing rectangle for each partition is a resizing gadget. Select it with the mouse and move the bottom of the rectangle upwards until you have reduced the existing partition enough to create the desired new volume's size. The space below the resized partition will appear gray. Click on the Apply button and wait until the process has completed. (Note: You can only make a partition smaller in order to create new free space.)
4. Click on the [+] button below the sizing window to add a new partition in the gray space you freed up. Give the new volume a name, if you wish, then click on the Apply button. Wait until the process has completed.
You should now have a new volume on the drive.
It would be wise to have a backup of your current system as resizing is not necessarily free of risk for data loss. Your drive must have sufficient contiguous free space for this process to work.

Should I partition a table or not???

I have a table with well over 8 million records and growing around 15,000 records daily. It is queried through a form (forms6i), no updates are done on the form just "select". The indexes are set up for the 2 types of querries mostly performed- by a date criteria and an id criteria. Is indexing good enough? I notice that it is getting harder to get results from date specific querries. What is the best approaches to ensure the table is optimized for querries? I am not used to working with such a large table size. Does partitioning help indexes work more efficient? Should I run statistics on the whole table?? I am not comfortable running statistics on the table when I am not around to monitor the performance on the server. The database runs 24 hours, 7 days a week- there is no real "downtime" to run stats.
Please advise, I would like to find a best practice approach.

Re: Should I partition a table or not???
Posted: Jun 19, 2007 11:59 AM in response to: user542952 Reply
(small correction in my earlier posting)
mostly performed- by a date criteria and an id criteriaPartitioning NOT always imporves performance. It can degrade performance if you had NOT partitoned based on queries those hit.
Beaware of local indexes. You might degrade performance because you may need to proble mulitple index partitions.
Do you query date and Ids by range search or exact search ?.
How much data (roughly 10% ,20% , 1% etc..) you fetch through the query

How much should I partition for Time Machine/Backup?

Hi all,
I upgraded my PB G4 HD to a 160GB recently and have just purchased a 1TB External HD. How much should I partition in the external to be used for Time Machine backup purposes of my internal HD? Will the same size suffice, or should I allocate more?
Also, I was thinking of formatting the drive so that it's both Windows and OS X friendly, but that means formatting it to MS-DOS something (I was just reading about it in another thread), will that cause any issues for the partition for Time Machine that I created? Thanks.

Also, I was thinking of formatting the drive so that it's both Windows and OS X friendly, but that means formatting it to MS-DOS something (I was just reading about it in another thread), will that cause any issues for the partition for Time Machine that I created? Thanks.
That's not practical. If you want to use the hard drive on a Windows machin while still being useful for Time Machine you should use MacDrive.
I upgraded my PB G4 HD to a 160GB recently and have just purchased a 1TB External HD. How much should I partition in the external to be used for Time Machine backup purposes of my internal HD? Will the same size suffice, or should I allocate more?
I would make the partition at least twice the size of the internal drive. Preferably, you would want 50 GB for a Leopard install that includes just the base operating system so you can boot off the 50 GB to recover your Time Machine data if your Leopard installer disc ever becomes unusable.
Also since you have a Powerbook, your 1 TB hard drive should be Firewire. USB will not boot Powerbooks. If it is USB only, you can remove the external hard drive case and replace it with one compatible with the drive inside that case from http://www.macsales.com/ that has Firewire.

Should I partition my drive? (Is this common practice?)

Hello,
I recently purchased an iMac and I'm really liking it so far. I got used to it pretty quickly and can now do everything I could do before on my PC (which is now for sale).
I'm wondering if most Mac users partition their drives - one partition holds the operating system and applications, the other holds music, photos, videos, documents etc.
I used to do this on my PC to make sure the media files and documents don't get erased when I reinstall Windows. I asked this question on a Turkish Mac forum and the response was that most Mac users don't feel the need to partition their drives since the OS rarely needs reinstalling and in case it does, the partition doesn't have to be formatted anyway.
I would appreciate your replies on whether I should consider partitioning my drive to separate system and media files. I have never reinstalled MacOS and I'm not sure if I will need to format the drive and install afterwards if I need to reinstall one day. Also, AFAIK I won't be able to use Boot Camp if I partition the drive.
Thanks in advance!

Hello,
Thank you for the replies!
den.thed, thanks for the welcome. I see that as long as there is space in the partition there is no tangible benefit to partition the drive.
My real worry was what would happen if I needed to reinstall MacOS or format the drive, as my photos etc. would be gone too, but I think this is what Time Machine is for (it's on and all my files are backed up.). And I don't think I need to "format" the drive for reinstalling MacOS, am I correct? Or is it "recommended but not necessary" to format/erase the partition before installing MacOS?
Also, thanks for the information about the "boot camp section" of the forums, if I come across any problems I will certainly visit there.
Glorfindeal: Thank you for the information. I have not decided for certain about installing Boot Camp - I have a licenced copy of Windows 7 which is currently running on VirtualBox inside MacOS - but I wanted to know my options clearly.
So, I think it's not common for Mac users to partition their internal drives. I think I will not bother with partitioning either. I hope I will get some more replies to be certain in my impression...

Should I partition my internal HD 500G for MacBook Pro ??

Should I partitioning my internal HD 500G ?

In that case really what you want is an external HD for a Time Machine Back-up or a Bootable clone backup.
http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_make_bootable_clone_your_mac
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
If the internal HD fails all partitions fail along with it.
Command R for Recovery is worth reading up on as well. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718

Should I partition my 500 GB FWHD

I have a Seagate 500 gb external fwhd that I am using as my primary drive. I'm not sure what I need to do to maxamize performance. Should I partition it? If so, how many partitions? If I partition it can I raid it? Any suggestions?

Nothing wrong with a single partition, especially if you want to use "boot camp" to install windows in the future
Boot Camp, more to the point, Windows booting does not work with external FireWire drives so this is rather a moot point given we're talking about an external drive.
HOWEVER, I never use less than two partitions for the simple fact that if you need to reinstall your operating system for any reason, you can format the primary partition without losing your personal data.
I used to partition as well but since Mac OS X I've just found it to be a pain in the ringer. Especially given the largest internal drive you can get in a laptop or Mac mini is 120GB and with today's huge applications and data, it's just too easy to get caught with space in the wrong place. Given many of the Apple application require data in particular places I find it simpler just to clone and then restore data from the clone.

Should I Partition My Hardrive?

I just purchased a 160gb Western Digital hardrive. Before I install it on my macbook I wanted to know should I partition the hardrive? What are the benifits of doing that? I do have alot of music and will continue to add music. Please help!

"...What are the benifits of doing that?..."
You might get some small improvement in disc access times when reading from a smaller partition rather than the whole large disc. For example, you might boot a little bit faster from a small 10GB partition containing just OS system files than from the whole 160GB drive. (Not that I would recommend that size for the boot partition, you can get /tmp files that might require more space if you are encoding a large DVD project...) With current fast drives, I'm not sure if that's really even noticeable or not. Depends on the usage, I guess. But potentially you could put the OS system files on one partition and personal /User files on the other partition. There are several options to split up things depending on your needs.
If you need to boot multiple operating systems or versions, it may be helpful/useful to have them on different partitions. (i.e. one for MacOS, one for BootCamp/Windows). Although this might not be required, if one OS gets corrupted, you can still boot from the other one.
Regardless of your partitioning scheme for the internal drive, I tend to agree that it's best to have an external bootable drive that you clone the entire internal disc to on a regular basis as a backup. Drives are cheap compared to recovery expenses when a hard drive fails, which could destroy data on all partitions.
Message was edited by: Glen Doggett

Really still need EBS (Erase Block Size) for partitioning a SSD?

The Arch wiki mentions that when partitioning an SSD you need to align the partitions to the erase block size (see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … ate_drives ). There are a lot of how-to-partition-an-ssd-under-linux which also mention this value, even an online calculater.
Those value are known for a lot of the serious models, among them also the Samsung 840 Pro and EVO. As I already asked in an older thread, I would like to know the value for the current model Samsung 850 Pro. Unfortunately Samsung Germany's support refuses to provide me with those values.
Therefore I ask myself, is it still necessary to align partititions to a multiple of the EBS, or is this unnecessary if the device supports TRIM?
Thanks!

Did you read the section immediately after the one you linked? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … ng_tools_2
In past, proper alignment required manual calculation and intervention when partitioning. Many of the common partition tools now handle partition alignment automatically:
To verify a partition is aligned, query it using /usr/bin/blockdev as shown below, if a '0' is returned, the partition is aligned
Is that not sufficient for your purposes?
Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2014-11-04 18:55:37)

Can I partition 256gb ssd and 1tb hard drive to be split 50 / 50 for Mac OS and windows?

I am going to buy a new iMac. The question is which storage option? If I get the 256GB ssd and the 1TB option, it appears the mac OS is pre installed on the ssd which is great. I would then like to install windows 7 on the ssd using bootcamp, and partitioning the ssd to be half for mac and half windows. I think this is the best thing to do... Correct? My main concern is then can I also split the 1 TB hard drive as well? Ideally I would like to split both drives 50 / 50, install the operating systems and software on the ssd and use the hard drive as general storage. I have read mixed reports on the possibilities of this and would really appreciate your help and advice. I am not that technical and would like to avoid using third party software, and stick to bootcamp if possible.
Thanks all!

I suggest you open Boot Camp Assistant and click on the button to print the documentation. Read it carefully before using BCA. BCA only creates the partition. It does not format it. That is done with the Windows installer at the beginning of the Windows installation.
Although Windows can r/w NTFS volumes OS X can only read them. That means you can copy files from the Windows boot volume but not write files to it. If you need to move files to and from the Windows system you would use the data volume you will set up on the HDD. If you don't need to use files larger than 4 GBs in Windows then FAT32 is fine. Using ExFAT would only be advisable if you anticipate the need to handle files larger than the 4 GB limit of FAT32.

Should you defragment the SSD on a Y-70?

I have read on other forums that usually you should not defrag an SSD as it is of little value and can decrease the lifespan to some extent. I was reading up on the SSD topic because I am considering swapping my Desktop C: drive which is a 1 TB HDD and going to an SSD.
My new laptop is the Lenovo Y-70 and has a 512GB SSD as it's primary drive so I took a look at my Administrative Tools section in the Control Panel and see that it is set to "optimize" my SSD drive weekly. I assume that this is just a new term for deframent.
Is this the correct setting?

Chrisinkingwood wrote:
I have read on other forums that usually you should not defrag an SSD as it is of little value and can decrease the lifespan to some extent. I was reading up on the SSD topic because I am considering swapping my Desktop C: drive which is a 1 TB HDD and going to an SSD.
My new laptop is the Lenovo Y-70 and has a 512GB SSD as it's primary drive so I took a look at my Administrative Tools section in the Control Panel and see that it is set to "optimize" my SSD drive weekly. I assume that this is just a new term for deframent.
Is this the correct setting?
Try reading Les Tokar's how to guide blog. It should answer all questions regarding SSD and how to optimize it. My ssd recently decided to quit abruptly just one month from the estimated life expentancy. So I'm no longer interested in ssd after experiencing two units rendered inoperational.

Cloning TC backups to external HD with data on it already - should i partition the HD? How to do this safely?

hi. i found a discussion directing how to clone backups onto a HD for proper backup transfer. what it didn't anwer for me, was something else. i have data on the HD i am trying to use as a temp destination for my TC backups. Should i partition the destination drive and have my old data on one volume - TC backup on the other? please help if you could with instructions on how to do it safely without distroying my data! THANKS A BUNCH!
OS mountain lion, 1st gen TC, 500gb, destination HD - WD passport for mac, 1tb.

Yes. Time Machine works better if it is in total control of its storage space.
Of course partitioning the drive in a Time Capsule is only possible by removing it and doing the partitioning on another computer.
If this were mine I would get another external drive and connect that to the Time Capsule. Move your data to the new external and allow Time Machine to use the whole internal drive in the Time Capsule instead.
Allan

Migrating existing partitions to SSD + HDD

I have a Lenovo T530 i5 that I purchased last fall with 4GB ram and a 500GB 7200rpm hard drive, with the intention of upgrading it to 16GB and an 256gb SSD when time/funds allowed. That time is now.
The machine is currently multi-boot Windows 7 Pro, Ubuntu 12.10, openSuSE 12.2 and Linux Mint 14. After a lot of initial fussing around, the latter two get used very little if at all, so I will probably be going to just a dual-boot config. The hard drive is split up with approx. 100GB for Win7, 20GB for each of the Linux distros, 15GB for the Windows recovery partition, 5GB for swap, and the remainder accessible under /srv/data in the various distros.
When I initially got this machine, the very first thing I did was use clonezilla to image the HDD and store it to a NAS. As I finished doing the various updates, partitioning, more updates, installing other distros, etc. I continued to do periodic images with clonezilla, so I have a pretty good set of backup images that I can go back to for restoration if need be. The user /home directory is backed up using duplicity (Deja Backup) under Ubuntu, also to the NAS.
What I want to end up with is the SSD as the primary drive, with the Windows system and recover partitions, and Linux partitions as necessary in the remainder, using LVM. The current HDD will be re-purposed and mounted in a caddy in the optical bay under /srv, probably formatted NTFS so its accessible under both Win7 and Linux.
I was thinking of taking another run with clonezilla and imaging the Win7 install, the Ubuntu install, and the /srv/data partition to the NAS one final time. After that... install the new SSD, restore the necessary partitions to it via clonezilla to get Win7 running again, and then re-install Ubuntu from scratch in the remaining space, and restore /home/$user from the NAS using duplicity. The major fly in the ointment here is getting the linux install back to its previous state, as far as installed programs, PPAs, etc.
What I'm after here is any suggestions as to any glaring faults with the above schema, and ideas on how to get from where I am to where I want to be when all the bits get here.
Thanks,
Monte

If you want your new Linux install to have the same settings as your current install, it can be done, but I am not an expert at it.
If you are using Ubuntu you may have Synaptic. I believe that Synaptic lets you export a list (or even a batch file to download) of all of your existing packages.
I may be naive here, but couldn't you just copy your /home directory, with all of the hidden files, and when copied back to your new install, your configuration should be the same... right? I mean, as far as default fonts, preferences, etc., not software installs. Since in Linux "everything is a file" I think if you have a plain copy of your entire partition then if you find something is not how you like it, you just find out which config file it is (e.g. an ~.emacs file can become quite customized and difficult to reproduce from scratch).
Again I'm not an expert here but maybe it helps.
-JV474

How should I partition data across 2 hard drives to make for less latencey?

Hello all!
I am using a Dual 2.7 G5 Power Mac and I just bought the Hitachi 500GB internal hard drive to supplement the stock 250GB drive that came in the tower. I mostly want to orient my computer for the needs of a home recording studio. I am Logic Pro user and I want to streamline data retrieval as efficiently as possible.
Now, I also have a good deal of other junk on my computer (video and iMovie projects). I would love an organization solution on how to partition everything that I have filled my 250GB drive up with across both hard drives. I'm aiming for a solution that will be good for the long-term as I continue to add more and more stuff (audio/music related and non) onto my hard drives.
Here are a few of the primary concerns which have held me back from just diving in:
I have several DVD's worth of audio samples (for use with software sampler) that I have yet to load onto this computer. Should I load/move all of my samples onto the secondary 500GB drive or would the streaming retrieval of all of that content from the secondary drive add extra latency and slowdown when the host application running these tasks and retrievals is ran off of the primary drive (the 250GB drive on which the OS is installed)?
Or should I just move Logic to the secondary 500 GB drive as well as all of the audio samples and run all things having to do with audio production off of that secondary 500GB drive? Would running such a CPU intensive app from the secondary drive make a performance difference compared to running it off of the primary drive? Does it matter whether or not a program is run off of the hard drive where the OS is installed?
Or should I find a way to have all apps running from the primary 250 GB drive WITH all samples (streaming and non-streaming) also on that drive and just have my project files and audio recording sessions (which eat up large portions of space) located on the secondary 500 GB drive? Or would I run into a noticeable latency with having the recorded audio sessions ran off of the secondary hard drive when I am running the application that retrieves them (Logic) off of the primary drive?
Where do I put my pro apps? Where do I put my audio samples (mainly for EXS24, SampleTank, and BFD)? Recording sessions? Everything else?
Please, experienced users, what should I do to garner the best performance out of my Mac?
Thanking everyone in advance,
Matt!
P.S. I am running OS 10.4.6 and using 4.5 GB of memory.

Thanks you guys. X, that is interesting to read. Chap, I see what you are saying. But I just found these two FAQ's from BFD's website. How do you feel in reference to them? Is it me, or do these questions somewhat contradict each other? :
Is it a good idea to put BFD on its own partition on my audio drive? [top]
In general, no. If your harddrive is partitioned and you are streaming from both the BFD partition and your own tracks, this will lead to the hard drive read head jumping back and forth between the two partitions, which may reduce performance. Also, if you are streaming non-BFD audio from the same drive, this reduces the bandwidth available for BFD streaming.
On which hard drive should I install my BFD data? [top]
FXpansion recommends, in order of performance preference (first is best):
1) A dedicated SATA or IDE internal drive, 7200rpm or above
2) A dedicated external firewire drive (do NOT chain the firewire drive with a digi002 or other firewire audio interfaces!)
3) A dedicated external USB2.0 drive
4) An internal drive shared with the data from other heavy disk-accessing programs, eg the operating system (virtual memory swap files), or another disk streaming application such as your host sequencer (audio tracks) or Kontact etc etc.
Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7Ghz 2.5gigs of RAM Mac OS X (10.4)
So it sounds like they recommend BFD having its very own hard drive. I dont have the resources for that right now. So I wonder what would be better: Sharing the OS drive with BFD as mentioned by X and used as the last resort from FAQ #2, or split my second drive via partition into Samples (including BFD audio) and Storage for projects and raw, recorded audio sessions.
If only I wasn't such a perfectionist. I would get so much more work done! Thanks again guys. I am indebted.

I am setting up Time Machine on 2 computers which will use the same external network drive. Should I partition the ext drive

Should the dirve on a networked external drive be partitioned to support the use of Time Machine on 2 Macs that are on the Network. The disk is a 2 Gig Drive and I would like to use some of the disk for external shared storage.

You are aware that there are problems with using NAS drive for Time Machine?
http://trick77.com/2011/07/15/about-os-x-lion-nas-time-machine-compatibility-net atalk-gpl-violations/
Allan

Should I partition my SSD?

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