Findus Posted August 6, 2006 Share #1 Posted August 6, 2006 Advertisement (gone after registration) I bought a Mac for photo-editing and scanning. It came with a 250GB hard disk. My question is; do I need to partition the hardisdk, what are the pro's and con's. My other macs are 40GB and 60GB so I never partitioned them, but 250 GB seems an awfull lot of space. What are your views ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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andybarton Posted August 6, 2006 Share #2 Posted August 6, 2006 No. You do not need to partition the drive. Once upon a time it was a good idea, but modern OS's such as OSX can address the full disk without problems. In my experience, partitioned drives were more trouble than they're worth. 250GB will be full of your pictures before you can say "knife" . Don't forget to buy an external disk, or some other means to back your work up. 250GB is an awful lot to lose should the worst happen. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hm1912 Posted August 6, 2006 Share #3 Posted August 6, 2006 I don't think you need to partition, but it's up to you. If you think it would help for organizing purposes go for it, otherwise I'm sure the Mac is up to the challenge. 250 is huge, I do hope you've got some backup. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cornbarn Posted August 6, 2006 Share #4 Posted August 6, 2006 Hi, I fully agree with the above comments - I also have a 250GB iMac and can see no reason to partition the disk. It's also vital to backup your files and for this I use 2 external 320GB hard drives. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandokan Posted August 6, 2006 Share #5 Posted August 6, 2006 I would partition into a System Partition for system files (About 25GB) and user/file partition (the rest). That way when the data fills up the disc you do not suffer from system slow down. I think my Mac has about 2GB for the System X folder and 10GB for Library. My professional experience with Mac was last with System 8 so I may be wrong, but this is what I have. My video files tend to fill up my hard disc on a regular basis and I have to archive them off - without this, the system slows down to a crawl... Anyway, you will find that for optimising performance, you will want to flatten the computer and rebuild (inc all applications) every time you make a major system upgrade (every 2 years typically), so you can always wait till next time to change again. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Findus Posted August 6, 2006 Author Share #6 Posted August 6, 2006 I formatted the whole disk in one single partition. OSX has a pretty logical standard file/directory structure that separates the music form films and photos. We have also bought a 500GB backup disk which is partitioned into a music, film and photo partition totalling 300GB with 200GB left as clutter/pre-file space. Does anyone know about workflows with electronic imaging. from the scans I get Tiff files, pretty big, now these I typically archive without further ado. From this point on I am wondering what exactly to do, I will probably photoshop them, tiff them after that, perhaps in a smaller format, or even Jpeg them (???) I do make little JPEG file sheet so I can find the original Tiffs whenever I want, but all in all this is a lot of work, doinf more mouse and keyboard "strokes" than G.W. Bush' second assistant typing clerck .... anybody got any pointers here ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted August 6, 2006 Share #7 Posted August 6, 2006 Advertisement (gone after registration) I would partition into a System Partition for system files (About 25GB) and user/file partition (the rest). That way when the data fills up the disc you do not suffer from system slow down. I think my Mac has about 2GB for the System X folder and 10GB for Library. My professional experience with Mac was last with System 8 so I may be wrong, but this is what I have. My video files tend to fill up my hard disc on a regular basis and I have to archive them off - without this, the system slows down to a crawl... Anyway, you will find that for optimising performance, you will want to flatten the computer and rebuild (inc all applications) every time you make a major system upgrade (every 2 years typically), so you can always wait till next time to change again. You won't see any System speed improvement at all if you use the same hard drive for your System and your data. It's the same physical drive, so the read/write head still has to do the same, if not more, work. The System will slow if you have a full disk, because it writes its virtual memory to the HD, so, as always, the best way to improve your system performance is to buy as much RAM as your computer will take. Mac OSX needs no optimisation and no defragmentation - it's all handled by the OS. However, a complete fresh start every coouple of years is not a bad discipline, as it tends to force you to get rid of the rubbish that accumulates over the passage of time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest menze_as Posted August 6, 2006 Share #8 Posted August 6, 2006 Hello, under OSX you don't need to partitionate. Under OS9 it was necessary because the system was only able to handle a certain amount of blocks and therefore augmented the blocks of greater disks. OSX is able to handle every amount of volume without slowing down. About archiving I would recommend a program like Cumulus Desktop. My system is the following: I create folders with date and name of cam (and film) and location, and inside I store the scanned unprocessed tiff (or the digi-RAW-) pictures (only cleaned of dust spots), and from each a PS-processed tiff version and a small internet-like jpg-version. One folder for one film or session. When I have about 4,5 GB of photos I burn them on DVD as archive, and I copy them in Cumulus. This system enables me to overlook my photos sorted after date. Greetings, Astrid Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandokan Posted August 6, 2006 Share #9 Posted August 6, 2006 You won't see any System speed improvement at all if you use the same hard drive for your System and your data. It's the same physical drive, so the read/write head still has to do the same, if not more, work. ... Hi Andy, You are right - there is no performance improvement with partitioning and RAM is necessary (2GB is a good baseline these days with 2 people using the same system under mulit-user), but there is the avoidance of filling up your disc. I stand corrected about partitioning - but will continue to do it my way as I am on old stubborn guy Anyway, I now make my living from Mr Gates (he created the IT industry and all those super rich contractors - remember the days when the Information Processing Department had 6 people to run the entire computer system for a head office of a multi national company?), so the Mac is at home simply because I do not want to bother with a computer when I leave the office! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted August 6, 2006 Share #10 Posted August 6, 2006 Anyway, I now make my living from Mr Gates (he created the IT industry ... Erm - maybe he created IT departments as they exist today, but I am sure that wasn't his original intention! There are far too many people making a living from Mr Gates' mistakes for my liking. Just think where we would be if all these people applied their talents to something more useful... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cliffshen Posted August 6, 2006 Share #11 Posted August 6, 2006 for me... I partition my iMac to two just because I can install BootCamp Windows... (sorry~ under some circumstances, I still need Windows...) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
spylaw4 Posted August 7, 2006 Share #12 Posted August 7, 2006 As has been stated above there is absolutely no need to partition a Mac drive. There is always a need however to carry out the OS's regular system maintenance operations - it runs a daily, weekly and monthly script - but only if you leave it on overnight. If like me you don't leave your Mac running overnight, you can get programmes that will run this for you on startup (I use Macaroni - no really!). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest menze_as Posted August 7, 2006 Share #13 Posted August 7, 2006 As has been stated above there is absolutely no need to partition a Mac drive. There is always a need however to carry out the OS's regular system maintenance operations - it runs a daily, weekly and monthly script - but only if you leave it on overnight. If like me you don't leave your Mac running overnight, you can get programmes that will run this for you on startup (I use Macaroni - no really!). In a forum I read that the script now doesn't run overnight any longer, but at midday - I would appreciate that because overnight I shut down my Macs. I don't know if that is really correct, but it would be wise. Maybe anyone knows more ... By the way, programs like Xupport or onyX which clean the system, are good, but sometimes they can damage things, as the .ds_store ... careful handling is essential. Greetings, Astrid Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandokan Posted August 7, 2006 Share #14 Posted August 7, 2006 Erm - maybe he created IT departments as they exist today, but I am sure that wasn't his original intention! There are far too many people making a living from Mr Gates' mistakes for my liking. Just think where we would be if all these people applied their talents to something more useful... Ehmmm - I work with a lot of these people and not many of them have talents:eek: (at least not the Mouse Clicking Solitaire Experts ). Anyway the security flaws alone in MS products funds my activities and purchase of my toys (I just added an M7 and 75mm f2). My next problem is finding a B&W lab locally - or at least a competent colour lab in which I can do XP2 and colour prints. I am currently waiting about 3 weeks for my photos to get returned from UK (and for once it is the in-efficient Swiss that make it bad). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Findus Posted August 7, 2006 Author Share #15 Posted August 7, 2006 Show me a trade where all (most) people have talent....... :-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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