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Why partition the hard drive?

Hi
This might be a very basic or even stupid question but why should you partition a hard drive? I have just installed a 250GB hard drive on my G4 Power book after the old one gave out (my first time!! yeahee!)I have read that it's a good idea to partition if you have a big hard drive but I dont understand what partitioning is all about or why or if I should do this? Can someone please explain in simple terms? Thanks

Powerbook G4 15 inch, Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Posted on Mar 26, 2009 7:40 AM

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Posted on Mar 26, 2009 8:23 AM

Partitioning is a good idea if you are going to install more than one operating system on your machine, and don't want the differences in the rules of one operating system to ruin another. Also it is a good idea if you make large video, audio, or image files on a temporary basis, and want a contiguous region of space to store those files until you are done processing that information. When you are done, and they are safely in the new format on a different partition, you can erase that scratch partition, and continue to have good contiguous space for that. Note, the operating system defragments smaller than 20 MB files, so that's about the break even point where a partition makes sense. Partitions should not be used as a backup except on external drives.
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Mar 26, 2009 8:23 AM in response to Karen Stone

Partitioning is a good idea if you are going to install more than one operating system on your machine, and don't want the differences in the rules of one operating system to ruin another. Also it is a good idea if you make large video, audio, or image files on a temporary basis, and want a contiguous region of space to store those files until you are done processing that information. When you are done, and they are safely in the new format on a different partition, you can erase that scratch partition, and continue to have good contiguous space for that. Note, the operating system defragments smaller than 20 MB files, so that's about the break even point where a partition makes sense. Partitions should not be used as a backup except on external drives.

Mar 27, 2009 7:30 AM in response to Karen Stone

Karen:

I do not normally recommend partitioning an internal HDD on a laptop unless you want to have dual boot volumes. Partitioning an external HDD extends the uses to which you can put it, since, if it is larger than your internal HDD, you don't need all the space for backing up. However, there is not much use partitioning an internal HDD, except as noted above, or other specialized functions. Actually, the extra free disk capacity, which would not be available if you partiton, can make your computer function more efficiently.

😉 cornelius

Why partition the hard drive?

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