IPartition makes it easy to create, destroy, resize or format partitions on your hard disks, whether internal, external, fixed or removable. IPartition has always had support for Apple Partition Maps, and when the Intel Macs were released we added support for the new GUID Partition Tables too. With iPartition 3, we’ve added support for PC partition tables, so you can use iPartition for your PC disks also. Convert disks from Mac to PC (or vice-versa):.
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Why do people still partition drives to separate data? Back in the day I used to use multiple partitions when drive space was small and expensive. However, today the smallest drive I have in my house is 60G, and even that is way too big for the machine it is in. Every time I've bothered to implement some kind of partitioning scheme, I've always found it more trouble than it was worth...one partition would start filling up too fast and I'd have to juggle data to get some free space when I really needed it.
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Answering the age-old question: which is more painful, going to work
or gouging your eye out with a spoon?
www.workorspoon.com
I have two partitions, the boot partition which is HFS+, and a UFS partition for those miscellaneous Unix tools that I download that may or may not understand the unfortunate case-insensitivity of HFS+. When I jump to a new laptop, I make a guess on how big the second partition must be, because the work of transferring 60GB back and forth takes the better part of a day, and I don't want to kill many days. This program looks like a god-send... I could reconfigure my UFS partition much more dynamically.
Unfortunately, UFS is not supported. It will eventually be, if request will be high enough. I've already contact the developers showing my interest...
Well, one good reason is if you are using disk quotas. Since quotas are volume based and all...
Another good reason is to be able to resize the volume if you add drives to an Xserve RAID and don't also have Xsan to increase the volume size.
I like to partion my drives to keep my OS seperate from all my other data, which makes for a very simple/painless clean install, without having to shift around countless gigs of my portfolio, itunes and iphoto library... not that I have had to do a clean install for a couple of years, perhaps I will when Tiger comes out... would it make any difference? I have installed 10, 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3 over each other with little ill effect.
+daily
Multiple partitions are a good organizational method. I personally don't like having tons of folders in a single root listing, and neither do I like rummaging through nested folders more than necessary. Partitions are an easy way to address this.
Partitions also separate your data, so that if there should be some sort of file or directory corruption, it doesn't necessarily affect everything. I've experienced directory corruption before, but fortunately I had to reformat only the one bad partition, and not the whole drive. All my other data was safe.
I'm relatively new to OSX, so forgive my ignorance...do partitions show up on the desktop as separate drives, or aren't they mounted as part of the filesystem? When I think of multiple partitions in a Unix environment, I'm thinking of /usr/local or /home being mounted via NFS, in which case the directories are mounted to the root tree, anyway.
Aside from that, if they do show up as separate drives, how is that different from just having an alias to your data folders?
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Answering the age-old question: which is more painful, going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon?
www.workorspoon.com
Aside from that, if they do show up as separate drives, how is that different from just having an alias to your data folders?
On a Mac, either running OS X or OS 9 and earlier, partitions show up as separate drives, or more correctly separate volumes, since Mac OS doesn't show the drive, just the volume, i.e. you see a CD, but not the CD drive.
To answer the second question, I used to partition my disks, but after a while I always found I needed more room on one partition, and less on an other, and so on, so I have stopped partitioning drives at all.
While is it helpful from a maintenance point of view, I haven't had a need for it. I just boot my Mac from a custom made BootCD with both DiskWarrior and Drive 10. I think booting from a partition on the same hard drive that contains your main boot partition to fix that drive is not a great idea, since you are still on the same physical hard drive.
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G4/466, 1 GB, Mac OS X 10.3.6
I use a small partition (3.5 GB) as an alternate boot in order to run Diskwarrior, Tech Tool Pro 4, etc on my main working partition. It makes the everyday maintenance tasks so much easier.
Now, that's a great reason! I'll have to look into trying that out myself.
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Answering the age-old question: which is more painful, going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon?
www.workorspoon.com
I had a drive with 2 partitions, System and Users. The drive went bad and the computer wouldn't boot. It just kept making a sound like a spring being flicked, kind of a twangy sound and then nothing. I installed the os on a new drive and put the old drive in as a secondary. Although the entire System partition was gone the the Users partition would still mount to allow me to save all the important stuff. The system isn't important in an instance like this. I have partitioned the same way on every subsequent install.
Chris
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Is there anybody out there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone home?
I do Mac support in a corporate setting. We use partitioning to make it easier to reimage systems. Its much faster to copy user data to the second partition, or just have the user put it there in the first place. Some people have lots of iTunes music, for instance, and we were finding that it really drained our time to have to copy the files to an external Firewire drive and then copy back again.
On my Mac at home, I haven't bothered partitioning, but now that I think about it, I think I should (for the reason stated above)
I'm in a similar situation. We find that making a boot partition of just an OS and a few utilities on a Firewire drive allows us to boot to that, do repairs if necessary, and then run Carbon Copy Cloner to suck off the user's data.
Although I believe you can make a single .dmg or restore image with CCC, I've always found it much easier to clone their data to the second partition on the FW HD
I have a partition which I use for video capture. That's all it's used for, and when I need to capture video it makes it very simple to ensure I have contiguous disk space available without having to mess around with disk defragging.
To add to the 'why partition' discussion - I do this to have multiple bootable OS versions. I have customers with various OS X versions and want to have a machine that looks like any of them. Plus I keep one very generic OS install for diskwarrior-type fixes.
So I might have partitions for 10.3, 10.3 Server, development build of 10.4, plus a very plain 10.3. Sometimes I'll even set up a duplicate OS of a customer's machine to test out peculiar software or problems, change an OS setting (like LDAP logins at book), etc.
I can't see much of a reason to split data across partitions. Some advantages in terms of data loss risk reduction but in general I keep all my data together, on the main partition I use for my main OS.
One big advantage of partitioning is to keep the system partition reasonably small. Before I update a system, I clone it (CCC) to another disk and then update it. I then always have a way back if I don't like the update. With a partition, I don't have to clone so much.
Personally, I keep 3 partitions on my iBook -
1) an OSX partition for the OS and most of my apps
2) an OS9 partition for a few reasons:
for verifying hardware (example: a card reader I couldn't get to work in OSX worked fine in OS9, indicating a definate driver issue)
for running OS9 apps that will not run in Classic mode (ProTools is a good example)
3) a seperate partition for my media files - makes for easy organization, and prevents each of the Systems from writing to the other (hopefully keeps things a bit cleaner).
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Ian!
I have partitions for Video Work. I have them set to 30+ Gigs each... When I have nessed with a bunch of files for a while, burned my DVDs and backed up what I need, I just use the Disk Utility to Erase that partition. It erases everything in 5 seconds, and it's like putting in a virgin hard-drive every time I start a new project. No digital scum left over; fresh directory tables, etc.
for the hard-core geek, willing to sacrifice point and click convenience for GPL Freedom (not to mention saving $35), 'parted' can handle hfs and ufs now.the gentoo linux ppc live cd comes with parted. so you can download a gentoo ppc live cd iso, burn it to cd, boot from the cd, and use parted to resize your partitions non-destructively.
you did back up your data first though, just in case, right?
Does QTParted work on PPC? It should, it's just a GUI frontend to parted.---
Answering the age-old question: which is more painful, going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon?
www.workorspoon.com
Do you happen to know if 'parted' is the tool that drives these two new partitioning tools! It's pretty exciting to finally have this tool available on the Mac!
Anyone have experience with both? I've used VolumeWorks since the initial release. The interface has improved dramatically, but I still find it a little clumsy. VolumeWorks worked once for me perfectly on my work computer. But on my home PowerBook it hung, which required me to Force Quit it, and in the process it hosed my drive, requiring a complete reinstall. Fortunately I had a recent backup, and did not lose too much data.
All I know is I have 'used' VolumeWorks and it is very dangerous, even for an experienced user (I've used fdisk and pdisk before). There is a lack of redundency such as 'This will take n minutes' or 'You will loose all your information if you do this.' Does iPartion have this?
It clearly warns you very directly about the consequences, and the importance of backing up. There are no time estimates, but there are two progress bars -- one showing the overall, the other showing the specific sub-task.
-rob.
SubRosaSoft has a bad reputation as far as I am concerned. I would not trust them with on-the-fly partitioning until their product had a 10 year track record.
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'I want my two dollars!'
Remember Hard Disk Toolkit? Same people. It's been about 10 years since the first release of that app. Why do you say they have a bad reputation? Lead programmer is very responsive and I have nothing but good things to say about the company.
Just be sure to backup all data before partitioning.
I was partitioning an external firewire drive, when I got a nice kernel panic. I was doing some other stuff - not on the same disk - at the same time. After rebooting, the drive had become useless. I didn't try any recover utilities since I did backup before. So, just be careful.
And I also used it several times without any problems, but I always backed up the data before. And when everything goes fine this tool is a real time saver.
By the way. I partition my external hard disk in order to have 2 partitions on it. One big in HFS+, and another small one - 1GB in my case - formatted as FAT32 where I put the Mac Drive installer. That way I'm prepared when I get to a Windows machine.
How did you get to have both a FAT32 and a HFS+ partition? I tried to do that with my external drive, and Disk utility wouldn't let me do both kinds of partitions. Some googling told me that it was impossible to have both fat and hfs partitions on the same drive as they both store important information in the same sectors at the start of the drive.
Thanks!
--Andrew
How did you get to have both a FAT32 and a HFS+ partition?An excellet discussion can be found here: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030613121738812
dksp,
You mention you '... partition my external hard disk in order to have 2 partitions on it. One big in HFS+, and another small one - 1GB in my case - formatted as FAT32 where I put the Mac Drive installer. That way I'm prepared when I get to a Windows machine.'
This is EXACTLY what I'm trying to do, but thought it impossible, by the way Macs require Apple partition maps, and PCs can't read them, so I thought it possible to only partition that way, but not be able to actually format and use different partition maps on diff. systems.
Am I missing something here? Are you saying you actually do this, and how? I'd be very greatful if you shared.
Thanks
I've been wanting to reorganise the partitions on my system for a while, and this looks ideal! But, at this point in time i don't have any means to backup first so i probably won't bother :-p It just isn't worth the risk of things going wrong and the hassle that will involve.
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You can't fight in here, this is a War Room!!
The hint is this: Don't needlessly partition your disks!
If you hadn't needlessly partitioned your disks, you:
1. Wouldn't have needed to repartition them.
2. Wouldn't have needed to try this program.
3. Wouldn't have needed to pay $35 for it.
4. Wouldn't have needed to write this article.
5. Wouldn't have needed to justify the cost of your time.
6. Wouldn't have needed to go through so much extra backup above and beyond your normal backup routine.
7. Wouldn't have needed to stress out so much.
And furthermore, you wouldn't need to do any of the above again in the future. Needless partitioning is for computer hobbyists who prefer to 'tinker' with their computers rather than actually use them for productive work.
Contrast this needless partitioning with the following Good Reasons For Partitioning:
1. Separation of operating system files and user data (doesn't apply in your case because you choose to mix the two).
2. Having multiple, bootable operating system versions on the same machine (again, doesn't apply in your case according to the information you've provided in the article).
3. If you are working with kinds of data which might benefit from using another type of file system. You might want, for example, large video files to be on a non HFS+ system. Or, in order to be able to lock down your OS in some good ways, you might prefer to have your boot partition use NFS.
Thanks for the advice, but I don't necessarily provide 100% detail on every config in my machine in each hint :).
I run several different OS X systems on a number of partitions -- I have seed access, so I have the latest beta on one partition. As another mentioned here, I also have a maintenance OS X installation. I have an experimental partition where I do weird and dangerous stuff. And I do, to a great extent, keep my system and personal files separate -- the exception is one main folder in my Documents folder for macosxhints. And I just generally prefer the 'hard' organization of partitions to folders. But that's the great thing about computing; we can all make the choices we want, and not be forced to do things the way someone else wants.
I prefer partitions. I prefer the pain and suffering you claim they bring me. I enjoy knowing that if my system partition heads south, the vast majority of my stuff is going to be fine (and I keep good backups of the rest). I like having multiple copies of OS X installed for easy switching between them, etc. etc. etc. And at some point, I'll probably move /Users off the boot drive; I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
So while I appreciate the advice, I'm going to choose to ignore it and keep working the way I want to! :)
-rob.
Rob said 'Yea, I know it's not required and I don't get any speed gain, but it's just the way I prefer to organize things.'
He doesn't seem to do it needlessly, but rather to organize...okay so you may see that as needless.
As time has passed, I too have reduced the amount of partitioning. but there are still good reasons to parition, especially for video, audio, graphics users:
1. photoshop scratch disks
2. Video editing partitions on the inner tracks
3. Being able to erase part of a disk for increased speed with new video projects
4. Audio app scratch disks
5 Putting FCP render and media files into different partitions is smart (although it's better to put them on separate drives)
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'I want my two dollars!'
Anyone know if this works on enterprise level hardware? I have a SAN connected to an ATTO HBA and when it comes time to add more disk to my array, I'd love to be able to just grow the current partition rather than make a new one.
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- Mike
How do I use iParition to resize my ipod??
What I want to do is put a small (approx 256Mb) windows partition - so when I skip to the office and use a windows machine I can move say word doscs around (instead of buying a seperate flash drive key ring or whatever). It should be possible but I cant figure out how. I have asked coriolis support and I got this
This is covered in the FAQ; the problem is that you are confusing space free *within* a volume (as reported by Finder) with space free in the partition map, which is what iPartition needs in order to create a new partition. Basically, before you can create a new partition, you will need to shrink an existing one to make more space.Now looking at the faq I still cant fathom this out. It doesnt explain how I 'shrink' it. I tried using disk 10 and diskwarrior and it wouldnt touch it when trying to optimise it (something to do with the drive being journaled). so what now?? I really dont want to go along the really complex and slightly dangerous it seems rout of pdisk and stuff (as mentioned here btw)
Why don't you just format your iPod with FAT32? I had an iPod I did this with for a while just so I could transfer files. Volume format arguments aside, it was more useful for me this way. To do this, back up your music files, if applicable, and use the Windows iPod utility to set your iPod to factory. This will make it useable as a disk on both Windows and Mac. If you need to boot from your iPod on a Mac (which I don't recommend since it's extra drive thrashing), just save yourself the hassle and spend $30 on a 256 MB USB flash drive (or $70 for a 1 GB).
Ipartition License File Mac
Why don't you just format your iPod with FAT32?
Does a PC formatted iPod work with iTunes on a Mac? Apple implies it doesn't, or at the very least says it's not supported.
Also back to the original question... Apple seems to use a special formatting technique for the iPod to prevent owners from swapping hard drives to larger ones. I'd imagine trying to partition an iPod would render it non functioning.
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G4/466, 1 GB, Mac OS X 10.3.6
Ok, not really bad, but I've seen waaaay too many computers partitioned for too many wrong reasons. There are some good reasons posted here, but people often get very carried away with perceived benefits and ignore all the problems and risks associated with partitioning.
The concept of using iPartition scares the bejesus out of me. This is precisely the kind of stuff you should not do. Back up, and reformat your drive...repartition if you must.
Given how well it's worked on PCs for years and years, I'm not overly concerned with the safety of the operation. But I am paranoid, and I do have numerous backups. It's just much much faster to resize a partition than it is to reformat, repartition, restore from backup, and then muck about with all the stuff that invariably isn't quite right.
-rob.
G'day all. I've had a quick look at iPartition, and I must say that I've had a few issues with it. Basically, I can create, resize, delete any partitioning info on any disk I choose, but I've had trouble reading them on other systems. Here's an example. I use a 12' PB running 10.3.5 for my main workstation, but I've also got a couple x86 laptops running SuSE 9.1. The reasoning for this distro choice is the reliability/compatability of FireWire on the system out of the box (3 laptops, 4 external FW HDD, you get the idea). Anyway, I tried to create some linux formatted partitions (the option is available for ext2, ext3, reiser, etc) and yet none of these partitions appear on my linux boxen after they've been created. I know we're in OS X hints, but has anyone else had any experiences with this that might be able to tell me where I've gone wrong (or maybe what's up with the software conversely).
Regards,
plug
Non-destructive re-partitioning isn't new on the Mac. Ten years ago, I used to do it with FWB Hard Disk Toolkit. Where are FWB now? They were legends back in the 68k days!
That was probably before HFS+, or even HFS, which I believe is the issue. What was the System 7.5.3 file system, and before, called? Did it allow non-destructive partitioning?
Ipartition Cracked
It was HFS until MacOS 8.1 introduced HFS+. We've had HFS as long as we've had 800k floppies. Only 400k floppies used the older MFS (which had no folder hierarchy). HFS didn't inherently support non-destructive partitioning. The issues are largely the same now as they were then. The main differences are that you now need to support ATA disks (back then it was all SCSI) and the new structure of HFS+.
Older iMacs (333 MHz and older), as well as older machines, need to partition the hard disk to less than 8GBytes in order to install Mac OS X. I was wondering if repartitioning can be used to unify the partitions into only one once Mac OS X is installed? And, supposing that it where possible, would it be a problem when updating/upgrading?
Francisco
Ipartition License Key
You might be able to, but it would be a very bad idea. If a software update placed a system file needed early in the boot process in a location outside the first 8GB of the drive, the machine would no longer boot. On the older G3 Macs, you really must keep the boot partition entirely within the first 8GB of the disk.
Ipartition License File
I have one machine that I use for staging. It has 30 partitions on it-one for each CD title that I sell and one for each OS I support. Each partition is just a bit larger than a CD, usually 750-800 MB. If someone calls in with a tech support question that I haven't heard before I can switch to the partition and see exactly what the CD looks like or boot up on the OS that is giving them trouble. It is also easy to make updates to the titles.
I also have a partition set up on a G5 that is exactly the same as my OSX server. I use it to do software updates before I update the live server. It also acts as a hot backup. If something happens to my server, I can just reboot the G5 into the server partition and I'm back up and running.